#322 Packers Unscripted: Health update

participate in. He was rehabbing instead, but he said he's feeling a little bit better every day and all indications are that his focus is on doing whatever it takes to play in this game. Yeah. I think he made that pretty clear after the game against Affairs that that is what exactly he's wanting to do. Mike Zimmer, as Mike Simmer always does in the conference call with Green Bay Media every year, it seems like there's a noteworthy

bit that comes out of it. This year was his reply, and that, well, he walks on waters, so we're expecting him to play Rogers coincidentally does not in fact walk on water. But you know, he is a guy that I think when you look at what he's played through over the years and how he's overcome those situations. He's gonna do everything he can to be on the field

on Sunday afternoon. He knows the importance of that game, not only the division implications, but really you're looking at two, I think, on paper, two of the better teams in the NFC in general. So I'm sure there's no shortage and motivation for him to be out there, and we'll have to see all the week goes. Mike McCarthy said, it's gonna be a day by day process. It's gonna be just him being in that rehap group trying to get whatever he needs to be ready for it. But

the history is there. I mean, Aaron Rodgers, the way he's wired, he doesn't want to be on the sideline. Yeah, no question about that. His for him, the way he described it to reporters, his threshold in terms of whether or not he feels he can be an effective player has to do with his mobility. And now he drew a distinction obviously because he's not talking about being so mobile as to scramble out of the pocket and extend plays and all those things that we've seen him do.

In the past. But it's about having enough mobility to be able to shuffle his feet and move in the pocket to create the passing lanes that you need based on where the rush lanes are and how the pass rush is coming after you. He was able to do

that Sunday night against the Bears. And when you look back at the touchdown pass to Geronimo Allison the last touchdown to Randall Cobb, both of those were plays where he shuffled to his left to create some space for himself in order to get off the past that he needed to. He feels as long as he can do that, he's going to be able to play because he doesn't seem concerned about the knee, or at least the doctors have told him and everything. He's not concerned about it

from the standpoint of re injuring it any further. It's just a matter of managing that pain and being able to move around just enough. Yeah, and that Allison throw is probably the big one for me in terms of passing the eye test, because hey, you want to do quick passes, you want to get the ball move, and you want to get into a rhythm. He was able to do that. He made a heck of a pass to Cob on the seventy yarder, But really it's those downfield threats that are gonna be what opens up the

Packers offense. He did that got single you know, really single separation one on one coverage with Kyle Fuller and Allison and I think you go back and look at that play and I've I've seen it about four or five times now. It looks like an effortless throw for him. It looked like he was too discomforted and trying to get that out there just seem like traditional Aaron Rodgers football.

That's the biggest thing for him because certainly there is going to be discomfort if he does play, there's gonna be some of that pain that goes with the territory. He's done it before, but it's really been able to threat,

you know, threaten the downfield. Uh, And you know that it's gonna be one of those things that if Rogers does go in this game, it's gonna be on the offensive line, it's gonna be on the receivers every but he has to step their game up to make sure that he's in a favorable spot for you know, seventy eight plays whatever it takes. Yeah, Well, another injury update that nobody was necessarily aware of until Wednesday's practice. Wide

receiver Davante Adams did not practice on Wednesday. Turns out he banged his shoulder a little bit on that fifty one yard catch and run in the fourth quarter. Said when he got tackled, it was kind of an awkward collision, and like with Rogers, he had the adrenaline to play through it. He actually caught another past two plays later for a short game, and then the next play after that he got his touchdown there at the pylon. So

he played out the rest of the game. But he woke up on Monday a little stiff and sore with the shoulder. He sounded rather optimistic about being able to play, but being cautious right now in practice as far as making sure he gets to heal up as well. Yeah, I mean, adrenaline, man, it's just so there's nothing better than it. I mean, it's what the kids gets it through those kind of instances. But him, you know the way he's wired, much like Rogers, He's gonna want to

be out there. And I took my cap to him for I mean, the fifty one yard catch was great. That was a fine play and one of the biggest ones of that entire contest. But he had to work for that. Twelve year touched on him. You gotta remember that was kind of a sort of almost a receiver screen in some ways, and kind of had to make that play happen, had to make a guy miss and had to dive into the end zone. So, knowing what we know now about that, it's kind of a gut

check for him to be able to pull that through. Again. Though this isn't Davante Adams and year one or year two. He's a veteran. He's been around this thing. If he doesn't get all the reps, it's not the end of the world. It opens up more opportunities for Alison, Marcus Velde,

Scantling and those other young receivers on this roster. The biggest thing for Adams though, is going to be being available and potentially, you know, getting to even if he has to play through certain things, being able to have that full of assortment of reps that he's used to. Yeah, he had said when the play happened, he didn't even think much of it in terms of his shoulder, like it really didn't feel like anything had happened or that

the tackle was anything out of the ordinary. It really wasn't until the next day, or maybe late that night before he went to bed, or whatever the case was, that he started to feel like, oh, my shoulders a little sore, you know, so one of those things that obviously get him the rest and recovery needs nippet in the bud. Now, let him get through another game, hopefully nothing gets worse, and then you know, Davante is good to go for a while. He's kind of cut from

that same Randall Cobcloth too. It's like, I mean, those guys are you're pretty much gonna have to take a limb off for them not to play through something. So and they don't exactly enjoy talking about their injuries. They realize it's part of the deal that you know, whether you're practicing not practicing, or something's going on, you're on the injury report, reporters are going to come up to

you and say, hey, what's going on. So, I mean, they get it, but they would just as soon you know, nobody even know, because they don't want it to come off as like an excuse for their play and everything. We've heard that from these guys all the time. The only analogy I've been able to throw up people because people often ask this in the Fantasy football eras what's

affected all this? Probably absolutely, But it is funny because I said, just imagine going to work and having a cold, there's some kind of illness and being sick about it, and having every single one of your coworkers come up and ask you about it, every single person you come across to ask you about it. Yeah. Yeah, over time, you're not gonna want to talk about it that much.

So be that as it may. Like I said before, I mean Adams the way he's wired, the way he approaches this game, assuming he's cleared to go, I mean he's he's met. From a mental perspective, he's gonna be worried he needs to be going into Sunday. Yeah, definitely. Well with that, West quickly a little sponsor business, It is time to 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. Sticking with the topic of the Packers offense right now, we actually both a little bit from Mike McCarthy and then also from Aaron Rodgers in terms of how Rogers injury aside, how that game unfolded for the Packers offensively against the Bears. With regards to tight end Jimmy Graham. You look at the statistics, Jimmy Graham to catches for eight yards, not exactly what people were expecting, but Randall cob nine for a buck forty two, Davante

Adams five for eight eight. I think it was Geronimoy Allison five for fifty nine, all three sixty nine. All three of those guys have a touchdown reception. So it's like, well,

what happened with Jimmy Graham. Well, the Bears made him the focal point of their defense and in terms of their coverage, Aaron Rodgers talked about how their whole game plan was out in the middle of the field, they had an outside linebacker who was disrupting Graham at the line of scrimmage, not letting him get a clean release into his route. And then when the Packers were close to the end zone, down in the red zone area,

they were simply double teaming. They had either a cloud cover to his side or they simply bracketed him with with one coverage guy up front and then another guy in the back. So um, not the type of start to his packer's career that Jimmy Graham was looking for. But the guy was affecting the game because he was

affecting how Chicago was playing its defense. And Marv up in the control room, if we could, I'm guessing we can't bring up my clip from I think May talking about how the addition of Jimmy Graham is going to be the best friend for Randall Cole exactly. I'm not sitting here trying to act like I'm some kind of you know, psychic with this stuff nostradamus exactly. But it was obvious that this is gonna be one of the

beneficiaries of this approach. It's not a coincidence. I mean, now, Randall cop did a lot of great things on his own, but it's not a coincidence that Jimmy Graham gets entered this offense and Randall Cobb has a career day. This the way that defense are gonna have to approach this, Mike, We've talked about it since the day that Graham was signed. They have to make a decision. If Auntie Adams mentioned this in the post game too, when he was talking

his locker. There were times where he got double team. There were times where Cobb got double team and we saw a lot of double teaming or as you said, some of the cloud coverage that they did to Graham. That's what opened up the opportunity on that one series to Geronto Willison to win his one on one. That is ultimately what's going to be able to assuming they can keep all these pieces healthy, make this offense what they think it can be. This week, a lot of

emphasis on Jimmy Graham. Next week that might change. Maybe that's when Jimmy Graham breaks out, but whatever the case may be, there's so many different components in the middle of the field. Mike McCarthy's wanted to attack that area. They did it in that game against the Bears, and they did it through Randall Cobb. In a tip of the hat to Jimmy Graham for being able to divert

some of that coverage. Yeah, and I'm really interested to see comes Sunday afternoon what the Vikings decided to do, because you look at Minnesota's first game against the San Francisco forty Niners. A little known tight end, a guy, I'll admit I ever heard of him? Is it George Kittle? Is his name? Five catches for ninety yards? He was.

He was Jimmy Garoppolo's go to guy, was the tight end. Now, I don't know enough about the XS and os, and I don't watch all of Minnesota's game film, but they were probably presumably more focused on Garoppolo's outside targets, the guys on the edges, the wide receivers, and so that tight end. Kittle had some matchups that he was able to take advantage of, and Garoppolo took advantage of ninety yards from a tight end. That's a pretty big game. Now,

what will Minnesota do with regards to Jimmy Graham? And you know what the Packers having, assuming Adams is able to play in Adams Cobb and Allison how all this unfolds. As you said, defense is going to have to make a choice. It's an eleven on eleven game. It's a numbers game. Anybody, any defense can take away anybody else on offense if they want to. It's how this league works. So what is Minnesota going to decide? That's what we have to wait and see. And you mentioned the red

zone some of the double coverage that got there. That the exciting thing I think if you're Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers in this offense, is that Davante Adams and Randall cop are really proficient in that area of the field as well. I don't know if that's just the product of the scrambled drill or just the roads that they're running, or the Christmas of it, but they have

been effective without that kind of threat. Now that you put Graham and that equation, there are a lot of things that didn't go right for the Packers in two thousand seventeen. Nobody's denying that they were pretty good as far as red zone offense, though, and now that you have Graham added into that mix, I think it's only gonna take them one step farther and and to be honest with you, Mike too, and I'm glad you brought that up. Kittle him and Garoppolo last year they started

to develop a little bit of rapport. You could tell that that's a guy that Garoppolo has a lot of confidence in. Aaron Rodgers has really developed a good chemistry with Jimmy Graham. And we'll see exactly how this situation

unfolds on Sunday. But I think, honestly, it's only a matter of time before you really start to see that production maybe swerve its way a little bit towards Graham, just based on the fact that there were so many opportunities for them throughout training camp, throughout the preseason that they really did capitalize on. Yeah, there are a lot

of different ways this could play out schematically. Now what I know about the Minnesota Vikings, they will certainly have no problem leaving Xavier Rhodes one on one, their top cornerback will play one on one. They won't worry about

safety help for him. But then if you're talking about wanting safety help on you know, Cobb or Allison, but then also wanting it for Graham potentially, well, does that take Sendejo and Harrison Smith out of the blitz packages and out of the pressure packages, which then leaves the Packers offensive line and the protection unit just dealing with the front four, maybe not so much the extra rushers

those This is all part of the chess match. It's it's and and the way things start in the first quarter is not necessarily how the game is going to be played in the fourth quarter. These three hours out there on Sunday afternoon, a lot of adjustments back and

forth and everything. And with this this addition of Jimmy Graham being new to the Packers offense with the vikings and you know, wanting to do what they do on defense and do so well because they've had this unit together for so long, it just makes for a really

intriguing matchup all the way around. And we'll get into some of like the what it's going to take to win this game stuff on Friday, But for me, I think the biggest decision, one of the biggest decisions that Mike Zimmer has to make, is how they're going to use Mike Hughes. And it's by all accounts, it sounds like Trey Wayne's is gonna be Okay, I think he was a full participant on Wednesday. But Hughes appears to be that that slock cornerback. So is he going up

against Graham's he going up against Randall Cobb. That's gonna be a big piece that they're gonna have to figure out. Yeah, Well, switching gears to the defensive side of the ball here quickly, wes um the uh we saw at least in our first introduction to Mike Petton's defense, and it may have been partly driven by the fact that orn Burke said inside linebacker was injured and the other inside linebackers aside

from Martinez haven't been with the team very long. But we saw Mike Petton put a lot of dbs on the field against the Bears, a lot of six dbs and even in some cases seven dB packages depending on high you want to classify Jermaine white Head and how he was used. But the depth of the Packers secondary was needed in Game one, and Mike Petton used every

just about every inch of it. Yeah, he did. And I thought it was really interesting listen to Kirk Cousins talk a little bit about it, because he was asked about those seven dB packages and how that stress as a quarterback. And and he made such a great point is that Petton really was indiscriminate when he used it. I mean he would use it in a variety of

different ways in different situations and down in distances. I think the most common version of that is going to be in the you know, the dime and some of the sub package stuff. But we saw packages Mike that I think Blake Martinez referred to as like a base sub where they had three down linemen, two inside or one inside linebacker, two outside linebackers, and then just five defensive backs. They pivoted so many different ways with their packages.

When when you look at how they were able to utilize Jermine Whitehead as kind of that Nitro Nickel kind of linebacker next to Martinez. Josh Jackson, who I mean, where's all the people now talking about how he couldn't play the slot, how he was a boundary cornerback, a zone boundary cornerback. He's basically dispelled each one of those things every single time he's taken the field for Green Bay. And we all know what Jr. Alexander can do. So

I had a really big question. I said it last week on the show, Mike how this was all gonna look with all these cornerbacks, how Mike pett was going to use him because to me, I didn't want Josh Jackson if I'm if I'm pettent, I didn't want him sitting on the bench most of that game. I wanted him involved in Kudos to him he found out a way to get Tremont Williams and Kevin King playing the entire game, but then also get upwards of forty five

snaps for both Alexander and Jackson. We talked about it being a strength, that the strength as it stands today, and he put it to use against the Bears. Yeah. Well, we talked about how some of the different ways the chess match could unfold with the Packers on offense, the

Packers on defense. The way this, uh, this chess match could go if I'm the Vikings and Kirk Cousins and I'm seeing the six and seven dbs out there in a lot of different situations, the way you get the Packers out of that as you're on the ball with Dalvin Cook, because because six seven dbs on the field, your light in the pants, so to speak, in terms

of being able to stop the run. Now, if you can, if you're the Packers and you can stop the run and contain Dalvin Cook with those kinds of packages, that gives you an advantage. But if you can't, then you need to get a little bit more beef up front, so to speak, in that front seven in order to contain the run. And then the advantage shifts to Kirk Cousins with Stefon Diggs, Adam Thiel and Kyle Rudolph and

all the weapons in the passing game. So there there's a lot of different ways, just as we talked about on the other side of the ball, a lot of different ways that this could play out, and over the course of four quarters and and three hours, there's gonna be a lot of shifting and changing going on. I think the exciting thing if you're a Packers fan right now with this defense is I think there's a really good chance that we don't even see those kind of

packages again in this game. I think you could see pett and potentially and this is just speculation on my part, but I think you could see him take more of that New England approach where your tailor and game plans to specific opponents absolutely in really marching things up a little bit. It is going to be interesting to see, though, exactly what that plan is going to be for Cook and and certainly the defensive front. They know he's going to be a big challenge for them and seeing how

they respond to it. Lastly, Blake Martinez, I think that had to be one of the finest games he's played in the Packers uniform because for fifty nine of those seventy snaps he was on the field. He was the loan inside backer. He was working with guys he wasn't used to working with, and he was the primary communicator. That was a big assignment and that's a big moment that he's going to grow from as this season where's on. Yeah, it was like he was a ship's captain with a

whole new crew. Absolutely, and he was the guy tying that defensive front to kentroll o'brice Hahak, Clinton Dicks in the secretary. That was such a big role for him. It wasn't really talked about much, but that was a huge assignment and he stood up to it. Yeah. Alright, Well, with that, we're going 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, you See you next time.