#271 Packers Unscripted: Division roundup

today and that's special teams. For a couple of reasons. One, there is a new special teams coach on board. Maurice Drayton will now be the assistant to special teams coordinator Ron Zook as Jason Simmons, his former assistant, has now moved up to UH to coach defensive back um with

with Joe Witt and new defensive coordinator Mike Petton. But also because we need to give credit where credit is due, and that is for all the injuries that we talked about the Packers dealt with in tween the special teams to Ron's Zook's credit and Jason Simmons credit did not suffer from the Domino effect, so to speak. The Packers special teams held their own despite a constant shuffling of personnel that became the norm with all of the injuries

and players going in and out of the line up. Yeah, and Mike McCarthy said right at his season ending news conference, I mean that that Zook had done a heck of a job with what he was given to work with. You gotta remember, Mike, this is a group that had a rookie punter that did not have any competition in camp.

They had three different long snappers throughout the course of the season due to injuries, which I think that duo, together with some of those new those new positions and and some of that flux, I think somewhat contributed to some of the missfield goals and things of that nature from Mason Crosby. But the rest of this thing being able to help Trevor Davis end up being third. I believe it was in punt return average. The Packers were second the league in that category. After he had some

of his issues during the preseasons with with fumbles. Um Vogel ends up resetting the Packers net average for punting this season, the fact that the coverage units ended up playing as well as they did despite a number of new people coming in there. You have to remember when when injuries hit and they hit the offense and defense hard, the guys that are stepping up typically are the guys

that are contributors and special teams. So that required a lot of new players coming in from the practice squad

and making contributions. In ron Zock made all those pieces fit. Yeah, I really thought with regards to the Packers coverage units, you know nothing that was a huge splash play where you get a big turnover something they obviously like to be able to force a fumble you know once in a while set up the offense with a short field, but you also didn't have the types of breakdowns and coverage like what happened against the Indian app was colts in sen were really that that opening kickoff return for

a touchdown and a and a long kickoff return also later in the game really hampered the Packers in in their their chances to win a ballgame. And then you mentioned Justin Vogel, the rookie punter undrafted out of Miami. I know, they want to work on some more things with him in terms of consistency and ball placement, but his work combined with the coverage units to uh to set a you know, a franchise record for net punting average, which statistically has been kept in the franchise record books

since like the mid nineteen seventies. Um, that's something to hang your hat on, because we talked about it all season long. The leg talent, the raw talent to punt the football is there with Justin Vogel. Now if you get the if you add start adding a little better placement, a little more consistency, and then stay solid with the coverage units, that can really be a weapon for the pack Yeah, and that's gonna come with experience and time. I think you saw a young man come in here

and look comfortable. And you have to remember the original plan for this season was they were going to have Jacob Chum coming back as the punter from last season and they had you know, Vogel as the undrafted rookie in there to compete. Well, Sum ends up sustaining a back injury that landed him on Packers injury reserved the entire season. UM. So whatever, happened there. The Packers decided not to bring in another kicker, another punter, and it was Vogel's job from that point on. And he was

a Pro Bowl alternate. I know I said this in a show last month, but if you're a Pro Bowl alternate as a punter, that's not the fan voting. I mean, it's tough to really get as a rookie to get that kind of uh name recognition. That that's people around the league taking notice of what this young man did. And I think it's impressive. Uh. And and for the Packers, I think they finished sixteenth and Rick Goslin's annual rankings of Special teams uh from where they were at a

year ago. And despite some of those injuries, I think it said a lot about them that they were able to make that improvement. Yeah, and Ron's look and Jason Simmons and in coordinating those units. You know, let's not forget too, they had they had to replace Jay Rone Elliott,

who did not come back. Um Blake Mark he knows was a guy that I thought was going to be a real special teams leader, and not that he can't be, but he ended up playing so much on defense they had to limit his special team snaps really I think compared to his rookie season, So that was another potential

special teams leader that needs to be replaced. And then a guy like kentroll Bryce ends up going down with a season ending ankle injury midway through the year, So there were some there were some issues that had to be dealt with in terms of the guys that maybe you thought would be the bell cows on special teams, but all season long you still had Jeff Janis as a gunner on punt coverage, which was big and and you know other guys like Marwin Evans, another young safety

you stepped up and performed well in those roles. So there are there are a lot of guys who have gotten the experience that I think ron Zook and now mour Ree Strait and Will will look to move forward with. Yeah, and to other throw out there for you. Joe Thomas ended up missing about half the season with that hamstring injury. He's a big contributor in Quentin Rollins was the other gunner earlier in the season alongside Jeff Janis. They losing

him as well. One other thing I want to throw him before we go to break I know the goss and rankings are amazing. The one thing I would like to see some people pay more attention to, though, is the on site kick recoveries. I think that's a stat that isn't normally talked about a lot. It's one of the things Mason Crosby does the best. Um So I think when you look at those rankings and things like that, that's another area too where if that category is in

their Packers might have been even higher. Yeah, yeah, definitely. With that, we will go to a breakback with more on Packers Unscripted right after this. Welcome back to Packers Unscripted. Mike Spofford in this chair, Wes Hodkowitz and that one and West. I want to spend the rest of this show focusing on some of the Packers opponents coming up here in specifically the Packers NFC North opponents. Obviously that will be six of the sixteen games coming up this

next season, as it always is. And when you look at what's going on in the NFC North, Packers changing around the coaching staff and new general manager, the Lions and Bears both getting new head coaches, the Vikings trying to figure out what's going on at quarterback? The NFC North is undergoing a lot of change, maybe more change than any single division in the entire NFL. So let's

start with the Vikings. And uh, and I already said it, the quarterback question, that's the one that's on everybody's mind. With Minnesota, you've got case Keenum, Sam Bradford, Teddy Bridgewater, none of them under contract for what do you think

the Vikings are gonna do? Yeah, it's gonna be Uh, it's gonna be such a big question because certainly there's no way that the Vikings are able to return all three of those players, and depending on what kind of contract we're looking at with Bridgewater, may be difficult to get all, you know, two of them with all the sorts out. Sam Bradford has been a commodity in this league despite all the injury history. People agree that the pedigree is still there if he can get a little

bit better luck. Now, here's the real real question is case Keenum. And and it's always so much fun to talk about the guy coming out of nowhere to lead you to a super Bowl, to lead you to an NFC championship game as a backup quarterback, but then what happens past midnight? And and what do you do? Do you do you do you really, you know, dedicate some resources to him. Do you try to keep them in the fold? Do you let them go like the Baltimore Ravens did with Trent Bilfer back in two thousand after

they won the Super Bowl. These are decisions that Rick Spielman is gonna have to make. I give Spielman a lot of credit. He made that team, He built it. They knew what they had defensively, He found the pieces offensively to really deepen those positions, to make them competitive despite the loss of Sam Bradford, despite the loss of Dalvin Cook. But now, Jeric McKinnon, you know, you look at Lettavius, Murray, Keena, what are these guys futures and

what is this offense going to look like? In two thousand Yeah, and as we were going through the regular season, it was looking like, you know, boy, Case Keenum is going to be the guy in the future. It's almost like you forget about you know, Teddy Bridgewater and stuff. The way Keenum was playing regular season is passer rating is in the high nineties for for the entire year. Has the great miracle play to beat the New Orleans

Saints in the playoffs. But then you know, the breaks are put on a little bit in terms of just how much money somebody's going to invest in case Keenum. After that NFC title game in Philadelphia, twenty eight out of forty eight, a couple of interceptions passerrating him sixty eight in the biggest game of the season, and the Vikings had their problems on defense in Philadelphia to that they didn't lose that game just because of case Keenum.

Don't get me wrong, but people look at a performance like that in a big game, and whether it's the Vikings or another team. In the free agent market, then you just wonder, well, you know, how, you know, how much do you invest in a guy like case Keenum, Because from his point of view, you know, he this

is his opportunity to cash in. He's got to make the most of this for for his career, his financial security and all of that, and uh, but it's really hard to gauge right now what the market is going to say about what he's worth, right And that's where it's gonna be the most difficult because if I'm his agent and I don't know who case Keendom's agent is off the top of my head, I'm going to teams and I'm saying, twenty two touchdown, seven interceptions in a

terrible situation. And then my guy made the most of it and really showed that the potential that the St. Louis Rams thought he had when they gave him a first round tender all those years ago, that that potential is still there and that this is a guy that can manage a football situation and can win you games. Now here's the other side of this coin, though, Mike, is that Okay, let's say they would keep Keenam. Well,

now you don't have Pat Shermer anymore. And Pat Shermer, for you gotta remember to three years ago North Turner, that whole situation blew up in their face in Minnesota, and he came in as the o C. They thought he was gonna be running offense, you'd have Zimmer with the defense. It didn't work. So now obviously John d.

Filippiou from Philadelphia comes in another quarterback guy. But if Keenom's back, or if it's Bridgewater, can he mesh the way with those quarterbacks that Pat Shermer did and then also from Pat Shermer's perspective, depending on what the Giants want to do, are they potentially interested in Keenum having three quarterbacks all reaching unrestricted free agency at the same time.

It's almost unprecedented and it is going to be a really big puzzle for them to figure out in terms of how they want to structure their offense and this team now going forward, because I think everybody's seen they have a defense that can compete if you can find the offense that can compliment it. Yeah, and head coach Mike Zimmer has made no secret of his fondness for Teddy Bridgewater. He loves Bridgewater, he loves the skill set,

the leadership, the makeup all of that. But he hasn't played a game in two years now, coming off of that horrible, horrible knee injury from training camp in so I think the Vikings would like to keep Teddy Bridgewater and still give him a shot at the long term job. Again, you have to find the right contract that he's that he would agree to and that makes sense for the

franchise in order to do that. But then if you've sort of got Teddy Bridgewater waiting in the wings to be competing for that for that job, then where's the incentive for somebody like Keenum to sign a long term deal, because then you're like, well, do you believe in me or do you want to go with the other guy? You know, and those questions just aren't haven't been answered right now, and and we just have to see free agency begins about a month from now, and and you know,

the draft is a couple of months away. I guess we'll just see what happens. The other wild card is you mentioned three guys going to unrestricted free agency. Does Kirk Cousins end up coming into the discussion for the Minnesota Vikings. It's not out of the question, not out of the question now that they do have some cap things coming up with all the guys that are getting

paid on that defense. But yeah, the thing at the point I want to make lastly, just about Bridgewater, you can make a case other than a neck head injury. This is the most significant injury that has been sustained in the NFL over the last four or five years, and we have not seen him on the field. If it was me, I'd probably resigned Keenum. Hope that lightning can strike twice and then obviously still have Bridgewater in

your back pocket. All right, with that, we'll go to a break back with more on Packers Unscripted right after this. H Welcome back to Packers Unscripted. Mike Spoffer here, West Hodko, It's all the way over there, West. Continuing our discussion about the Packers NFC North foes and the questions they are facing in the off season, let's move on to

the Detroit Lions. And if there's the question that kind of burns for me with this team that I'm really curious to see how it shakes out, is now under new head coach Matt Patricia, the defensive coordinator of the New England Patriots, who has obviously a tremendous track record as a defensive coordinator. What is going to be the identity of this Detroit Lions defense? Because when I when

I look back, I was looking at it this morning. Actually, you look back at that two thousand eleven Detroit Lions team that went to the playoffs. It was Matthew Stafford's first playoff team as the quarterback. There. You had a defensive line, you know, built on guys like Dominican Sue and Kyle Van and Bosch and Cliff Avril. You know, then over time you had Nick Fairly kind of stepped in for Kyle Van and Bosh, and then you had

Ezekiel ansa kind of step in for Cliff Avril. But the identity of that defense for a long time was built on that defensive line, that that that front four that's kind of gone by the wayside. Now Sue is not there, fairly is not there. DeAndre Levy, the prolific linebacker, has not been the same that never really was able to come back from that horrible knee injury. This Lions defense needs an identity. What is Patricia gonna do here?

And here's the other problem too. For all the issues that they've had in the inconsistency and all that um Terrell, Austin was seen is doing a pretty darn good job with that group. Well, now Austin goes to the Cincinnati Bengals, you still have Jim Bob Cooterer and it plays offensively. Patricia's not, you know, an offensive coach, he's by trade a defensive coach. So how is this all gonna fit? Uh?

I'm very interested to see how this plays out because obviously, and I'm not going to judge, you know, a team off one season, because I think the Patriots that was a yeoman's effort that they put together defensively this year. I don't think that was the most talented group that they've had under Bill Belichick. Far from it, but you know, statistically, it wasn't a great year. So I think Patricia hit all the checked all the boxes in his his news conference.

I think he showed personality. I thought it was very interesting that he TIEDI, you know, up the beard and the hair in all that. It seems like, you know, judging by t J. Lank's comments on Twitter and some of these guys that are responding well to him, I think what they did is they overcorrected. They had Jim Schwartz, they needed discipline, they bring in Jim Caldwell, and they probably lost some of the personality with with Patricia trying

to find the middle ground there. Um, I'm very, like I said, very interested to see how this plays out, because, as we know with what the Minnesota Vikings have done, if you don't build a defense and se can compete with Aaron Rodgers, history has shown you're not going to be long for this division. Yeah, what the Lions do have, in my opinion, going for them. The most on defense is Darius Slay Absolutely like he is. He is one of the top cornerbacks in not only in the NFC

North but in the entire NFC. They call him big play slave for a reason. He's he's he's a weapon defensively. But you need more than just one cornerback to build around, and you've got, uh, you know, Ziggy Ants as a pending free agent righties here lately. Yeah, he hasn't, he hasn't been resigned. He's been, you know, kind of one of your stalwarts off the edge there since since he was drafted very high carry hiders coming back off of

his season ending injury as well. Right And then on the offensive side, you know, you've got Stafford, You've got Marvin Jones Jr. Um, You've got some weapons in place there. I think they still need to figure out what they're doing at running back in Detroit. You know, that's uh. And I even saw one headline, you know, wondering, depending on what happens with Levy on Bell in Pittsburgh, with the Detroit Lions make a play in free agency for a guy like Levy on Bell to just fix this

running game problem once and for all. That would obviously be the extreme measure, but really, running back is kind of the only question mark they have on offense because I think Matt Stafford's game continues to climb. I think he's I think he's he's continues to rise into that level of elite quarterbacks in this league. Yeah, he has. But I think the one thing we've learned based on when they made the playoffs and when they don't, is he needs help. And he's not a guy that's just

going to be able to to cover up everything. He needs to have the pieces around him. He needs to have the offensive line. You know, I thought it was a really good move by them getting t J. Lang. He was a good fit for the program. Losing Riley Reef, though, I think, did hurt them any way. Uh And when you look at some of you know, how things turned out for that offensive line this season, you know, whatever you want to stay about pass protection, but running game wise,

the pieces just haven't fit. And and you know, I think it's twofold. You know, a Mira Abdullah was a second round pick. I think if I'm them, I'd have to consider long and hard about looking at what Delvin Hook did looking with some of these other Sometimes you're gonna find Jordan Heyward or Jordan Howard excuse me, in the fifth round. That happens, but sometimes you do need

to take one in the first. This might be a year for them to take a look at that receiving wise, I'm still happy with it because, as we've talked about numerous times, I think getting away from Kelvin Johnson has allowed Matthew Stafford to have a little bit more open mindset towards how he utilizes the receivers. Marvin Jones Jr. Could be a lot more consistent. I think you know,

you know what you have in Golden Tap. So it's just trying to see exactly if you can be you know, a team that year in a year out is going to compete and you're not gonna have these ebbs and flows. Yeah. All right, Well, we've got one more NFC North team to discuss, and that's Chicago Bears. We'll get to them after the breakback with more on Packers Unscripted. Right after

this Welcome back to Packers Unscripted. Mike Spofford alongside West Hodkowitz and West the Chicago Bears, the last team in the NFC North that we need to discuss here, and I think if you break it down or focus it on one burning question for Chicago, it's can new head coach Matt Nagy keep Mitch true Bisky on the trajectory to become the franchise quarterback that he was drafted to become. That's really what it comes down to for Chicago, right it does to me. I actually think the number one

storyline is still did Ryan Pace find the guy? Yeah? Um, you know, because the excuse was not excuse, but I know it was. The excuse last year was that John Fox wasn't the right guy for Mitchell Trabisky and they needed a t they needed a quarterback guy to be the head coach. Obviously, you know that there's the reports now that Brad Shoulders is going to be joining them there and him and Matt Nagy go back a long way. Obviously had the bond there with the Kansas City Chiefs

Chief's offense. I thought, if you look over the past few years, how consistent they've been, how they got the most out of Alex Smith, it appears there in the process of you know, really grooming. You know, Mahomes now to be the next guy. Can Mitchell Robinsky do this thing? I think is the question we saw last year. You cannot judge a rookie quarterback by his first season. Jared

Goff proved that. I'll be honest with you, I have some deep reservations about Robinsky from watching him last season. We'll see now whether or not he can be the guy. If Nagy can do it. I think that this is a real great contender that's waiting there in the NFC because what Vic Fangio has done with that defense over the last two or three seasons, with some of the lack of talent at times he's had in that secondary, has impressed me. Now, do they have an offense that

can compliment that? Yeah, and I think your reservations on Trubisky are understandable, certainly. But at the same time, there were moments where you looked at Mitch Drabinsky during his rookie season you're like, yeah, that's why they drafted him number two overall, that's why Ryan Pace the GM basically staked his career he did on taking that trade going up from number three to number two, which people didn't even think he would have to do to get Trubisky.

He did it anyway, and and gave up some some picks along the way in order to make sure that he got Trubisky out of North Carolina and uh and really the the future of the franchise. Hinges on the quarterbacks development, I agree with you with Fangio with what he's had to work with on the defensive side of the ball, with players they've lost, both players who have left,

others who have gotten hurt. He's kept that defense competitive, they kept he That defense kept them in a lot of games when Trubisky maybe wasn't playing all that great, even one a couple of games for them, frankly. But but now it's it's it's about finding that well rounded team and that's Naggie's job to put together. And if Rubinsky is the guy, they got to get him some receivers. He has to have some people can catch that football. Yeah, receivers, definitely.

With that, we'll 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. HMHM,