#272 Packers Unscripted: Looking ahead

the NFC North. Some of the other opponents on the Packers schedule coming up, and this is what we're gonna do. We know starting out here that the Packers will be playing every team in the NFC West, So those four opponents are on the schedule. I want you to pick one of those opponents, the one that intrigues you the most, and then tell me what you think is the biggest question facing that opponent. Well, first off, NFC West, it's been interesting to watch this rivalry that the Packers have

had with the teams from that division. Uh really, outside of the Los Angeles Rams, who now have shown that they are a legitimate contender in the NFC, they've had battles with the forty Niners, with the Seahawks, with the Cardinals. The thing that's been difficult, though, is it's been tough for one of those teams to stay on top. The forty Niners did it for a couple of years. St. Louis did it. Arizona was in contention, and now it

looks like the Rams might be that team. For me, I go back to the consistency side of it, and to me, the most consistent team has been the Seattle Seahawks. But as you documented on your story on Packers dot Com when you were outlining some of these matchups, this is really, I think a turning point for the Seahawks. I almost look at it as sort of like what happens after the honeymoon phases over. They've had the success, they've won the Super Bowl, they faced adversity, and now

they have question marks there. They missed the playoffs last year. Russell Wilson, if you look at his numbers a year ago, the Agreeman Packers didn't have Aaron Rodgers for basically ten games. Seattle Seahawks had Russell Wilson the whole year, but he wasn't able to overcome the shortcoming to their offensive line, the defense that eroded in some ways due to injuries

John Schneider and Pete Carroll. I think are are at a crossroads a little bit if they can keep this team contending and keep them at top because with the question that they have in the secondary right now is that defense gets older, they have to make some really tough calls. I think this these upcoming months to determine what what course of action they're gonna be taking into these next three or four seasons. Yeah, I agree with

you with that that term crossroads. I do think this is this is a crucial offseason for the Seahawks, and you know, very differently from the Packers, as crucial as this offseason is for Green Bay as well. But you mentioned the secondary, the legion of boom. You've got Cam Chancellor and Richard Sherman are both going to be trying to come back from significant injuries. And and on top of that, Earl Thomas, who I think is the youngest

of that trio, is not mistaken. Yeah, he's the guy who's now talking about maybe holding out unless he gets a new contract or an extension, you know, some more, some more money from the Seahawks. So you know, those three guys, they've they've been they've been the foundation of of that secondary. And then you say, along with Bobby Wagner on the second level and Michael Bennett upfront, really the foundation of that that top notch defense for a

number of years. And you just wonder, is is this going to be the transition year where where it doesn't quite all come back together because of the injuries, the contract situations, all of that, or are John Schneider and Pete Carroll going to be able to hold it together with this core of a defense and try to make one more run. You give Snyder a lot of credit. He phoned Russell Wilson. Pete Carroll developed Russell Wilson and he became an m v P type player in this league.

But let's also be honest, Mike Russell Wilson was the third round pick. And you can draw these lines where you have teams that it play, have quarterbacks at under that play undervalue, and then when they get that contract, that's when you have to start making more difficult decisions elsewhere. It changes everything with your salary cap. It's tough to keep the pan together. It's tough to keep the party going, and I think that's what the Seahawks are currently trying

to work themselves through. Yeah, and when you also look at these other NFC West teams on the Packers schedule, I'm really intrigued by both of the matchups against the Rams and the forty Niners coming up. I think the Aaron Rodgers versus Jimmy Garoppolo green Bayed San Francisco game that will be at lambeau Field sometime this fall, that

might be one of the best games on the home schedule. Frankly, what Jimmy Garoppolo did coming in going five and oh for a team that was what one and ten when he took the starting job, Um, yeah, sorry, yeah, one one and close enough, Yeah, close enough. But but to go five and oh and then he earns the big contract and whatnot, So a lot of excitement with San Francisco.

I think that could be a great quarterback matchup. And then with the Rams, you know new coach Sean McVeigh developing rising star at quarterback, and Jared Goff, you got Todd Gurley, you got Cooper Cup, You've got some of these guys on defense. Now they have some questions on defense with some pending free agents, But as you said at the beginning, the Rams look like a team that

might be might be a contender for a while. Yeah, and it's very quietly Mike Aaron Donald the defensive Player of the Year in two thousand and seventeen, and for him to do it at that position in Wade Phillips defense, I mean, that says a lot about the production they

got out of him at defensive tackle. You do have Jared Goff and then obviously Sean McVeigh has been a really good partner for him, uh in that development of the offense in the San Francisco forty Niners, to me are one of the most exciting teams going into two thousand and eighteen. It shows you how quickly the narrative can change when you find the quarterback. I'll say this, and there's a long way to go here. Jimmy Garoppolo now is gonna get paid really handsomely. He's gonna have

to live up to that contract. But if this works out for the forty Niners and they found a potential superstar here and they got him for a second round pick in the middle of a season, John lynch Man that might go down as one of the most savvy moves any GM has made in the last ten years. Could end up being a tremendous steel tremendous Cleveland Browns since all these different teams that needed quarterbacks the forty went and got there's in the middle of the season.

Very shrewd. Yeah, well, we've got some more opponents on schedule to talk about. We'll get to those after the breakback with more and Packers Unscripted right after this. Welcome back to Packers Unscripted. Mike Spofford in this chair, West Hodkowits in that one in West. Continuing our discussion of some of the Packers opponents on schedule. The other division the Packers will be matched up against the NFC North as a whole will be matched up against is the

a f C East. Um, so there's definitely one opponent there we need to talk about in New York too. Yeah, yeah, it's the New England Patriots obviously. Um. You know, Packers only play these teams in the a f C once every four years. Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady have gone head to head only once in their careers because Rogers missed the game in two thousand ten and Foxborough. So actually, this trip to Foxborough will be Rogers first regular season

appearance in that stadium. It's a match up everybody's going to be looking forward to. We don't know exactly when it is because the full schedule, the dates and times, everything comes out in April, but um, I'm guessing this one's gonna be in prime time? What do you think? Yeah?

It was. I kind of alluded to this an in Center in Box two weeks ago when people are asking what our most exciting matchup is going to be in two thousand and eight, and I think it's probably gonna end up slotting right back into that Sweeps November Monday Night football or Sunday Night football game. Again. Yeah, I'm sure there'll be a lot of battling over who's going to be able to broadcast that because, as you said, this has been a rivalry, a battle that we haven't

seen a whole lot. And you go back to what that game was like in two thousand fourteen here at lambeau Field. Uh, the energy just just how the excitement and if you correct me if I'm wrong here, but by believe in the Packers won that game. That was the Patriots last loss the rest of the season, and they went on to win the Super Bowl. Uh, last year we got robbed from having Rogers versus Roethlisberger, which

is always a great matchup. Obviously, Super Bowl has been contested for it, um Brady and Rogers, you don't know how many more times you're gonna get this, depending on how exactly this plays out. For Tom Brady, There's a part of me too that would still love to see this as a Super Bowl matchup. I think a lot of people would. A lot of a lot of people don't want to see either of these guys retire without them going head to head in a superho be incredible.

And it's almost like WrestleMania a little bit. You know. I know you're not a big wrestling fan, but you always try to get that big matchup for the big show of the year. That could really be special. But first things first, being able to go, as you said, into Gilette Stadium for the first time for in Rogers, knowing how much of a student of the game he is and how much he appreciates the league history. I'm sure that's gonna be very meaningful for him. Yeah, and

I'll be curious what the league decides. And I'm not trying to jinx anybody or anything, but the fact that Rogers is coming off an injury, the fact that Tom Brady is as old as he is, does the league want to schedule this one earlier in the season as the post later, because you're just taking a risk that, you know, because of Rogers and Roethlisberger. They set that

one for Thanksgiving weekends, Sunday Night football. We're talking last spring like that's going to be one of the greatest matchups of the year, and then it didn't happen, you know, so you just wonder, you know, exactly how the how the league will handle that because it is such a rare matchup, it only happens outside of a super Bowl. It would only happen once every four years, right, Yeah, precisely.

And it's just it's one of those things that when you see the way that you remember Bill Belichick, how fus ive he wasn't his praise of Mike McCarthy in fourteen, then two coming after that, and what he said at the the NFL owners meetings that following winter. I mean, he just really has holds Mike McCarthy in a very high regard. And to see those two guys kind of

match what's two will be pretty neat to watch. Yeah, the other team in the a f C East that I want to talk about is the Buffalo Bills and and and I want to discuss them because what I what I mentioned in my story when I gave kind of a quick hit rundown on all these opponents on the schedule, is you know, are the Buffalo Hill Buffalo Hills?

Excuse me, the Buffalo Bills a one hit wonder. They made the playoffs for the first time this century thanks to the Andy Dalton miracle in Baltimore that that beats the Ravens and and gets Buffalo. And we all saw the locker room scene where they were watching it on TV and they knew they were in the playoffs. But this Buffalo team is one that has a lot of questions,

particularly at the quarterback position. But yet it's it's a it's a roster that's solid enough to to have made the playoffs for the first time in a really long time. This is a really intriguing team and an important offseason for them. The dangerous thing that you outlined there with the Bills is that they did make the playoffs. You cannot take that away from They didn't really do any one thing especially well, though they struggle with the past game.

Their defense was kind of middle of the road. Uh micae Hyde had a phenomenal season for him, to give him credit, would end up being a second team All Pro year, but they had the trade for the receiver. It's just there was so any questions about this unit. Shady McCoy had a fine year when he was healthy. So it's gonna be really interesting to see if the Bills can build upon this. You never want to, you know that that was really big for them to make

the playoffs. They certainly want to end that skid. But at the same time, we've seen it history has shown for a first year head coach it's not always the best thing to go in and like make the playoffs are kind of you know, sneak in. Sometimes you just want to take it on the chin that first year, get better and then you know, start to build from there. The Bills, I think they're gonna have the twenty one,

twenty second overall pick. They need to get better. They need to figure out if Tyrod Taylor's their quarterback, and they also need to find more pieces for McDermott's defense. But a very big step for them to make the playoffs. The question that I have though, is whether or not they're gonna be able to build on it. Yeah, I would agree with that. Let's go to another break back with more on Packers Unscripted right after this, Welcome back

to Packers Unscripted. Mike Spofford here, West had kuits all the way over there. West. There's a topic kind of left over from the super Bowl that we haven't had a chance to address yet, sort of been on my mental list of things. So today is the day that we're going to talk about. And what I'm referring to is the catch rule. We saw obviously some key replayed decisions that were made in the Super Bowl that a lot of people wondered, Hey, that wasn't necessarily quite the

way some things were called in the regular season. So what's going on here? We heard Roger Goodell, the commissioner, during Super Bowl week, talk about needing to once again sort of deconstruct the entire catch rule, you know, build it up again from from scratch so that it's something that everybody can can count on and understand, so it could be a big offseason in that respect. For the

rule book, Where do you think this is going? I was sitting and I believe it was Phoenix, Arizona, beautiful sun soaked day out in the desert at the owners meetings, now almost three years ago, the last time that they tried to clarify the catch roll coming out of the two thousand fourteen season, that does Bryant catch no catch? And I remember Michael sitting in my seat at that hotel hearing for the first time when the NFL unveiled these plans that they were going to clarify this rule

and the wording that is included in it. From that moment, I was thinking to myself, there is nothing clear about this. And I think over the past three seasons, you've seen what has happened because they didn't just deconstruct the rule from the beginning. They tried to leave it what it was and tried to find more ways to make it more understandable, more more relatable. In some ways, the opposite happened. I think it failed. So I I believe this is the right course of action. I think you got to

start back from square one. I think you have to throw throw it out. I think you need to get your your smartest people in the league together, coaches, personnel, competition committee, whatever it takes. I think you've got to get them all in one room together and figure this thing out, because I think the problem is is we've now reached a point where common sense doesn't prevail enough anymore.

And now we when we bring up the film, when we bring up the review and and all these things, we are trying to find any reason why something might not be a catch, rather than trying to look at it as well, why might it actually be a catch? And I think that's been the biggest issue, want to be honest with you. As we said after Super Bowl, that was one of the reasons why I was so happy with the way the Super Bowl was officiated, because I felt like common sense prevailed. Yeah, I like what

you said. They're about about the perspective on you know, instead of always trying to find a reason for it not to be a catch, what about looking a little more closely at the reasons that it is a catch. I like to use the Corey Clement touchdown in the Super Bowl, if you remember that one with the former running back from Wisconsin. I like to use that as an example of what I think is a is a

potential positive shift in where this is going. And what I mean by that is we saw we've seen for the last few years now in reviewing any kind of a catch, if the slow motion shows that the ball is moving, that always seems to have been equated to a loss of control by the receiver by the ball carrier. What we saw on the Corey Clement touchdown being upheld as a touchdown, we saw the ball moving, but they did not say that that ball moving meant loss of control.

And I think that's where common sense is starting to prevail. Just because the ball is moving does not mean that that receiver has lost control of it. And I think if we if we include that in part of the analysis, in part of the analysis, which I think it was in the Super Bowl, I think we start to make more sense. Yeah, I agree with because the game is not played with stick hum not legally at least can

be pretty sticky. But but the thing is about it, Mike, is that they're human beings playing a game that takes you know, unworldly ability to successfully execute. And I think sometimes we have to realize that if we make these rules so complicated. I'm not saying like it's fair and not fair. I'm just saying you're trying to appeal to viewers. Right. This is the boredom killing business, right. I mean, people

are sitting at home. They want to be entertained. They aren't entertained by watching a referee for two and a half minutes talking to New York. So do what makes sense, make it clear, make it concise. Inland, let's put our best foot forward. No pun intended, because I think using another example from that, the zach Ertz touchdown in in you know, I feel for Chris Collinsworth. It's a tough

spot to be in. But the fact that that was even a dialogue for as long as it was, when it was so abundantly clear that that was a football move. He caught the ball, the ball never moved, he was taking strides of the end zone. Okay, the ball first touched the ground, I get that, but the ball had already crossed the plane. So that's the part of this.

It gets back to what I said originally, where I think people are just trying to break these things down so much it's just creating frustration, anxiety where it doesn't need to be. But I do think there's a distinction, and this is what a lot of people are still arguing about between the zach ERT's catching the Super Bowl and the Jesse James won the Pittsburgh New England game.

Because zach Ertz clearly he caught the ball with one foot on the ground, he took two more steps towards the end zone as he dove for the goal line. Jesse James was the more classic example of he was going to the ground as he was still catching the ball and and that that's that's a little different. It's not like his feet were established, you know. I think you can definitely make the argument on the Jesse James play that there wasn't really a football move, you know.

So I do think there needs to be a distinction. But again, this is where it gets complicated. You need to write the rule in a certain way, but along the same lines, you know, the two and a half minute reviews, those have got to stop. I don't care if it's a catch or a fumble or whatever the call is that's being reviewed. They've gotta they've got to tighten this up because because the fans at home and the fans in the stands for that matter, are getting

a little tired. Go back to I think that's that's the first thing they did when they implemented it league wide back in whatever year that was. They got to go back to that because I think that forces them to make a decision. And if it's not clear after ninety seconds, Michael, then the call in the field. Yeah, then you stick with the call in the field. Before we go to a break, West, a little sponsored business. Today is a perfect day to fill up with some

new Campbell's Chunky Max soup. Chunky Max is loaded with more meat than you can handle, a lot more. We're talking more than a comparable chunky soup. So go on, fill up with new Campbell's Chunky Max Soup. Campbell's Chunky Soup the official soup partner the Green Bay Packers back with more on Packers Unscripted right after this, Welcome back

to Packers Unscripted. Mike Spofford next to West, Hodkowits and West before we go, a little bit of news to talk about, not necessarily news about the Packers, but it relates to the Packers a little bit. In that uh one of those a f C East opponents on the Packers schedule for this upcoming season, we didn't talk about as the Miami Dolphins, and they have just franchise tagged

their top wide receiver, Jarvis Landry. And when you look at that situation and what's going on, and we'll be seeing more franchise tags for other players going out here, probably over the next couple of weeks. The Packers decision to extend Davante Adams before the regular season ended. When you look at Landry and his statistics and now the money that he would potentially be paid on this one franchise year if he signs that tender, um, the Packers

decision is looking smarter by the day. It really is, Mike, and we're gonna have a you know, go back to our daily format of unscripted next week and early next week we'll be breaking down some of the Packers roster and how it stands going to the NFL NFL scouting Mine. We'll discuss that further. But the thing to understand what the franchise tag's basically three reasons why you use it. One, it can give you more time to negotiate an extension. That's what the Packers did the last time they used

it in two thousand and ten with Ryan Pickett. They tagged him and then they ended up agreeing to a long term deal with them too. You take them because you don't want to lose them, and then they end up playing on that tag like Kurt Cousins did. That can put you in some problems too, and he did it for two years in a row, for two years for Washington. It's the value basically the average of the top five contracts at that position the first year, second year goes up to the year after that. I think

is or something like that just skyrockets. The third reason you do it is if you want to trade him. I look at the situation with the Dolphins. I'm guessing they're trying to go for one. Might have to settle for option too. And when you do it this early in the process, I saw this on Twitter and I thought it was such a smart analysis. You're basically not

doing it the first day. If you think you're close to signing an extension with the guy, it's probably a bigger sign that you're going to be going through rough negotiations. So the Packers being able to take care of Davante Adams with two days left in the regular season in two thousand seventeen. Not only did that allow them to spread out that signing bonus, it prevented them from being in the situation now that the Miami Dolphins find themselves

in with Jarvis Landry. Yeah, and the franchise tag thing can get tricky because, as you said, sometimes you put the tag on a guy, it gives you time, you work out an extension, everything is fine. Other times it can get pretty acrimonious. You can get pretty content. And yeah, there there are a lot of examples. And you wonder with with Jarvis Landry, you know, probably the single biggest

offensive threat for the Miami Dolphins. You know, just how smoothly this might go over time And as crazy as things unfolded in Washington, the Kirk Cousins situation was basically the best case scenario for everybody. Cousins played under the contract, he was happy with it. Washington ended up moving on. But we'll see exactly what happens now with the Dolphins. Yeah, I guess we'll have to see. But 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 Hodd, I am at Mike Spofford at Packers for the team account. Thanks for tuning in, everybody. We'll see you next time. H m h