#257 Packers Unscripted: Changes at the top

the new general manager and all that broke. And so for those of you who tuned in hoping to see a show about the new GM and everything, we certainly apologize. Sort of Murphy's law. No pun intended that things would happen when you think you have a plan in place to deal with an absence. But that being said, West, today is the day to talk about the Packers new general manager. His name is Brian Goodkin good akinst I have to work on the pronunciation. I think everybody does.

I'm used to spelling it, you know, right. No, I don't have a problem, but um a tremendous football background in this guy I've known him for a long time within the Packers organization as he has climbed the ranks obviously over the last several years. Um, just a really personable guy. What in his background stands out the most to you? Well, I think it's the in state connections, Uh, and really the paradox between the way he was brought up and kind of how things have played out within

the Packers organization. Starting with the in state connections. This is a guy that only forty four years old, actually played at u w lacrosse a few years after his father had been the head coach at the University of Minnesota with their football team, and that's where he started to get his start with football and played there for

two years to stay in. The shoulder injury, which I mean, you know, serendipity, whatever you want to call it, actually probably put him on his course for his profession that he wanted to look into coaching. Really it was the doors that were open to him through scouting that that you know, kind of sort of gave him his path and received an opportunity from John Dorsey to come in

and be an intern with the Packers. Spent a year with John Schneider in Kansas City, comes back as a college scout and getting back to the original point I made, you know, he traveled in his family, kind of had this vagabond lifestyle a little bit, being a son of

a head coach or a football coach. And for him, he's been able to have stability since has been with the Packers organization, been in house since two thousand and twelve when he became the director of college scouting, and now here he is as the general manager, the tenth designated general manager in franchise history. It's funny to look back on his career when you look at that timeline up. What would it be like to be a scouting intern for a team coming off of a Super Bowl championship.

I mean that that had to be such a unique and an interesting situation in terms of getting your start and obviously working immediately, working under a structure and a regime that was so successful, as you know, the Packers really were reborn there through the mid nineties, and then as a full time scout, really spent a lot of his time in the South and particularly the Southeast, so that sec that Southeastern Conference. He knows those schools, you know,

maybe as well as anyone on the Packers staff. And uh that that's you know, where he cut his teeth, as they say, and and uh and began to uh to climb the ranks. Um obviously was chosen by President and CEO Mark Murphy over two other internal candidates, russ Ball and Elliott Wolf. Russ Ball getting um a new title as far as executive director of Football Operations, did I get vice president executive director of SO And we'll have some more thoughts on on the structure of things

in our next segment. But um, but as far as where the Packers go from here, Brian Goodakunst is the new GM. He is in charge of the fifty three man roster and uh um it sounds like he's very excited about the partnership here coming up with head coach Mike McCarthy. Yeah, he is. And the thing that's interesting about his upbringing too is that he has such a

deep foundation, uh in this organization. You talk about Mike McCarthy when he came back as a college scout in n That was in within three months of when McCarthy was brought in as the quarterbacks coach at the time, Um, you know, he he was raised and developed under Is. He mentioned Scott McCluin, who went on to be the Washington general manager. That was one of the guys he kind of joked that he would always go to when guys were too scared to ask a question to Ron,

they went to to McCluin instead. I mean, he had those relationships and you know, and and Elliot Wolf has a lot to figure out with his future right now, but he looked at that partnership that they had for a number of years, and you know, the pro and college perspectives they were able to provide to Ted Thompson and a guy that he really admires from that perspective.

The big thing with this Mike was fit. And Mike McCarthy made that very clear when he met with the media in his final news conference of the two thousand

seventeen season. He was looking for a GM that was going to be in that partnership with them, And Goudakun said, I mean he you know, when it comes to making tough calls on the roster, he's willing to go out there and step to the podium and explain his thought process, which is something that Mike McCarthy said he was looking for in the next GM, he said, he's a guy that's willing to have direct communication with different people. He's a guy that really values communication and he wants to

open up those avenues. And we'll talk about this in a minute. But when you look at some of the breakdowns maybe they've had in recent years that Mark Mark Murphy was addressing, that's one of the things I think could ultimately help them, in addition to the fact that he is a very talented scout with a deep foundation in really analyzing, reviewing, and finding talent from the college level. Yeah, and Mark Murphy has changed the hierarchy a little bit,

the structure of how things are gonna work. And we'll get to that after the breakback with moreen Packers Unscripted. Right after this, Welcome back to Packers Unscripted. Mike Spofford in this chair, West Hodkowitz and that one and West talking about what really comes down to a major restructuring of the Packers hierarchy. Um, you go back to the early ninety nineties when Bob Harlan hired Ron Wolf. There was one man in charge of the entire football operation

and everybody answered to him. That structure is no longer in place. Brian Gudakunst rush Ball, Mike McCarthy are sort of the three men who are all in charge of football. They're different areas of the football operations and now all three of them individually will report to Mark Murphy as

the president and CEO of the organization. A significant change, it was, and it Mike and it was interesting Mark Murphy when he originally met with the media to announce that Had Thompson would be moving into this new role. Uh he originally was planning for the GM two or the head coach to report to the g M. But as he went through the process, he said, it really opened his eyes to some areas where he thought they could you know, have some potential, um you know, areas

to improve in. And one of the things that he came to, and it came up numerous times in both his interview and news conference and then Ulso in a side session with some some print reporters, is the idea that they need to knock down some silos that silos have been built up between the coaching staff, the scouts, different areas and they want to improve communication under on that point, that's something that Goodin said to when he was addressing with reporters afterwards is very important to him.

He sees that he understands and he thinks there needs to be greater ties between the scouting department and the coaching staff. That maybe there was you don't want to say a wall, but but definitely not enough communication from

that perspective. But it goes up higher than that. And the thing I think that was the biggest um you know, area that I took away from all of this is that, in a lot of ways, the decisions they made here other than the head coach you know now reporting to Murphy was sort of putting print in pen and paper to something that had really been cemented the past number of years with Russ Ball's role, you know, with the

general manager's role. Murphy said, I mean the GM that that job description they had for Ted Thompson was incredibly broad and there was a lot of stuff that he had really you know, handed over to Ball to handle so he could focus more on scouting. That's something that good at const is all four. He wants to do what he's good at. That's player acquisition, that's drafting, that's building a roster, and then now letting ball in addition to the contract negotiations and you know, handle more the

administrative things. Yeah, And I found Mark Murphy's comments about the silos and trying to knock down the silos. I found that interesting because in previous shows last week we talked about one of the ways that that the structure that was in place worked for so long is because of people having respect for boundaries or what their job was, not intruding necessarily on other people's. But one of the potential fallouts of something like that is boundaries can almost

get too rigid. They can they can become silos. And I think what Mark Murphy is trying to do here, if I'm reading his comments correctly, is I think he's trying to have a structure that that gets rid of the silos that were being created, but that still respects the boundaries that that every that everybody has their area of expertise, they have final say on certain areas of football, but they're not going to operate just completely independently of

one another. And as you said, it's about the communication and collaboration so that everybody kind of at least knows what's going on all the time and isn't wondering what that guy down the hall is up to, so to speak. Football organizations evolve was another theme that sort of came out of this, and Murphy was really you know, preaching in his idea was when they made this shuffle is basically repainting the lanes a little bit. The past few years.

With the role that Thompson has sort of taken on, it did require a little bit more hands on, you know, stuff from different people and his his personnel department. This really this process was meant to kind of redefine all of that and to give everybody an idea of what's expecting their specific position rather than when you are sort of moving out of your lane and in different people's territory. It basically just rewrites the job description in some ways.

And as Murphy said, I mean he plans to meet weekly with Ball, McCarthy and good at cost so they can have that open dialogue. He's not looking to micromanaged, He's not looking to sit here and tell people what to do. He just wants to be more involved in the football process. It's something he's done over the last number of years and he thinks as as they're able to do that and open up those lines of communication is something that overall will help improve the football team. Yeah,

and I took this. There are some alarm bells being sounded out there about this potentially being a mistake in terms of the structure, and that the Packers did this back in the nineteen eighties and it didn't work and it's what led to Ron Wolf being brought in and giving total control. I for one, I'm going to wait and see how this goes, because part of me thinks that the reason Mark Murphy made this decision and restructured it this way is because of the people he wanted

in place in those certain positions. Somewhere down the line, maybe it's ten years, maybe it's fifteen or twenty years down the line, the next round Wolf might come along and demand the full autonomy over everything. And if you really want that guy, then maybe you have to give him the structure that he wants. So you talked about

organizations evolved, Things can change. I'm not saying that you completely rewrite the structure every time you make a new higher and an important position, but it's it's also about fitting your structure to the people and setting them and letting them do what they do best, and that's what I think Mark Murphy's trying to do here, and he kept the door open to that. Just because they're doing

something right now doesn't set a precedent forever. Packers could win three four more Super Bowls, Mike McCarthy could go right off into the sunset, they could have another coaching and underneath that coaching search, that position could go right back under Brian Goodkin's There's all those type of options. He's not really eliminating any process. He said from day one when he stepped up there announcing that Ted Thompson was no longer going to be the GM, that he

was going to keep an open mind to this. He was going to look at scouts, he was going to look at finance, he was gonna look at all these different avenues of how you can run an organization. This is in a way, I think, in a lot of in a lot of different areas to try to make all these pieces fit and try to find something that

can work for everybody. I know there's sometimes can be a negative connotation to that, but as he said, when you look at the amount of organizations that have kind of been creative with their structure, there's sometimes something to be said for that. And if you aren't staying with that pace, if you're not trying to find the new

way to do things, you are falling back. And I think ultimately it comes down to try and to find a scenario, a fit, whatever you want to call it, to make the Packers organization take that next step and make sure that that two thousand seventeen season was nothing more than an anomaly. Yeah, and well, the new GM certainly wants to take the next step with this roster. And we're talking about some of his philosophies after the breakback with more on Packers Unscripted. Right after this Welcome

back to Packers Unscripted. Mike Spofford here, Wes hodkohit's over there and West. Getting back to the Packers new GM. Goodikins talked about his philosophies a little bit. Particularly was asked about free agency because of um sometimes the Packers lack of involvement in free agency under Ted Thompson, and some of the phrases he used were interesting. One of the things he called it is a necessary accessory. And I think maybe what we've heard more over the past

decade is more of like it's a potential abode. He sees it as more of something that that needs to be explored at all times. Um. Now, not just saying always about the top guys, million dollars signings or whatever. That's not what this is about. But but it's about how he looks at the entire picture of free agency as it relates to the fifty three man roster. Yea.

And I'm actually gonna pull the quote right now from the story I wrote on Monday, just to I don't usually do these type of things, but I just think it's such a It was the quote of the entire day. Him and Murphy talked for over an hour if you count the two sessions, but I thought this was the biggest quote. The thing I've already told our guys is that we're not going to be signing every player, which you can't. But we're gonna be involved. But it's not

gonna be the foundation. But we're going to want to be in every conversation. We want to be in the know and not be afraid. And when the moment comes, um, you have to be prepared to pull the trigger. Paraphrasing a bit of that, but the basic thought process behind it is the packers want to be involved in these conversations. If there's a free agent, regardless of it's a high, mid, low tier, whatever it might be. If there's somebody they think could be a potential fit, they want to explore

that avenue. They want to leave no stone unturned during this process. That's not to say that isn't what Ted Thompson did. I don't want people drawing that analogy. But I think the big thing is that Good wants is he wants his scouts, he wants his personnel people with the communication they have within the building, if there's a guy they think could work in Green Bay, to pick up the phone, see what the prices, see what kind of bidding war they're gonna be in, and make sure

that they are up on all those conversations. Because sometimes I'm not saying this is just Green Bay, but I think sometimes some of these guys can fly under the radar and you potentially miss out on a guy that could be a good value. And I think sometimes you know, it isn't just always about who's getting the five year, sixty seven million dollar contract. Sometimes it's the one year,

five million dollar deal that makes all the difference. Yeah, And I think what I took in some ways from his comments was maybe there were times in the past where the packers made assumptions about the market the price tag on a certain guy, and they just stayed out of it because they're like, Oh, that's not really gonna fit where we are with the salary cap and what And then maybe the guy signs with somebody is like, oh, maybe we should have been involved in that conversation. The

price tag wasn't as high as we thought. So I think it's maybe, you know, as you said, always being involved in the conversations and and being prepared to pull the trigger if the opportunity is there. I also look at it as what I'm going to be interested in in terms of the differences in the roster building, is what's going to happen when the injuries strike, because they're going to inevitably strike. And I wrote this in our Insider Inbox column. Is the guy who's filling in the

next man up, so to speak? Is it going to be some young, totally unproven guy or is there going to be more depth of veteran players and and those can be veteran players you bring in from other places two thousand and ten, guys like Eric Walden and Howard Green experienced guys that were brought in when injuries hit, when that roster dealt with a lot of injuries, and

those guys helped the Packers win a Super Bowl. Since then, we haven't seen as many of those type of acquisitions, and maybe the new GM gets back to that a

little bit. And think even like Charlie Peppert, who I think they claimed him off waivers before that season, brought him back after he had left, and he ends up playing a key role after Morgan Burnett tears his a c L. That's a big part of the equation here and is is Goodkin said, It's about creating competition from the first day of training camp to the last day of the regular season or the or your playoff run.

You have to be able to push. It can't just be Okay, well, this guy is just the last guy up, so he's the one in there. You have to make sure that everybody understands that if you don't perform, there's somebody else that could potentially do it. Um And to touch on one other thing, Mike, because a big question he was asked is about the state of the roster where things are right now, He doesn't see the Packers as being that far away from contending for another Super Bowl.

People talk about the defense. Things didn't go well for the Packers in two thousand seventeen. I'm not going to sit here and debate that, but Kenny Clark, Mike Daniels, there is a foundation, Blake Martinez, Haha, Clinton dis Packers have talent on defense. That's one thing good Coin said. He likes the talent that they have there. They have to make the pieces fit. They have to find a D fensive coordinator that's gonna be able to utilize it,

and they need to find players through the draft. They could have eleven or twelve picks this year or through free agency that are gonna be able to fill in those holes when someone goes down. The cupboard isn't bare. That was the big takeaway. He was basically asked that question, and he said, the cupboard isn't bare. We still have what it takes with the best player in football and Aaron Rodgers to get to where we want to go sooner rather than later. And I think it's also about

stocking that cupboard with more like pieces. I guess I would say, And what I mean by that is going back to the comment about the competition. Hey, these players are at practice every day. They know who can do the job and who can't. If you're on the field and you know the guy right behind you on the depth chart is, for example, an undrafted rookie who's hardly played, maybe he's only played on special teams and hasn't even played on offense or defense. Yet you're not necessarily fearing

for your job. You're not you. You don't necessarily feel like you're on notice. Brian Goodacun's yesterday on Monday, I thought he made it very clear that he wants every player to feel like he's on notice with everything he's putting on film and every game. And that's maybe a bit of an exaggeration because we're all human, But at the same time, that's the type of competitiveness he wants within the roster. Comfort creates complacency in every walk all life.

He wants to make sure that people are being pushed. Yeah, all right, with that, we'll go to break back with more on Packers Unscripted right after this. Welcome back to Packers Unscripted. Mike Spofford alongside West Hog Kuits and West before we Go. Since I was gone Monday, we haven't had a chance to talk about NFL Wild Card weekend. We only have a couple of minutes here. But the Kansas City Chiefs boy another crushing home playoff loss, blowing

an eighteen point lead to the Tennessee Titans. You have the Atlanta Falcons um maybe showing that their defense is even better than it was when they went to the Super Bowl a year ago. They completely clamped down on that Los Angeles Rams explosive offense rather lackluster. I guess I would say Jacksonville Jaguars playoff victory, but a playoff victory for a team that had not had one in a very long time. And then the New Orleans Saints. I think they said here we are, here we come. Yeah.

The thing that was really interesting about this, and I watched all four of these games, it was seeing the difference between teams that have been there in teams who haven't been to the playoffs. That the Rams look like a team that had like two players on their team or whatever it was. Three players who had actually played in a playoff game look completely shell shock they'll be better for that in the long run. It's a young

football team. Atlanta, I think is showing that old adage that sometimes if you're the number five or six seed in the NFC is in specific you could potentially get on a run if the pieces fall into place. I agree with Their defense is faster, it is athletic, and having true font back makes a big difference on the boundary. He is a legitimate shutdown cornerback and a good fit for them. Tennessee Titans, on the other hand, another team that in some ways is veteran, in some ways is

very young. They find a way to crawl back in that game against the Chiefs and pick up a big, big victory, and then the New Orleans Saints obviously shutting the door on Julius Pepper's hopes for another for a Super Bowl ring with their performance across the board, some entertaining football, a lot of teams winning in a variety of different ways, and we'll see where they take it from here. Yeah, a lot of uh, a lot of excitement at the end of that Saints Panthers game. I

want to throw the set you right away. Intentional grounding on Newton or not what do you think of that call? Yeah, I thought so. I thought so too, because they were lined up on the right hash. Yeah, I thought so too. And I say that because we've I think we've seen in the past where that call of is the guy outside the pocket, they're almost too lenient in the sense of letting the quarterback throw it away. In this instance, they didn't let him throw it away, and it was

a call that change change the end of the game. Yes, but I mean they've lined that the play was at the right hash you have the two linemen over there. I thought it was the right call in my opinion. A lot of things we could debate though about that weekend of games. All right, Well, with that, we've got to 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 Hot I'm at Mike Spofford at Packers for the team account. Thanks for tuning in, everybody. We'll see you next time. H