#399 Packers Unscripted: Sizing up the schedule

is the two thousand nineteen Packers schedule. It dropped on Wednesday night. League wide, everybody found out all of the wends, having known all of the what's in the wares since January. But the two thousand nineteen schedule is out. There's a there are some unique elements to the way this lays out for the Packers for the coming season, for Matt Lafleur's first season as a head coach. Where do you want to start with this? Well, let's start at the start, Michael.

The Green Bay Packers will travel to start the hundredth season of the NFL against the Chicago Bears. But right after that matchup, come back to lambeau Field for three straight home games, and as it works out, five of their first seven will be played at lambeau Field. Two back to back games against the NFC North to kick things off. And it's really interesting you talked about the unique intricacies of this this whole schedule. Two to start

against the division, three to end against the division. You have to beat your division teams to be able to succeed the Packers. It's gonna play into getting off to a fast start, and it's gonna play into finishing strong. And I think ultimately that's what the NFL wanted to go for when they made some of the changes that they did with the schedule and number of number of years ago. But it is quite coincidental to see so many NFC North matchups fall right at the beginning of

right at the end. Yeah, the book ends to this schedule are what jump out at me. You only have six division games. Your division games make up roughly your schedule six out of sixteen. But for the Packers here you start with two and you end with three. That's five of your six division games that are at the polar opposites, you know, at at the beginning and the end. I just think that's a really unique alignment. Now, the Packers had something similar to this in two thousand and sixteen,

it wasn't quite the same. The ending was the same, with three straight division games to finish The beginning of this season, if you remember, started with that trip to Jacksonville, and then back to back division games after that. But what I will say is that when you look at it, you look back to the Packers. They won the game in Jacksonville, they split those first two division games, so they were two and one out of the gate, and

then obviously the three at the end. We're part of the run the table as the Packers made that run into the playoffs. Really winning those division games that year is what allowed the Packers to survive of a pretty bad mid season slump when they lost four straight games through late October and into into mid November. If you can win your division games in this league West, it gives you at least a little bit more wiggle room,

a little bit more of a buffer zone. And I just think that you know, those two at the beginning and the three at the end are really the games that could define this season for Green Bay. Well, I'm glad it's only episode two back from the hiatus, but I'm able to say the Mike Spofford, let's be a real moment of the week. It's so true, though, Mike. When you get three games to close the season against the division, you for the first one to point it

out to me when the schedule came out. It immediately makes you think back to two thousand sixteen and how that run, as incredible as it was, it doesn't reach its fulfilled stage unless they get those three division games to to sneak into the playoffs and then keep the magic going once they got there. So that is something that definitely sticks out to me. But it also is gonna be tough Week sixteen, you're going into US Bank Stadium.

The following week you have to go into Ford Field that have now closed this regular season at ford Field in three of the last four seasons, so that's no easy task. But getting the Chicago Bears in Green Bay in December is always a positive thing. And you know, quite honestly, if you're gonna play at Soldier Field, you might as well do it in week one. So I mean, you're able to get that one out and if you

win that game, you set the tone for the season. Yeah, you had mentioned the five of the first seven being at home. You look at it, it's actually five out of six home games after the road opener at Chicago in that Thursday night kickoff game. This is uh And I mentioned this in in my story on our website

on Wednesday night. This is something that just screams opportunity for a first year head coach to have a whole run of home games early in the season, to to get things off on the right foot, to get whatever continuity and flow that you need to your offense, your new system, with your two time m v P quarterback, all of that. The beginning of this sets up I don't and I'm not saying the opponents don't matter, but

I'm not even looking at the opponents necessarily. In those five games, five home games in a span of six weeks before Halloween, that's when you've got to make some hay right exactly, And I mean things are gonna change, players are gonna get hurt, rosters are gonna look different.

But the thing is is that you don't take away the home game from that equation, and you can't under you can't understate how important overstate how important that is to be able to have that kind of opportunity, And, to be quite honest with you, Mike, not that any road game is easy, but if you look at Soldier Field in a T and T stadium, those aren't the most daunting stadiums that Aaron Rodgers has ever walked into. He's had to share success in those locations as well.

So while yeah, that's going to be a challenge going into US Bank, it always has been a challenge going into Ford Field, the Packers actually have some pretty good, you know, fertile ground to build this season upon. So uh, the biggest thing that I'm looking forward to is you get the Thursday night game out of the way right away. That's Week four against Philadelphia. You get it at home. You obviously are gonna get that little bit of a mini break after the first game against the Bears. You

do need to win these games. If you if you start slow, your your schedule starts to look kind of daunting. But that being said, is if you can start fast, it really sets up the season nicely with the Week eleven bye week, you know, being able to kind of you know, have some more balance to it than they

have in previous years. Yeah, and I want to get to that that back half of the schedule in a minute here at West But before I forget the powerful noise canceling technology that helps NFL coaches block out eight tho screaming fans can get you closer to the music you love. Learn more at www dot bows dot com, slash Packers, Bows the official headphones of the Green Bay Packers, and 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 great the Packers fans everywhere try the delicious classic chicken noodle soup. Just visit your local supermarket and asked for Campbell's Chunky Soup, Official sup partner of the Green Bay Packers. Okay, looking at the back half of the schedule, after you have that run of five home games in six weeks, you're getting close to Halloween. You look at you look at

the back half. They're actually three different back to back road game stretches. Now, the first one of those is awfully daunting to go back to back at Kansas City and at Los Angeles the Chargers. Those are the two teams that the New England Patriots beat in the playoffs back to back to get back to the super Bowl. Those were two of the last four teams standing in the a f C last year to play them on

the road back to back. You're talking about a matchup of two m vps, Rogers and Mahomes, and then two quarterbacks who are headed to the Hall of Fame in my opinion, and Rogers and Philip Rivers. That's gonna be a really really interesting one to punch, so to speak. As far as back to back road, well, the Kansas City game, certainly, I really like it from the standpoint

of We heard Aaron Rodgers talk late last season. He wasn't trying to compare himself to Patrick Mahomes at all, but he said, you know, he sees a lot of his game in Mahomes, And to be honest with you, I think that's the type of game that a lot of quarterbacks now this next generation are really going to have to adapt to. Being able to create, being able to audible, being able to use your feet, having a

magnificent arm. He has from all these different angles, you know, arm angles and all that kind of stuff, throwing with his left hand when he needs to. I mean, there's just so many different things that play into making him an m v P quarterback. So they see that first encounter, it made perfect sense to throw it in Sunday night football. It will be a challenging game, but there are some questions with Kansas City, what is their defense gonna look like?

They've had a lot of changes on that side of the ball. L A is going to be just a really unique experience because they're gonna be playing in a thousand seats soccer stadium. Um, you and I still haven't been able to do the research this. You estimated it might have been the Snowball, the last time the Packers have played in front of fewer than thirty thousand people. Yeah. That uh, And for those are not sure what I'm referring to there, that's the Steve Young Tampa Bay Buccaneers

game at lambeau Field. I believe it was was the year of it, and I think the announced attendance for that game was somewhere in the twenty thousand range, and there may have only been you know, seven to nine thousand people who actually came to lambeau Field that day. But but yeah, I can't. It really will be interesting doing the research on that to see how long it's been since the Packers played in front of such a small crowd. Yeah, and it's gonna be a cool experience.

But you also would anticipate with us going to you know, last year, you and I traveling out to l A for that game against with the Packers, and in the Rams, we said it all along going into that thing, that yeah, that's gonna probably be a pretty favorable Packer crowd, and I think it's still exceeded my expectation did people in there, and there was quite a few times where Jared Goff

had to go to a silent count. So, Philip Rivers, we know the challenges that the Charges have had building their fan base now in l A. It's gonna be Uh, both of them are incredibly difficult matchups. I don't want to undersell that, but there are opportunities there. And if you get through that run of three straight a f C opponents, you know, the things start to line up

a little better for you. Yeah, you're talking Arrowhead Stadium on a Sunday night and then potentially a lot of Packers fans trying to pack that that soccer stadium dignity Health Systems part or something. Yeah, you're talking about to two really really interesting atmospheres, very different in their own right,

but but really interesting road atmospheres. And then the other part of this to West is that, obviously with all the home games early in the season, you're gonna have to deal with a lot of road trips on the back end. Now, the Kansas City Los Angeles back to back starts a stretch of the Packers playing four of five games on the road. They also have another back to back road swing to San Francisco and to New

York to play the Giants. But what actually helps the Packers this year, which they didn't get last year when they had to play four road games in a span of five weeks, which is really when the season kind of unraveled, is that the Packers bye week is in the middle of that. So even though it's four road games in a span of five games, it's over a span of six weeks because you're gonna have a week

off in there as well. I think that is going to help the Packers navigate through this really tough stretch of road games with just the one home game over over a long span. I think you counted fifty six days that the Packers are only going to have one home game, but having the bye week mixed in there is going to be a big assist, still better than

what Tampa Bay has. Did you see that run? They have seven weeks they will not be playing at home at all, that their one home game is the London is the London game, and then I think they also have a bye week mix in there too, But then they're they're playing like six and seven on the road. It's a crazy schedule. But in regards to the Packers, you know the other thing that worked out well and it's first time they've caught the week eleven by since

the NFL started doing that in two thousand eleven. But more importantly, it comes after a noon game against Carolina. Now we'll have to see exactly how Matt Floor wants to handle that bye week, but that is a picture perfect opportunity for players that are healthy to pack their bags and head home for a week. Yeah, immediately after that, you don't have a long trip coming back. You're not coming back from London or anything like that. You play the noon game, you're done by three. You know you

have some time to rest and recuperate. A perfect timing if you're going to have a stretch like that where you only have one home game to be able to have a noon game as it's scheduled right now, and then right on the back end of that half the buy yeah, a chance to get out of dodge and put your feet up for a few days and and get ready for what the Packers are hoping is going to be a stretch run of their final six games. And then you look at the other back to back

road game. The third one of the group is the Week sixteen Week seventeen and actually only six days apart with being at Minnesota in week week sixteen on a Monday night and then turning around and going to Detroit for Week seventeen for the regular season finale. That's a really interesting back to back. You're talking about a cold weather team like the Packers finishing this finishing the regular

season with back to back road games. Now that will be coming off of meeting number two hundred historically between the Packers and the Bears, which will be at lambeau Field Week fifteen mid December. I think that's one to really look forward to. But finishing back to back in December in domes, you know, kind of a unique situation as well. So I was sitting at my house after I got done Wednesday night, I'm enjoying a nice sparkling water, and I was thinking to myself, and I'm curious to

hear your thoughts on this. If you're the Green Bay Packers, would you rather have to go to Minnesota and week sixteen or go in week two and go back to back on the road in the NFC North to start the season, but then have the Vikings at lambeau Field in week sixteen? Which one do you think would have been better? I guess for me, my immediate reaction as always to have those indoor teams come outdoors in December, I think, I think so that would have been worth

it to you. Yeah, it would have been. It would have been to me. But but yeah, to think about going at Chicago and at Minnesota out of the gate one two year to two big division rivals like that, that would have been an awfully, awfully daunting start. I think it falls somewhere in between, because the worst scenario would have been having to go to Minnesota in week seventeen. Let's say that game gets flex that fan base is gonna be eccentric. Well, at least in this case, you

get them in week sixteen. You need to take care of business. You need to get a win there. They haven't gotten enough of those in Minnesota lately. But then if things go well, okay, we'll see what the Lions look like in two thousand nineteen. But they've had success there. They've been in that situation before having to win to get in in two thousand and sixteen. There, so at least do a lot of those veteran players in the

roster with all that experience to go back off of. Yeah, that's one of the other things that's interesting about this when you look at the road trips. The Packers are going to Dallas, Uh, they won Super Bowl forty five in that building. Matt Flynn had the big comeback in they had the divisional playoff victory down to the wire to beat the Cowboys in the in the NFC playoffs, and then seen Rogers has the comeback, the final drive

to complete the comeback at the end. That's one of those where the Cowboys are gonna be looking at the Packers coming in and saying, all right, enough of this, you know, it's it's time to to to, you know, stop the Packers from winning in our house here. But then the flip side of it is the Packers are heading to us Bank at the end of the season for what could be a really really big game with a lot of implications and a building where the first three times the Packers have gone there it has not

gone well at all, three losses. Obviously an injury to Rogers in that building a couple of years ago. So you know, from that standpoint, there's a couple of narratives to these road games on the schedule that will be that will be kind of fun to talk about when the time comes, and not to make light of anything, but I also go back to two thousand seventeen and the Rogers injury, and everyone thinks so much about Rogers, and rightfully so, but it was almost just a comedy

act after a while. I remember them talking about what the training room looked like because I believe, you know, Quentin Rollins left that game. I think Lane Taylor might have left that game. It just was one guy after another there afterwards. So, yeah, the Packers historically, I go back to my first few years on the beat. Yeah, they had a rough outing in two thousand twelve, but for the most part, you know, they had they did

find ways to have success in the Metrodome. They're trying to find a way now to be able to build that momentum in the new location. The biggest thing, though, Mike, no matter how you cut it down, no matter how you slice it, you and I can talk right until we run out of oxygen in this room. But the biggest key for the Packers is they have to win on the road. We know the story in two thousand and eighteen, they win all that time. They finally ended up beating the Jets, but they had to come back

to do it. That's why I've said repeatedly this offseason since the Packers found out that they're going to open in Chicago, there's no better way to just cleanse yourself of all of that than to come out beat the defending nf Senor champion and start to turn around your fortunes. Yeah, I totally agree with you. One last thing before we wrap up here, West Okay, we've talked about the division games,

the Pat Mahomes games, the soccer stadium game and all that. Okay, what of these games that we haven't necessarily spent a lot of time on, is, in your mind sort of the sleeper game, the one to the one that that maybe is going to have some bigger implications when it rolls around than maybe we think right now. We'll see about the implications because we don't know what the forty Niners are gonna look like this year. But I really think the Packers traveling there, Kyle Shanahan taking on his

former protege in Matt Lafleur. Matt Lafleur will be matching wits with his one of his best friends not in this business, in this world, in Robert Sala, who is the defensive coordinator for the forty Niners. He'll be making his calls. The floor will be making his call. Sal is the guy that got him in the door with Gary Kubiak the Houston Texans. So to me, I mean, yeah,

Jimmy Garoppolo, Aaron Rodgers. Great, you know the matchup that we missed last year Popolo was injured and that Monday night game at Lambe Field was c J. Bethurt So and and then the other thing. Uh, you know, Aaron Rodgers has played historically pretty darn well in the San Francisco area when he's you know, kind of buy his hometown, had a pretty solid game whatever it was three or four years ago. Now. Um, I just think there's a lot of layers to that matchup, and we'll see what

the records are at that point. San Francisco, you really don't know what to expect after the year that they had, But h Kyle Shanahan and Matt le Floor close. I think out of all the coaches that you talked to and all the people that have said nice words about La Fleur, Shanahan is the one that is sort of that he's been most in lockstep with the entire time. And it'll be a good matchup. Yeah. The one I'm gonna say is the Carolina game in Week ten at

home at Lambou Field. And there's a few reasons for that one. It's the one home game that's in the midst of all those road games in the bye week and everything we talked about before. Number two. It's not every day that you get a quarterback matchup of two guys who have won m vps in this league. So to see Aaron Rodgers against Cam Newton, I think that's

a that's a marquee matchup in and of itself. But the third thing, the Carolina Panthers are in this pattern west of every other year they're like, really darn good, and it's always the odd numbered years, it seems with Ron Rivera and that Carolina team. In two thousand fifteen, they went to the Super Bowl, then they kind of fall off. They come back in two thousand seventeen, it's

two thousand nineteen. The Panthers are coming off of a non playoff season, and uh, if they follow their usual pattern, this is a Carolina team that I think is expecting in a very tough division, the Saints and the Falcons and all of that in the NFC South. But the Carolina Panthers are expecting to be right back in the mix. And if Cam Newton is healthy, there's no reason he

can't return to his m v P form either. The biggest trend, the biggest tie in, the biggest parallel between when the Panthers have had their successful years and when they haven't other than the odd number years, is Cam Newton. Right, That's the constant, what Cam Newton are you going to get in a given year. I still say, even you know, he's getting a little bit older. When he's on, when the accuracy is there, there's a few better in the

game than Cam Newton. The Packers have seen it several times. He's a tough customer. But at the same time, when he's not been healthy, when they've had issues with the accuracy, it's a different ball game. Things look a little bit differently that matchup how they defend Christian McCaffrey and and the other thing is too, Mike. Let's be honest, both of these teams had higher expectations for last year than how things ultimately unfolded. Both of these teams want to

turn things around. That mid season checkpoint here at lambeau Field is gonna be a big barometer as to figuring out exactly the direction that those those seasons are going for those two teams. Yeah, one to keep an eye out for for sure. Well with that, um, I'll just throw out there that starting next week we'll have another show earlier in the week. We're going to try to take a big overview of just where the Packers are

heading into this draft position. By Position. We have a roster series that's being published on our website now every day taking a look at the roster position by positions, So check that out and come back and check us out next week talking about it um, but for now 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. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes like us there as well if you don't mind, follow him on Twitter 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.