#350 Packers Unscripted: Planning for the Patriots

the time we're taping this episode. We haven't gotten reaction from the locker room, which we will get after Wednesday's practice. So because I think the discussion of the trades will be better after we get all of that, I want to postpone that until tomorrow's show. So I want to focus today's show on this opponent for the Green Bay Packers Sunday Night football in Foxborough. It's the New England Patriots. And I'll tell you what. These two teams only face

each other once every four years. Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers have faced each other only once. This is gonna be a special game. It really is, and and uh, Bill Belichick was asked about that matchup, and in terms of the best quarterback you know, games he's ever been a part of. He wasn't going to play the game

of like ranking it or saying where it fits. But you can tell how much respect he has for Aaron Rodgers, how much respect he has for Mike McCarthy, and really respecting as a true historian of this game, given his father's uh, you know ties to football as well, his appreciation for what this ultimately is and how rare it is.

I made the analogy in inbox this week. It really is an eclipse in the NFL of two of the greatest forces of this generation of of football meeting and they only cross path atsid only they only come into each other's orbit every four years guaranteed. So for this matchup to go out to Gillette Stadium, I don't know if you saw the Lebron James and Lebron James with the Michael Jordan's Yeah commercial. All that was missing from

that commercial was Lebron James. But even Hollow James played it up to but yeah, they were the same number. I think a lot of people consider them in this right now, one A, one B in terms of the greatest quarterbacks of this uh, of this current NFL. It's gonna be fun to watch. Yeah, Well, I think back to that game in at lambeau Field, West. I know you were covering the team beat reporter for the Press Gazette at that time. I personally felt that was one

of the best regular season games I've ever seen. It was the best I've ever at lambeau Field. Um. When you think about you had Durrell Reeves against Jordy Nelson, you had Nate Soldier against Clay Matthews. You had obviously Brady and Brady and Rogers. Unfortunately, it should have been a preview of the Super Bowl that year. Unfortunately that didn't happen. You had these two coaches, Mike McCarthy Bill

Belichick with Super Bowls on their resume. UM, and as we all expected, it was a four quarter game, came right down in the last couple of minutes. The Packers end up pulling out a really, really big victory that showed the type of team they had that season. But here we are four years later in the New England Patriots. About a month ago, we were hearing the usual thing we hear about the Patriots once they lose a game or two in September, that all Brady and Belichick they're

on the downside. It's not gonna happen, and the dynasty is finally over. Well, since that lost to the Detroit Lions, they actually lost two in a row. They lost the rematch of the a f C Championship to the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week two. Then they lost on the road on Sunday Night Football at Ford Field to the Detroit Lions.

They were one and two. Well, all they've done is rip off five wins in a row, one of them a shootout forty to forty victory over the Kansas City Chiefs, who many are considering the best team in the a f C. Right now. The New England pay Chreots are six and two right in the middle of all of this, including a road win at Soldier Field over a Bears team that gave them all they could handle. Yeah, and the scary thing is too, is that Tom Brady is

getting back into his groove again. It looks like I mean, there were a couple of turnovers early in the season, but for the most part, you look at these last three games he's played, um and I know there weren't any touchdown passes against Buffalo, but they did what they needed to do to win that game in some adverse

situations and circumstances. The fun thing about where the what I really appreciate about the Patriots is I'd say over the last ten years there's probably three, maybe four times where in September the national media tries to pick up on that narrative. I remember there was a couple of years ago, what was that, maybe three or four years ago they're talking about, Is this that for Brady? Is

he finally finally going down? The attempts, the attempts to bury this dynasty are are starting to pile up here because it's it's been it's been attempted, and no one's been successful. But then and then at the end of the year, they're the FC represents end of it begin more times than not in the Super Bowl. Uh, it's a great matchup with the Packers for a number of reasons. You look at the weapons that they have. I know Bill Belichick told the you know New England media this week,

you know he wants more depth at running back. Obviously, Cordurel Patterson ended up being their running back on Monday Night. Uh, Sony Michelle missing that game, James White giving them an option. But I really do like to this point of the season that one to punch, considering they lost Jeremy Hill for the year, that Michelle and then with with James White, we know what he's done for so long, and then the weapons on the boundary. Uh, they went and got

Josh Gordon. I know there was some issues there this week with him and potentially missing meetings reportedly, but there are a lot of things that the Packers have to take into account. But conversely, when you look at the Packers weapons against this defense, there's potentially yards to be gained there too. So I think this just has the makings of what could be a really classic Aaron Rodgers

Tom Brady shoot up. Yeah. I I watched the most I've watched the Patriots this year was the Packers around the bye week, and that was when the Patriots went to Soldier Field in Chicago to play the Bears. I watched a good portion of that game, and what I saw was a Patriots defense still kind of trying to

find itself. They really had trouble with Mitr Drobisky. They didn't account for his scrambling Mitsch Drobisky running the ball was really a key factor for the Bears in that game, and quite frankly, West the Bears very well could have and maybe should have pulled that game out if not for two special teams touchdowns by the Patriots. Cordorrell Patterson. He can still do it in the return game, Canny man, is he dangerous? He took one to the house against

Chicago that really started to turn that game around. And then they were and then they blocked a punt that they returned for a touchdown against the Bears. Chicago ends up losing that game by seven. Hail Mary comes up one yard short of the goal line. And uh, you know, that was potentially a second NFC North team that that

could have beaten the New England Patriots. But um, what I see is a defense that isn't quite up to the standard we've seen of Belichief defenses so far, and uh, and an offense that frankly, with the injury to Sony Michelle, they're trying to, you know, figure some things out, and they've had to deal with Rob Gronkowski missing some time and all that. So it's not the it's not the Patriots in the in the quote unquote sense of the word. But they're still the Patriots. They are and in the

way that they're structured. I mean, you look at that game against Kansas City, which for my money to this point now eight weeks into the season, is still the best game that was probably played this year. I watched basically in an its entirety with Patrick Mahomes and the shootout that they found themselves in against Brady. But the thing that's interesting about Brady a lot like with Aaron Rodgers.

If you give him the ball with a minute, two minutes on the clock and you're down six, you're you're tied, He's going to give you a chance to win that game. He just does. He's seen it, he's been a part of all of it. And the nice thing for them too is now they do you know, there's we know the classic thing with Belichick and how he shuffles the roster, but there is the core. There's in nucleus. There's Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman, the guys that have been in the trenches

with him for so long. Their offensive line knowing the way that Brady runs that offense and what they expect out of it. The biggest question for me is the defense, because although Matt Patricia did get the job with the with the Lions, and deservedly so, he was one of the hot coaching candidates after last season. I mean, they did, I think have the twenty ninth rank defense last year in the NFL. There were some things that they were working through. To me, they still don't have that Chandler

Jones type difference maker as a pass rusher. I like the pieces that they have in the secondary, but I think they're just there're a couple of playmakers short right now, trying to find some guys that you can consistently rely on to generate pressure. So that's gonna be the biggest adjustment. But to to the original point that you made, there's still the Patriots and it's still Tom Brady. You have to put up points and you have to be aware of that in the last final stretch of the game.

With Brady and Belichick and the way that they can play those situations, it's it's tough to counter. Sometimes. Yeah, if there's a if there's a statistic that kind of jumps out at me that that's hard to really figure out. It's what you mentioned about the pass rush. Because the Patriots have played eight games, their defense has only twelve sacks in eight games. That's not a lot. That's on pace for only twenty four for an entire season, which

is a pretty low number. The flip side of it is, though, they have a forty plus year old quarterback who's only been sacked eleven times in eight games, which tells you obviously Tom Brady wouldn't be playing into his forties if he had been taking tons and tons of hits over the years. So he knows how to shift in the pocket. He's not a scrambler, but he knows how to how to maneuver in the pocket, get rid of the ball, and protect himself and still make plays at the same time.

This is it's interesting because so much is predicated in games these days west on pass rush and on disrupting quarterbacks and everything like that. You look at the you look at the statistics with the Patriots and their their games have been you know about quarterbacks on both sides not necessarily being that disrupted. So um, if the Packers can change that narrative a little bit. Maybe that's maybe that's where you find an edge. I think it is,

and it's just the thing that stands out to me. Again, I don't want to paint this picture that the Patriots can't affect Rogers and they can't do things to play winning football. Certainly they can. They wouldn't be at this point in the season if they couldn't. But it's just that they don't have an Aaron Donald and the Dominican Sue type interior rusher. You don't really have the outside rushers.

To me, the best embodiment of that was when Chandler Jones was there, and certainly they ended up trading him to Arizona and he's gone on to have a really successful career there. But that's the one thing that, like, I mean, we gotta remember that James Harrison started in the Super Bowl for them last year as an edge rusher.

So I'm just really interested to see what this defense looks like when you put it up against Aaron Rodgers, because you wrote about it with One Last Look and some of these things that we've talked about the ways you have to defend him, the things that teams do, certainly, Bill Belichick is going to be aware of that and how they need to, you know, contain him. But at the same time he always has that counter move to that as well. So that's the thing I'm excited about.

Bill Belichick was effusive in his praise of McCarthy and Rogers and seeing that chess match playoff, considering it's only the second time we're getting it due to his I believe it was the concussion in two. Yeah, Rogers had the concussion in Detroit the week before, and then it was Matt Flynn on Sunday Night Football as a matter of fact, against against Tom Brady. It's a great storyline to watch. Um quickly though West here at Homer, here

in the stands. We all know that Green Bay fans give it their all and that takes a lot of energy. So grab a warm bowl of Campbell's Chunky Soup. It's meaty goodness fuels the greatness of Packers fans everywhere. Try the delicious classic chicken noodle soup. Just visit your local supermarket and ask for Campbell's Chunky Soup, official soup partner of the Green Bay Packers. Okay, you mentioned the chess match to me. When you talk about the matchups in

this game. What really intrigues me in terms of what Mike Petton is going to do, and I honestly don't know what his decision is going to be. But we saw last week in Los Angeles that with the Packers having their full compliment of cornerbacks healthy, they can cover pretty well on the back end against a pretty explosive offense. But here's the thing to me, the difficult matchups with

the New England Patriots. And I'm taking nothing away from Chris Hogan Julian Edelman, top quality wide receivers, but it's James White and Rob Gronkowski that become the really intriguing matchups soon because you can't just take a cover guy, you know, a cover corner at least not for the bulk of the game, and put a corner on those types of guys, because then not only are there some certain matchup problems just within that itself, but then you're

way too vulnerable to the run because you're just you're just too light up front to be able to stop the run if you flood the market with cornerbacks, so to speak. So how Mike Petton decides to defend Rob Gronkowski and James White. I think is is the crux of this whole chess match. I agree with specifically to White, because you know, Gronkowski has had to work through some injuries, he's been quiet in certain strap just but White has been really the constant for them since the first month

of the season. And I know, like I got, like I mentioned early on with Belichick, they want to have options. He loves to play matchup football. We've seen how they've used those running backs in the past. He doesn't want the opposing defensive coordinator to know who the weapons are going to be, outside of what maybe Corey Dillon, uh, you know, ten twelve years ago when they had him and he was a yard rusher. Otherwise, it's very largely based on whoever the hot hand is and who they

feel is gonna be the best matchup. That being said, White is sort of evergreen and towards him how you can use him, especially now in the NFL, So I actually think it's been somewhat a positive for them that I mean, you don't want to lose Jeremy Hill for the year. You don't want to be in a situation where guys are going down. But it has allowed White to get more consistent playing time to have him become more part of the offense. The guy's the leading receiver, Michael.

I mean, he's what fifty five catches. Gronk is next with twenty nine. He is the guy that helps move the chains for them consistently. And when you look at Tom Brady in you know, you mentioned the offensive line and a huge credit to them and the way they've adjusted over the last few years to be you know,

developing a new front for him. It ultimately is on Tom Brady to get the ball all quickly when he's forty one years old, to keep himself upright, and James White is often the safety valve towards accomplishing that and also dynamic once he gets the ball in his hands. Yeah, and from the Packers side, I want to bring up that game again because that one at lambeau Field. We saw Mike McCarthy get very creative in that game with

Randall Cobb and the way that he was used. That game was a coming out party of sorts for a rookie receiver named Davante Adams. Um what happened? So okay, Yeah, so I'm really curious offensively, what the Packers are going to do here because we've seen, you know, there is a rookie receiver Marquez Veldez Scantling who's really starting to

come on here for the Packers. Does Mike McCarthy look for a matchup with mvs against somebody in that New England secondary like he did with Davante Adams, to try to take advantage of to to to high light, so to speak. Um So, a lot of a lot of different things going on here. Obviously, the Packers, you know, Davante Adams is going to be in that Jordy Nelson role, but they don't have Darrell Rivas on the other side. Nelson may obviously made a huge play against Darrell Revas

right at the end of the first half there. So Adams is still going to have to do his thing. But but it it is, it's it's it's the chess match. It's finding those matchups, it's scheming things to get certain guys one on one against certain guys. And that's what both of these coaches are really really good. And if you're going to beat the New England Patriots, you need secondary players to emerge. Davantae Adams was that guy in that two thousand four team matchup. I believe that was

his first career hundred yard game six catches for yards. Belichick, when he was talking to the media or with the Green Bay media on the conference call, said simply, yeah, he killed us, and it was because they locked in on Jordy Nelson and that allowed, you know, Randall cob to have some opportunities to have Davantae Adams have a breakthrough game. The Packers are going to need that again in the matchup because now Davante Adams is the Jordy

Nelson threat in this offense. You're gonna need your Marquez Valdes Scantlings to step up. You're gonna need to be able to be creative with Randall cop with Jimmy Graham. Packers, with getting healthier on the offensive side of the ball, have their weapons wide open now, and that's where Mike McCarthy can really get to work and making sure that they maximize those and keeping the defense on its heels. Yeah.

All right, Well, you and I have some press conferences to get to, so I think we're gonna sign off, and I promise folks we will get to those trades and all of that discussion on tomorrow's show, I will mention this to give somebody to to what the palet a little bit um and and certainly we'll talk about the ramifications of the trades. If you go back to two thousand and fourteen game, though, it was a heavy

dose of Eddie Lacy in that backfield. I'm not saying that that's what it's gonna be with Aaron Jones, but I do think if you're able to get in a groove with a guy, especially now with just being Jones and Jamal Williams in that backfield, could really help them in terms of establishing the offense and allowing Aaron Rodgers to really go to work. Yeah, you get them to focus on the run. That's where the creativity with some of the other perimeter players comes into play. Eddie Lacy

was so important in that game. I know he didn't have a fifty sixty yard run, but he just he was the guy that kept moving the chains for them. They fed him in that game, and I think that could be an opportunity for Aaron Jones and Jamal Williams really shining this matchup. All right, Well, we will sign off now because we've got a run 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.