#315 Packers Unscripted: Roster and rule changes

for a podcast. So we spent a lot of time on yesterday's show breaking down the roster and how the Packers got down to fifty three players. But as we know, that roster is an ever evolving entity with regards to the Packers, and two new editions already coming through the door, one being linebacker Corey Tumor, the other running back Darius Jackson, players picked up from elsewhere. We'll start with Tumor because he actually practiced with the Packers for the first time

on Monday. A veteran inside linebacker, this is his eighth team now since being drafted by the Seahawks back in two thousand twelve. Took him a while to come into his own a little bit in the NFL, but over the last two years two thousand sixteen two thousand seventeen with the Chargers both in San Diego and Los Angeles as a part time starter, put up some pretty good numbers. This is a guy who, you know, the Packers are very young, obviously an inside linebacker might be able to

help out here. Yeah, he'll turn thirty this season, you know, I think in December. So very interesting that they would go out and find a guy like this. He offers them some flexibility there at the inside linebacker position. Also some potential contributions on special teams, which is always what you look for from those backup interior or inside linebackers. The part I love, I want to say love the most, but I think is the most poetic of this whole

situation with Tumor. It really illustrates the agony and ecstasy of cutdown day because the corresponding roster move Tumor getting signed was Jake Kumero, who finally makes a fifty three man roster. Well, he goes on injured reserve now that keeps him eligible to potentially be activated to the roster

later this season as a designated return player. But you know, for everything he did, I'm sure he really wanted to be there week one, playing with these guys and being able to live that NFL dream after trying for so long to make it in the NFL three training camps before this year. And then conversely, you have Tumor, who came into the league in two thousand twelve, spent a number of seasons on the Seattle Seahawks practice squad on their injured reserve. Their story sort of parallel each other

a little bit. You know, he had to go to Dallas, he had to play with the Rams. It wasn't until really he finally settled in with the Chargers. This guy really got a chance to show what he could do on the football field. This offseason. As you mentioned, he signs with the forty Niners, doesn't work out there, so now he's in day So as he said, this isn't easy. You know, you have to be able to pick up stuff quickly. Now it's week one of the regular season.

But being honest, this is also something Tumor has really been dealing with his entire career, having to catch up on the fly. Yeah, and he was hoping obviously to land a spot with the San Francisco forty Niners, but he admitted he was signed there basically as an insurance policy for Reuben Foster because the forty Niners did not know what was going to be happening with all the off field legal troubles and everything that was going on

with Foster, so he signed there. But then the forty Niners also drafted somebody after that, I believe in the third round, a linebacker out of b y U as another potential insurance policy with regards to Foster. So as that all developed, and then Foster got into camp and in the preseason he sort of saw the writing on the wall and wasn't necessarily shocked when he got released. But within a couple of hours, he said, he got a phone call from the Packers. The Packers had contacted

his agent. They worked something out fairly quickly. In uh and here he is. You look at those numbers. His last two seasons with the Chargers started a total of sixteen games, eight games each season, over a hundred total tackles, five forced fumbles in that time, a couple of sacks, five passes defense, including one interception that he returned for

a touchdown. He feels like in limited playing time, he put up some pretty good numbers and maybe he's just scratching the surfaces to what he might be able to do, even though, as you mentioned, he's approaching that magic age of thirty. Yeah, and it's a little bit different, you know, for inside linebackers. I think that isn't always necessarily the I don't want to say the fear factor that that it is at some other positions. You see a lot of guys, particularly his play style, be able to succeed

in this league going into their thirties. But what's interesting about his story is if you go back and look at it, I mean, that's a guy that was a junior college player originally, he ends up transferring to Idaho, doesn't really have a whole lot of buzz, but then puts up a pretty darn good pro day. And you go back to two thousand and twelve when he came out,

I think ran like a four or five three. Um. Now, mind you it is six years later, now I understand that, but uh, there was there there was traits that I think John Snyder saw with him that that the Seahawks developed him for three years and ultimately ends up moving on. But uh, he's just always kind of scratched and clawed

his way into this league. And I think even during his time with the Chargers, you know, he started i want to say half of those games and two seasons with them, it was mostly just out of you know, when he had to be in there, he went in there and made the most of it. I think if nothing else, he gives the Packers a veteran that can come in here and work with some of these young guys. Because although Antonio Morrison has played a lot in this league, he's only twenty three years old. He was in the

same draft class as Blake Martinez. You have Warren Burke's coming back as a third round rookie draft pick. So I think having a little bit more of a veteran leader in that room can go a long way, because you go back and look at what did for a J Hawk and and these other guys back during the really prime years of that defense. It goes a long way.

And being able to have some other veterans that you can work off and we'll see what opportunities present themselves for tumor you might special teams and at inside linebacker right now for the Packers, or and Burke's still working through a shoulder injury, was not back at practice on Monday, and James Crawford, the undrafted rookie who made the roster, he was also in the rehab group at practice. Injury is undisclosed at this time. There won't be an official

injury report until Wednesday. So the Packers a little bit thin at inside linebacker for the moment here in week one, so we'll see what happens. But another position where the Packers ended Saturday at cut down time very thin, and that was that running back. They only kept Jamal Williams and Time Montgomery. Aaron Jones went on the suspended list. He'll be back in week three. So the Packers end up signing Darius Jackson off of the Dallas Cowboys practice squad.

He was cut, he cleared waivers, then was signed to the practice squad and then the Packers kind of swooped in and and signed him anyway, And so a number three running back at least for the time being. What do you know about Jackson? It's interesting because I went back and really read up on him and his time at the Cowboys. He was a former six round draft pick of Dallas. He had two different stints with them,

also spent some time I leave with the Cleveland Browns. Uh. The one thing that always stands out to me about those type of players that are probably later round draft picks but end up coming back Cowboys. For as much as you want to talk about, you know, Jerry Jones and that they have done, I I believe a pretty darn good job of developing, you know, some inside talent, you know, in the last five six years, especially with really just sort of looking internally to develop guys rather

than you know, free agency. And I thought Jackson was one of those guys. And the fact that they brought him back I think kind of speaks to what they felt his level of talent was. And in reading some of the clippings and in that sort of stuff, this past offseason sounds like you put together a pretty darn good camp. Wasn't good enough for him to make the roster at a very highly competitive position there for the Cowboys, but was signed back to the practice squad. Now he

comes to Green Bay. I think it's a good opportunity for him. The Packers you know it's gonna be this game specifically, I think you're gonna see a lot of Jamal Williams in time on Smory. We'll see whether or not Jackson is going to be active in it. But um, you know, getting hopefully in these netcoming days, getting a chance to talk to him a little bit about his

experience and where he's come from will be interesting. But um, Eastern Michigan kid that I think has really uh, you know, made his way in this league the first couple of years, you know, despite some kind of humble college beginnings. Yeah. Well, we talked about all of the different maschinations of cut down Day here regarding these players who are now in Green Bay, players who are no longer in Green Bay.

You discovered kind of a fun story with regards to cut down Day here in Green Bay with the Packers, a group of I guess you'd call him the undrafted rookies, kind of getting together, spending the day together and hoping the phone doesn't ring kind of thing. Just you've you've posted the story on our website. Tell us what you

found out. Yeah, so, Tim Boyle obviously a fan favorite here throughout the preseason and in him Alex Light, undrafted rookie out of Richmond offensive lineman, and I believe also Austin Davis and a couple other guys were involved in this group of players that were really, you know, just trying to get through the day with all the anxiety

and everything that's going on. I thought it was really interesting when I was talking to Boil, you know, he said, by the time he'd even woken up, he was already getting text messages from teammates, uh, you know league wide that had already not you know, gotten the bad news sommer teammates like high school and college every everything, packers, what have you. And I thought it was interesting, he mentioned, like at that point it becomes real, like the call

could come at any minute. So him Light a collectually these guys went out for breakfast. A bunch of them came into Lambeau actually and worked out, just trying to do everything they can to get their mind off things, and Light kind of recounted a story about how there's about five of them total, and then as the morning went on, the phone call started coming in, and by the time they got to lunchtime, it was just Boil and Light. So they went down the street here to

Texas Roadhouse. Uh sat down, as as Boyle said, just got a good steak and just tried to wait it out, and three o'clock came. Oil said. Two minutes after three, he finally got a call from his agency confirming he'd made the team. What an incredible journey it's been for him. I we we do a feature usually on an undrafted rookie win after they signed in the spring, and Boyle

was the guy I talked to this year. And you know, if you know anything about where he comes from, UH was a three time state champion, I believe in high school. But he stays in state at Yukon. He has three different offensive coordinators in three years. It doesn't work out there. He transfers to Eastern Kentucky. And I think he came to the NFL and came to Green Bay with a chip on his shoulder to show that you know what, I belong in this league. I can play in this league.

And now he has the opportunity to stay on the Packers fifty three and then just quickly on light. This is a guy that was had two scholarship offers coming out of high school. I believe it was Richmond and VM I if I remember correctly, uh, And he was told he was too small, he wasn't gonna be able to play at a major college. And then lo and behold, not only does he end up making the roster as the ninth offensive lineman and an undrafted rookie, he played

left tackle for most of the preseason. You've covered this league for a long time, like you know it. When guys come in from those fcs, you know, sort of left tackles or lower tier FBS schools, a lot of times they end up moving them to into your alignment. James correct James Campon took a look at light and he said, no, I want you to play tackle, and then here he is now. As he said, it kind of caught him off guard at first, but at the end of the day, it ended up being his ticket

to the roster. A lot of silence, a lot of anxiety, but totally worth it for both of those guys to end up being one of four undrafted rookies to make the team. Yeah. I can't imagine personally, just the nerves and the anxiety of something like that for cutdown day, for these young guys who you know, you know, you're on the bubble. But that's all they know. What are

their chances of making it not making it? There's almost no way to gauge it because there are so many different factors that go into these decisions that the team's making. It's interesting because I've heard stories over the years from lots of different players, and this can go a number of different ways. This one, this particular year, it sounded like these players their phone just never rang. They and then the three o'clock deadline passes and they haven't gotten

a phone call. And you sit there and go, well, I guess I've made the team because nobody called me. Other times you hear from players where maybe their position coach sent them a quick text or a call, uh to end the anxiety and just say, hey, you know you've made it. You know we're good and everything so, and there's never necessarily a rhyme or reason to how

these how these things work out. But these cut down days can go in in so many different ways for these guys, and I don't know, I just I can't imagine trying to you know, I mean, waking up whatever it is, eight nine o'clock in the morning, and they get up and then they've got the six seven hours of of agony, almost waiting to find out what their future is. It's it's got to be. It's just it's got to be rough. I give these guys a lot

of credit. Those I mean, even those who don't make it, and maybe we'll never hear from them again, but um, you know, they gave it everything they had and uh, and now it's time to move on. Yeah, it's tough because it isn't just that three o'clock headline. You know, Boil and Light both talked about it to you. It's the entire weekend. It's basically all the way up until Tuesday, when I think you're guaranteed a paycheck of just you know,

not sure what's going to happen. Two thousand sixteen, Mike, you go or two fifteen excuse me, Miles White, first time in three camps, finally makes the roster and then James Jones comes flying in the next day and whites the corresponding roster move. It's just the nature of the beast. Nobody likes it, but the end of the day, the Packers are trying to put together their top fifty three players, and sometimes even if you make that initial cut doesn't

always mean you're going to be there the next Sunday. Yeah, that's for sure. Um. Well, before we get to one other topic, West, a little bit of sponsor business. Enter the Cousins Subs Best Seats in the House promotion. You and a guest could win a chance to kick back on the fifty yard line in style. Two pairs of lucky Packers fans will be chosen prior to each home game for this v i P experience. Enter daily now through December sixteen by completing the entry form and submitting.

For complete rules and eligibility, go to Packers dot com slash Best Seats Cousins Subs We Believe in Better. Okay, one more topic I want to hit on before we go today, West, and that's something that it was a topic across the league throughout the preseason. We never really got around to discussing it on this show. Seems like now would be a decent time to do so. And what I'm talking about is this whole new use of

the helmet rule that we saw a number of questionable flags. Um, a number of players getting upset about calls being made that they don't know what they did wrong and this and that. Obviously in the preseason, the officials are looking forward even more closely. It's a new rule. They're trying to, you know, trying to educate the players, trying to get them accustomed to it, trying to get accustomed to what they're looking for as officials and all that kind of stuff.

But bottom line, West, it was a little bit of a mess in the preseason. Is this going to straighten itself out in the regular season or how do you see this evolving from here? Because it just it seems like it's kind of just getting started. Yeah. It was funny though, because I thought the first game the actors played that that they opened the training or the preseason

with against the believe it was Tennessee. It was it was like this is bad man, because it was like every other play sometimes back to back places, there's just flag after flag after flag. I think a running back got called for lowering his helmet, basically running through the tackles. I don't know how else you're supposed to do that if you're running back. I mean, they talk about pad level, they don't talk about mall walking, you know, through the offensive line. But I will say this as the at

least as it relates to Green Bay. I can't speak for the NFL. It seemed like every preseason game it got a little bit better. And you know, every year we hear about these emphasis emphases. You go back and that one year it was defensive holding, it was defensive past interference, and the flags are just flying, and then once you get to the regular season, they're a little

bit more conservative with it. Uh the refs are practicing, they're they're working these things out to they're having the conversations. So my hope would be is that And I've always said this, Mike, you cannot rule this league objectively. You just can't. It's a subjective league by nature. The game itself is subjective. Where you want to put the football when you're lining up for third and one is subjective.

I don't care what you say until we start with this type like maybe the tennis ball technology that shows you where the ball actually wasps thing, But otherwise it's subjective. You can't rule it objectively. So I hope my only aspiration for this season there is a little bit of wiggle room allowed, specifically with the helmet rule, for just common sense to prevail. Yes, you do not want to have the hit from Danny Trevathan on Davante Adams or the Thomas Davis hit on Adams. You want to get

that out of the game. But we also saw some really good competitive clean hits like the one on Marcedes Lewis or even more specifically, the one on Jamon Moore against uh Riah was Oakland. You want to be able

to see those type of plays. You want to be able to see competitive high level football in trying to eliminate the egregious helmet helmet hits and and also have some understanding that sometimes contact is going to happen to Yeah, I'm gonna get on the uh the spoford soapbox a minute, if you don't mind, you gotta get the little graphic

I've said. I've said this in Insider inbox. I've had conversations with you about it when it comes to these safety rules, and I'm all for instituting these rules and trying to make the game safer. The league has to do it for its own future. I think I think that's indisputable. My problem with it is I think they're asking the officials on the field to do too much.

I think if you want to put these rules in about lowering the helmet and certain types of contact and all this, you have to let them go to replay to decide these fifteen yard penalties. And I'm not I'm not advocating four hour games with you know, fift twenty stoppages for replays. I don't think that's necessarily good for

the game either. But you can't have these games decided by a fifteen yard penalty in the fourth quarter on a hit that at full speed looks like it could be illegal according to the rule, and they throw the flag. But then when you as you take one look at it on replay and you're like, no, he hit him with the shoulder. He didn't hit him with the helmet. It's perfectly legal. Yet there's no redress for it. There's

no way to fix it. I think they're asking the officials on the field to do too much, too, to administer all of what I'll call the regular rules where the ball is spotted for third and one, the past interference, the holding calls, everything else, and then all these safety rules on top of it. I just think it's too much. Wes and and if the league is not going to allow more of these safety rules to be subject to replay.

I think we're gonna end up seeing games decided by highly questionable calls and and the fans aren't gonna stand for it. The fans are gonna get really, really upset, and the players and the coaches are gonna get upset about it too. Yeah, And I thought they made a really good move. Probably maybe the best move the NFL has made in relation to rules was a few years ago when they when they really put an emphasis down on the targeting, you know, leaving your body launching, yourself launching.

I always go back to that game against Washington, I think it was in two thousand twelve or thirteen where Eddie Lacey ends up sustaining the concussion from a hit from Brandon Merryweather remember who it was two. Lacey's rookie. Yeah, and and those There's just no place for that in

this day and age. And I wish they could have maybe just kind of rotated from that a little bit to to try to eliminate the Davante Adams hits from last year, as opposed to I think going on the other side of it and taking your regular down and you know, the type of places you see all the time. Because I go back to that, that running play was the biggest eye open to me. I think it was

the Titans game. Correct me if I'm wrong. The Titans were driving at that point in time, and the running back puts his helmet down to go again in a you know, power type situation, and that's a fifteen yard penalty that's stalled the drive. They end up punting two plays later. Pat And now the thing I remember tweeting it, or I remember writing about an inbox the next day. If that's a If that's a Packers player and that happens in the regular seasons, lambeau Field would have been

beside itself, no question. You know it was preseason. It's the opponent. Nobody really cared. That's what I'm gonna be keeping my eye on now that we get into the regular season. Right, and my point about asking the officials to do too much, I'll go to another rule that generated a lot of discussion and and some change in the rule book in the off season. The catch rule. Okay, there's this whole thing now about control and two feet down and a football move and all that they're trying

to get that straightened out. Okay, be that back judge on the steam route down the middle, you're supposed to watch when he has control the ball, gets two feet down, makes a football move to complete the catch. But then you're also supposed to know if the defender is lowering his helmet and making an illegal contact that could be a fifteen yard penalty on top. How is the human being at live speed with some of the greatest athletes on the planet supposed to keep track of all that

and call it correctly without going to replay. I I don't. I don't think it's fair to the officials, and the fans get all mad at the officials, and they shouldn't. It's not the officials fault. It's the league's fault. I've always said this. I don't care if it's the NFL. I don't care if it's Bayport in high school. I do. I want nothing to do with being a referee at any point in my lifetime. I couldn't do it all right, Well,

with that, West has signed off. I've never officiated a football game, and we are going to sign off on this edition of Packers Unscripted. Be sure to follow all of our coverage of the team here in week one on Packers dot Com. Will be with you once a day now through the regular season, Monday through Friday. With that on Twitter, he's at West hot I met Mike Spofford at Packers for the team account. Thanks for tuning in, everybody, See you next time.