#249 Packers Unscripted: Opportunity knocks

into this game with an awfully lengthy injury list. Mike McCarthy even wondering as of Wednesday before excuse me, before the first practice of the week, whether he'd even have forty six healthy players for the aim day roster. A couple of things he mentioned Davante Adams not cleared from the concussion protocol, Jordy Nelson probably not going to be able to play with that shoulder injury, and also Aaron Jones, the rookie running back dealing with another knee injury, also

very unlikely to make it this week. So on the offensive side of the ball, um Brett Hunley's got uh. You know he's gonna be working with a lot of young guys. He will be Mike and then the other one too. And it really the one I think is the canary in the coal mine for the Packers is Richard Rodgers, also with the shoulder injury right practicing on Wednesday. Michael Spofford, you can go back over the last four years, remind me of another time where Richard Rogers didn't practice

at all. Um, he's basically been out there, let alone missing a game, which he hasn't done. He's barely, if at all, ever missed a practice. Yeah. Absolutely, Mr Durable and Mr Available in his time with the Packers. Yeah. So I think that kind of shows the attrition of

this team and where things are right now. It means opportunity. Though, getting back to your original point, whether it's Michael Clark, Jeronimo Allison was with not practice due to an illness, but you would imagine he potentially would be back in the cards for later this week. Um. So there's so many different guys that could get some opportunities in this game against the Lions, and you have to take advantage of it. Aaron Jones being out with likely being out

with the knee injury. That could mean another opportunity for Davonte May's. Hey, what better way Mike to get your that bad taste out of your mouth about how the fumbles went, how the game time went earlier this year. If he's able to get on the field and produced, Yeah, you talk about a guy who's got to be chopping at the bit to get another opportunity. I'm sure he's been. He's been waiting. He hasn't said anything. He's a quiet guy. He knows, uh that other opportunity with a couple of

fumbles did not go well. He's been dying to get another chance. You just know that. And um so you're gonna have Jamal Williams as the number one running back, but Davante May's will be right behind. I would like for his sake, for his rookie season to to end on something more positive than obviously where it would end if he doesn't get another chance, because um this, I think the sky has some talent. Mike McCarthy has said

it's not it's not an issue of talent. It's just a matter of getting up to speed and really getting a feel for the NFL game and and earning that confidence in the coaching staff that that he can take the ball and run with it literally and figuratively and with all due respect to Maze and where he came from um and obviously you documented it earlier this summer that you know, when you're looking at you know, junior college football and things like that, and even to some

extent going to Utah State, that's such a quantum leap coming to the NFL. Guys like Jamal Williams. You know, they kind of got a bigger taste for that with with b Yu and some of the successes they had their in bowl games. But even when you look at Aaron Jones and some of the struggles that they had at U tep and then DeVante may Is coming from the route he did. Uh. I don't think you can really you know, overstate that in terms of what that's

like to make that jump. But yeah, again, if he can get this opportunity, uh, you know, get a chance to get out there. Also, a guy like Jamal Williams, if he's able to finish on a high note after having so many positive, you know things that he's done over the last couple of months, could be big for this running game. But really, again it comes back to opportunity. There's a lot of young guys on this roster that

are going to get those on Sunday. Yeah. And I think it's worth clarifying here because I think in some ways fans are getting a little bit of a mixed message as to what's going on, because Mike McCarthy has continually had to answer and say, hey, this isn't the preseason. We're going out there to win the game. But yet the fans are looking at it saying, well, this guy and this guy and this guy aren't playing, and you're

talking about playing these younger guys. I think what needs to be clarified is in the preseason, Mike McCarthy is a play caller on the offensive side of the ball. He will call specific plays to give opportunities to specific players, to evaluate them, to see what they can do. You might even sacrifice a three and out in a certain situation on offense in order to get somebody a chance to touch the ball to do something. The He's gonna take whatever game day roster he's got into this game.

He's not going to call plays so that Geronimo Allison can get a catch or so that Michael Clark can try this play out with Brett Hunley. He's gonna be calling plays to move the chains, to score points and to win games. And I think I think that distinction needs to be made here in terms of how Mike McCarthy's going about this. Yeah, that's an excellent point, because that really is the big difference when people talk about that in the fact that they aren't don't they don't

have a preseason mindset. That means that Randall Cobb, who's healthy right now, is gonna play. He's gonna get opportunities. It could mean that a guy like Trevor Davis gets opportunities, but it's not going to be hands selected more like it is during the preseason. I think a great illustration this is what happened at outside linebacker last week. They don't have Nick Perry, Clay matthew sits with a hamstring injury.

So then you have Reggie Gilbert. You know, when they draw up someplace for Reggie Gilbert, give him a chance to go out there, see what he can do. He executes on that, he takes advantage of that, and he ends up playing forty six snaps during the game. If he wasn't successful, if if it didn't kind of come together for him in the early series, you might have seen more Chris Odom, He might have seen some of

these other options. But when he had that opportunity, he capitalized on it and that's what opened the door to more of them. So I think when you look at that position and what potentially could happen in other positions and this game, that's what the Packers are looking for.

Young guys jumping in the lineup and being able to really build on that and build some momentum now going into two thousand eighteen for themselves and on the defensive side of the ball, the Packers maybe getting a little healthier. Clay Matthews and Damarius Randall both back at practice on a limited basis, so a chance for them to play if they are medically cleared and everything. It sounds like

they could go. Yeah, Randall something he was dealing with last week, it all kind of came to ahead and during Saturday's practice, Matthews I think the same thing. Just being cautious with him and making sure that he doesn't overextend himself because again, you have a significant, you know, soft muscle injury this time of year, Well, that's where

it starts impacting your offseason. So I have to be smart on that record, but it seems like his return to practice this week would indicate that everything's looking okay for him at that perspective. All right, what's that We'll throw to a break back with more on Packers Unscripted

right after this, h welcome back to Packers Unscripted. Mike Spofford right here, West Hodkuitz over there, And what's one of these uh young players who is most likely going to get some more opportunities in the spotlight on Sunday in Detroit that is definitely worth talking about is the undrafted rookie receiver Michael Clark. I'm not sure in my twelve seasons covering this team for Packers dot Com if

I've ever come across the story quite like this one. Um. He plays basketball at universe at St. Francis University in Pennsylvania for a year. He has aspirations to play basketball through college and maybe go overseas um, you know, play basketball in Europe professionally. When he gets done, decides to completely change course and says, I want to go play

in the NFL. Trans first from St. Francis, goes to Marshall, has to sit out a year due to transfer rules, so all he can do his first year at Marshall is play on the scout team, essentially in practice. Then he gets one season at Marshall as uh Um as a regular, regular player, regular receiver in the rotation, has thirty some catches, six hundred yards, a handful of touchdowns, and then just decides, with two years of eligibility left in college, I'm gonna head to the NFL, doesn't get drafted,

doesn't even sign an agent. Packers signed him in early May, right after the draft as maybe one of the most raw undrafted prospects they've ever signed. And here we are at the end of and uh he he's making catches against the Minnesota Vikings and he's probably gonna get some passes thrown his way against the Detroit Lions. Yeah, it's a pretty incredible the main journey he's made. He's been kind of a renaissance man too a little bit with what he's done in terms of not signing an agent.

I mean, here's the thing. I think, if you have confidence in yourself and you have an idea of where you want to go, you probably don't need an agent always as a late round pick or as an undrafted free agent. The reason I say that is because the

contracts are pretty much locked in at that point. But you have to have confidence that you are going to be able to lead yourself to the right team, the right opportunity, and make sure that you are able to execute on it, because if you don't, then you start to fade into the ether a little bit. Michael Clark came to Green Bay this summer extremely raw prospect at a position, mind you, where the Packers were incredibly deep. They drafted two receivers in Malachai Dupre and D'Angelo Yancey.

He was probably entering camp as the twelve receiver on the roster. Max McCaffrey was here too, and week after week he kept making plays in practice, and he started making plays during the preseason, caught a touchdown in the preseason, and then suddenly gets on the Packer's radar. It is an incredible journey he's been on. I remember talking him last week. I know you wrote a story as well for Packers dot Com. He doesn't consider himself a basketball

player turned into a football player. He looks at himself as a guy who has always been a football player, but he chose basketball because he thought that would be the best avenue for him, and after having those first couple of years of college, decided, you know what, I want to give football try again. And then here we are. What a year it's been for him going from where he was to now being on the fifty three man roster and actually getting targeted ten times or whatever it

was in that game against the Vikings. Yeah, he spent the first three quarters, essentially the first three quarters of the seen season on the practice squad, so he was essentially a scout team receiver and was catching a lot of passes from Brett Hunley before Aaron Rodgers got injured. Mike McCarthy said, there wasn't a Thursday practice that went by. Thursday practice being the one in full pads with the

most contact, all of that kind of stuff. There wasn't a Thursday practice that went by where he didn't make some sort of an eye popping catch, attention grabbing type of catch in practice. And so then at the beginning of December he signed to the active roster from the practice squad, and I'll admit I sort of misread the situation because I thought the Packers signing too the active

roster because maybe somebody else was coming after him. It sounds like the Packers did it as a reward for his hard work and because they wanted to see if they could work him in late in the season and and give him give him some opportunities to help this team. And that was before the Packers were out of the playoff picture. They were looking at possibly getting him on

the field um down the stretch here regardless. And it just speaks to how far he's come, because he even said in a little group interview with some reporters the other day, when he first got here and opened up the Packers offensive playbook, he had no idea what was going on. It was just words to him. Everything was everything was just flying past him. He couldn't process anything. He wasn't keeping up in meetings. He said he was even spacing out in meetings because he just couldn't follow

what was going on. To his credit, he stuck with it. He's he's come such a long way and he still talks about he's still learning the game of football, and he's just he's a huge person. He really is. I mean on a basketball court, you know, all those guys are tall. But on a football field, I mean you stand in the Packers locker room and there might be one other guy. I think Julius Peppers was the other guy.

Went during my six seven years now covering this thing where it's like you're like, holy crap, that is a massive human being. Michael Clark, while he doesn't have the girth that you know Peppers had, is just such an impressive specimen in terms of the size, and it just gives you such a great catch radius to work with. It gives you such a great prospect to work with.

He's a big dude, as Brett Hunley said, exactly. And I don't want to compare this to Demetrius Harris, who was the former u W Milwaukee basketball player who John Dorsey brought into the Kansas City Chiefs and literally from the ground up built a tight end. You know, I don't want to paint that picture of Clark, because he did have tools to work with. But as you said, the fact of trying to learn an NFL playbook after having really only one year, I guess you say too.

But scout team, Scout team in college, but having one year of taking a less in a game plan and implemented it on game day. It's just it, really it is. It's it's like going from sixth grade algebra to triggonometry.

It's just it's such a giant leap. And for him to be able to compartmentalize all of that and now be able to really toss it into games, I think it says a lot about him, and the Packers have to be incredibly pleased with what they have to work with now going into a full offseason with him continue to develop that skill set. Yeah, he had three catches against the Minnesota Vikings, one of them a very impressive diving catch along the sideline that that helped get the

Packers into potential scoring position. But two back shoulder throws he would love to have back. One that was early in the game on a third down, the other one near the front pylon of the end zone in the fourth quarter, and he just flat out and said, hey, no excuses. When Brett throws me the ball like that, he says, it's my job to come down with it. I've got to make those plays. That's the next step for him now of many steps. He needs to take.

But the next step for him is on a back shoulder type of play, one on one coverage, beat your man and make that catch. Jordy Nelson, all those guys, they make that look so simple, but there's so much involved in the past. Needs to be in the right area, and even if it is in the right area, the receiver has to catch it. That is the next step, as you said, for him, developing those instincts now in addition to just having all of that potential in his frame. Yeah,

definitely an interesting guy to watch on Sunday. But with that, we'll throw it to a break back with more on Packers Unscripted right after this. Welcome back to Packers Unscripted. Mike Spofford in this chair, West Hodkowits in that one, and West continuing the discussion of younger players here that that the fans can keep an eye on when it

comes to Sunday's regular season finale in Detroit. A couple of guys on defense starting to get a few more snaps considering the injuries the situation the Packers are in. And that's third round pick Montrevious Atoms on the defensive line and fourth round pick Vince Bagel at outside linebacker. I know there were a lot of hopes for both of these players when they were drafted. The Packers are very excited to draft both of these players last spring.

Um their impact has obviously been limited this year, and a lot of that just speaks to how difficult it is to walk onto an NFL field and try to make plays when you've dealt with an injury situation that forces you to miss essentially your entire rookie training camp, when which is really your acclamation to the NFL training camp, those preseason games. These guys essentially missed all of that, and uh, but they're trying to get at least that

first taste of experience right now. Here's the thing, Michael, what is it? I think it's the last six weeks of the season you have three padded practices. I think that's what the cb A dictates. Yeah, so during the season you must have around what is it twelve? As far as how many year allotted for the entire I believe for the whole season it's fourteen. So you can have eleven, you can you can have eleven through the first eleven weeks and but then only three through the

last six weeks, so let's flash back to August. That is the really the only big opportunity in this environment for rookie players to get those reps, to get padded reps, because once even when you get into the season, the focus isn't on in no disrespect him, on Trevias Adams. The focus isn't on getting Montrevius Adams ready for Sunday. The focus is on Kenny Clark and Mike Daniels and Quentin Dial, Dean Lowry, and it's and it's also on

that opponent you're going to. So it is so difficult not only to get those opportunities during the regular season, but to get the meaningful snaps in the season. So I think you look at where Vince Bagel's at in Adams, I think they did the best they could with the situation that they were presented with. Beagle missed the entire

off season program, you missed all of training camp. Adams was there for the off season program, but then gets hurt really in the second practice before the pads even went on, And I think you see what happens and how difficult it is to overcome that that hill. Now you've taken On the other side of that, you look at someone like Reggie Gilbert, who has now been immersed

in the system for two years. He's had all of those reps during training camp, never really had a big injury it all during that time, and he gets out there in that first opportunity and really it's just pedaled to the medal. Yeah, it's just I think that is that illustrates. It's not to say that Gilbert is a better player than Beagle, or Beagles a better player than Gilbert, but it just shows you how far those reps can

go and form. As Mike McCarthy said during his news conference on Wednesday, as much as was made out of Beagle, and there's a lot of hype there in the Packers, you know, really like his prospects. But if there was an expectation there among the fan base or among the media for him just to step out there after he came off a pup and then just start dominating everybody, that's unrealistic because that's just not the world you live in.

The NFL is so complicated, it's such a there's so many layers to it that that can't really be what you're expecting out of a young player, right, Yeah, And I know we'll have plenty of time over the next couple of months to talk about and looking ahead and stuff.

But an interesting, interesting thought occurred to me when you look at Montrevius Adam's third round pick, Vince biegl fourth round pick, even Kevin King first round pick, playing really only about half the sea and he missed most of the off season program because of the college schedule thing, which I think the NFL is finally deciding to maybe adjust or or fix that rule, or at least there

would be um. But when you when you start to look ahead here to three of the Packers top four draft picks from seventeen, it's almost like they're going to have a second draft class with these guys kind of getting more up to speed and hopefully being healthy and and ready to go. It's something to look forward to, it is, and it's because there's said unknown factor with a lot of these guys. And certainly, you know, Beagle was around for a number of years in Wisconsin, you know,

a true senior. Uh, you look at someone like Adams, I think he's still you know, there's still a lot of tools to developed there with him. So I think this is gonna be important offseason for both of those guys making that next step forward. And I think you've seen it. You see it every year when you look

at Kenny Clark, when you look at Blake Martinez. Just exactly the difference that makes getting that first full year under your belt, and in addition to that offseason program, getting that opportunity, Mike, also consider once the season is done, these guys can actually down shift for two or three months. They'll still be working out, but they don't have to have that rigor in that grind that they did getting ready for the combine. I think that does make a

big difference. I think it does too. But with that, let's go to break Back with More and Packers Unscripted right after this, Dad, Welcome back to Packers Unscripted, Mike Spofford alongside West, Hodkowitz and West Quickly before we go, I think it's worth mentioning that I don't like to get too hung up on statistics, but there is an interesting statistical thing to keep an eye on here for the Packers heading into week seventeen, and that is that

second year linebacker Blake Martinez. He actually has a chance to lead the entire NFL and tackles if he has another one of these double digit tackle type games too, to wrap up the sea in right now, He's uh, He's right at the top of the list, isn't he? Mike? The Green Bay Packers have played fifteen games this year. I don't know if you're accounting Blake Martinez has eight games with double digit combined tackles this year. It is

incredible the jump he's made. I'm dude, he has an opportunity here, uh to lead the NFL in that category when you consider the Luke Keikley's, the Zach Brown's, the the guys that have made such an impact over the years at that position. For him to be in that conversation he was. He was asked last week about you know, he wasn't you know he wasn't named as an alternate to the Pro Bowl. He kind of got a snub there. Well, this is the kind of season that can get you

that notoriety. And I think to see what he's done and how he's developed over the past year says a lot about him. His work ethic and exactly you know, the coaching of Scott McCurley and exactly the development of

a prospect there. I also want to say this too, there were a number of years where the Packers were and this is no disrespect to some of these guys that they were converting from outside linebacker to inside linebacker, but this shows you exactly what happens when you have a college middle linebacker, you bring him into your scheme and develop them. I think this is the kind of production you can expect. There's just something different about Blake Martinez. Yeah,

I would, I would agree. And it's kind of funny because in a sense, when we've talked to him this year about hey, what's the big difference last year to this year, and he's been talking about how he doesn't have to think as much. It's almost as though the Stanford education and the way he was able to process the playbook last year, it almost slowed him down because there was so much to process. But yet mentally he

is he is able to handle it all. But then when he got out on the field, mentally he was slowed down a little bit because he was he was understanding everything. Now he's just that half a step quicker because now it's more reaction rather than processing on the fly, and we're seeing the results, and that's why I think that middle of that defense, Kenny Clark, Blake Martinez the future. They're really solid for the Packers now at this point, yeah, I would agree, But with that we will call it

a wrap on this edition of Packers Unscripted. Be sure to follow all of our coverage of the team on Packers dot com on Twitter, He's at west Hod, I'm at Mike Spofford at Packers for the team account. Thanks for tuning in, everybody. We'll see you next time. H m hm