#424 Packers Unscripted: Off to Canada

Football Stadium. Right field, Yeah, I G field, Um a CFL excuse me, CFL field for the Blue Bombers. But real quickly as we get rolling preseason game number three, it's not really quite the same as preseason games number three of the past. Aaron Rodgers still t b d ist whether or not he will play and play at all in this preseason. But who do you have your eye on heading into this one? You know what is funny before we even get into that. Back in the day,

I know again you're big Matten player. I was too when you would simulate the franchise mode the third preseason game. I think they always had the starters playing three quarters in that game. John even talked about it when we did our three Things video on Tuesday about how you know the game has changed in that regard so well. It isn't the three or the third preseason game in the past. It's the third preseason game we have now. So you're gonna get a chance for probably a series

or two to see the starters one last time. Now, whether or not Aaron Rodgers is on the field, that's still up in the air, but you're going to see the starting offensive line. You're gonna see Mike Patton's defense there again. So when I talk about and when I look at who is my player to watch, I've said it on three different videos and an insider Inbox, it's Aaron Jones because I just look at where the Packers run game has been at and I put this line

in inbox for Thursday. The narrative right now is that it's been off to a slow start on the ground. Aaron Jones can flip that on its head with one run. He's that talented, he's that explosive, and Mike, we have wasted so much breath and energy and words talking about him and Jamal Williams and Matt Lafleur's offense. I'm excited to almost be at a point that we can finally see it because I think it's going to be dynamic

and assuming. I don't know if it will be this Thursday, but if they can get Danny Vitally back in this next week, and the compliment that these guys offer each other in terms of pass catchers, in terms of past protection. We saw Aaron Jones some of the strides he's made in pass pro this camp. It's not just about the explosive gains out of the backfield. It's how those players can be utilized in the entire construct of the offense. That's what I'm excited to see, and we're probably gonna

see it for a series. Aaron Jones up in Canada. Yeah. Matt Lafleur did confirm that Jones would play a series or two, emphasizing that treating him a little bit differently in his thought process than Aaron Rodgers, and that when there isn't contact through the spring, there isn't full contact in training camp. A running back the whole ball security thing. You just need to get hit a couple of times, you know, before you get into a game that counts and and take that first real hit and that first

real tackle. But I also want to talk about a couple of other guys who are slated anyway as far as we know, to make their preseason debuts for this year. One of them is second year cornerback Josh Jackson, the second round pick from last year out of Iowa. Now we've spent a lot of time obviously talking about the cornerback position. Kevin King's still sideline with a hamstring injury. We've seen Tony Brown step up and do some things.

We've seen Kedar Holman as well, but now Holman is out with a stinger and most likely not playing this week. Josh Jackson has been brought back kind of slowly, I guess you might say, from the foot injury that sidelined him the first couple of weeks of training camp. But he has been in eleven on eleven. He actually was in some eleven on eleven as a nickelback with the

Ones for a few snaps in practice this week. So that is a sign that he's going to get in there and uh and show what he can do and and frankly, he's kind of been a little bit of a forgotten guy in this in this cornerback competition because we've seen so much of those other guys and then he was out with that foot injury and just now trying to get back into things. The timing was unfortunate

for a second year player. Now, it's never a good time to miss practice or miss training camps, but that first few weeks, Mike, that's when you're installing the defense for the second time. They do it the first time during the off season program and O T a s in minicamp, but that second time is starting to be your your final run through, so to speak, before you start scheming, and for him to miss that, certainly, there are the mental reps and there are those type of

things that you can draw from. But let's be honest. I think one of the reasons why Tony Brown has come on the way he has and can dark Holman has come on in the shape that he has is because they've been taking those first team reps. They've been in there with Adrian Amos, with Darnielle Savage since he's returned, with Trumon Williams. Those key veteran communicators and Amos and Williams standpoint that are going to be critical for those

nickel and dime packages. Jackson has gotten back on the field, He has reacclimated himself to uh those team drills. The only thing missing at this point is getting back in the regular season game. I think you and I both probably you know, don't even really think about it, but Josh Jackson started ten games for this team last year. He played a lot of all they need him as well. You and I have said this countless times, especially if Kevin King is dealing with this hamstring issue right now.

They need Josh Jackson to be a second round pick that steps up and plays well. And this is gonna be a really good litmus test for him, assuming he's out on the field on Thursday night, to start building that confidence back up and showing he can be a

rotational part of this defense. Yeah. I mean, we've talked about it before West in this day in a in the NFL, as you're constructing the fifty three man roster, you want to have a solid half dozen cornerbacks that a defensive coordinator, that a position coach feels confident that they can step in and play because there are a lot of times you're gonna have four cornerbacks on the field, and it doesn't take much from an injury standpoint before you're tapping into number five and number six to be

able to to keep your full complement of defensive packages and be able to call what you want to call uh forgiven game situations. So all of these guys, whether you're talking about King and Holman getting back from their injuries, or Jackson getting into some preseason action and what Tony Brown has done alongside Jaire Alexander, all of the all of these guys are going to have a place in Mike Patton's defense. I just don't see any other way around. No,

they definitely will. And we talked so much about the corners, and rightfully so, but it does go into the safety position as well, because right now, Will Redmond is a kind of a hybrid between a corner in a safety. Natrelle Jamerson plays bolt spot. Candon Sullivan has gotten a lot of reps as a as an outside perimeter corner.

This is gonna be critical timing for them too, because maybe you're keeping one of those guys when it shuffles down to it because who's going to be that sixth fifth cornerback or fourth you know, safety, or a guy that could play both spots and be a special team or there are so many question marks still to be answered there because, as you just said, a year ago, at this time, Mike, I didn't know who Tony Brown was.

Tony Brown wasn't on this roster, and then he starts four games for this defense in this secondary plays an eleven contest for the Packers. So these are all the type of things and variables that you have to take into account when you're heading into a season, not just JayR Alexander and Tremont Williams and who's gonna be your front line, but who are going to be those guys that you're gonna be developing and counting on should an injury arise mid season. Yeah, no question, I bought it. Well.

Another guy who's going to be making his preseason debut for nineteen more of a veteran player, fourth year receiver Trevor Davis. And we've talked a little bit about him in that through the spring and the opening part of training camp, I thought he was off to a fantastic start. He was putting the hamstring trouble and everything that derailed

his season behind him. But then that first joint practice with the Houston Texans, he took what quite honestly was an unnecessary hit in a special teams drill gave him a stinger. Um. Now he feels like he's fighting this injury prone label, which I don't think is necessarily fair given that he was pretty healthy his first two years. Yesen was a lost season to injury, and what happened the thing with the Texans was just a freak accident. It wasn't anything of where he's not taking care of

his body and whatnot. But regardless, in his absence, he misses about two weeks worth of training camp. We've seen Darius Shephard Alanzard raised their profiles in this receiver competition. Trevor Davis gets back on the practice fields Sunday on Monday.

I thought he really really shined in practice. He was taking the ball on end around and he was taken shovel passes, He ran a deep route, made a great catch on a deep ball from Tim Boyle, showing all the different facets in which he can be involved in this offense and and the plan. Um that the Packers seem to be revealing in the spring for how they wanted to use him. But this competition is pretty stiff and he doesn't have any in game preseason snaps on

film yet. This is his opportunity to do that. And as I've written about on our website and a story here on Davis heading into this game, he's ready to state his case and he has to do it now. Yeah. The one tragedy I think with Trevor Davis, and this is not a dig on Mike mccarthur, Tom Clements or anybody. You almost kind of wish he would come into the league now with Matt Lafleur than he did four years ago.

And the reason I say that is because it just seems like, out of anyone maybe on the offensive side of the ball, this offense is probably tailored his skill set enough, with the motioning, with the misdirection, the bunch formations. He's not a traditional slot receiver. He actually plays a lot on the perimeter, so there's different ways that you

can use him off screens of that nature. I just think that this offseason, going back to we were talking about this durn O t a s it just seems like he's so much more comfortable with what he's being asked to do right now, and it was it was really tragic that the situation happened that he got hurt when he did, because he was off to a great start. I thought. I thought he was playing tremendous football in practice.

And the other dimension that you have to keep in mind when you think about Trevor Davis and you start to figure out your fifty three and your depth chart, Davis is a kickoff return or he's a punt return and he's a receiver, but as I talked to him about his locker, he's also arguably their best gunner on punt coverage. He's a guy who plays the front line on kickoff coverage. His body type when he's healthy, lends itself to a core four player. UM that's gonna go

a long way. And the thing that Davis needs to do now is he needs to make some of those catches in the preseason that we've seen in practice. He needs to maybe pop a big return kind of like Shepard did with the at six yarder in Baltimore and show that I can be a complete player and I can be someone that pushes not only for a spot on the forty six to be a special teamer, but also a guy that can be counted on in the receiver rotation. Davis has shown everything you wanted to see

from a young guy. He just needs to do it in a game. Now. Yeah, I want to pass along kind of a moment of enlightenment for me from the conversation that Davis had at his locker with reporters this week, because he was talking about the deep ball he caught from Tim Boyle where the ball was a little bit underthrown, so he had to slow up and a couple of defenders are converging. He waited until the last possible second and he put his hands out and he kept his

hands down low and let the ball fall into them. Now, that's a technique that we've talked about before. It's called late hands. If you, as a receiver put your hands out too early, you're just giving the defender a chance. You're telling him the timing and giving him a chance to get his hands in the way and deflect the ball.

So that's a technique that receivers use a lot. What I didn't realize is that Davis actually developed that tech that technique as a punt returner because he says he needs to use late hands as a punt returner because he doesn't want to give the gunners who are coming to try to lay him out the timing of when the ball is actually going to arrive, because they're reading that as well. So he's waiting for the ball to come down and then the hands come out at the

last second. Um, excuse me, I'm losing my voice a little bit here, But I found that I found that somewhat fascinating in a way. I hadn't even thought of that, that whole late hands technique being used as a return man on special teams, because you know, that's one of the most fearless jobs out there on the field, is

is punt returner. And he he kind of joked about it about, you know, not wanting those gunners to to smack him around, but it's the reality of what he has to face, and he's developed that technique and he uses it both as a receiver and a return That was the fun part of that conversation was that you hear Davante Adams talk about all the time, and that's a technique situation that's to be able to execute a play to catch a pass. Trevor Davis is using that

to keep gunners from laying him out. As you said, I mean, that's a survival instinct. So think about how you can incorporate that into the passing game when it's more. I don't want to call it a benefit or extra credit, but it's a technique that you can use to have a successful offensive play rather than just protecting yourself from a potential hit. Uh. The other thing I want to ask you too, because someone asked me an inbox. You know, last year we talked so much about Grono Allison's catch

from Aaron Rodgers, the no look pass. Somebody put me on the spot and asked, what do you think is that? Maybe not that type of play, but what what sticks with you the most when you think about, you know, the big play this year's camp. I'm definitely going to be a victim of recency bias here, but the boil

to Davis catches up there. I don't know if it's the one, but when you take into account the double coverage, the technique he had to use to pull that in, and then also the presence of mind to catch the ball. You see guys tied together three or four of those elements, but then they don't bring in the football. You just move on to the next plane. Every one kind of forgets about it. Davis completed the catch. He did that after coming back from the stinger. Honestly, those are the

type of things that I think the coaching staff. I don't want to speak for them, but you want to see from a guy that's been out for two weeks, and you know, maybe you want to prove that what he did the first week or so it wasn't a fluke. Yeah, I mean Matt Lafleur called Monday's practice for Trevor Davis very encouraging, was the word that he used, and then and then flat out said I'm excited to see what

he's going to do in a game. Well, here we are, this game coming up against the Raiders, A couple other things here with this third preseason game, West, I think we're going to finally get to the end of this competition at left guard between Lane Taylor and rookie second round pick Elton Jenkins. I think you and I both know, having been on the beat, we know how to watch practice that when the Packers returned to the practice field

on Sunday. The first snap that the number one offensive line is on the field, I think that's going to tell us who won the competition, because we're heading into the fourth week of the preseason and we know the preseason playing time in the game against the Chiefs will be very different. So I think the competition ends with this Raiders game. So far, Lane Taylor, for the vast majority of the time has been the first, has taken the first reps at left guard. But there's been no

winner declared in this competition yet. So do you see that the same way in that this is sort of where the competition ends and the decision is going to be made over the weekend. I would traditionally agree with you on that. This year, I'm going to disagree with you only because of what happened last year, which is where Justin McCray started at right guard because Brian Bulaga was coming back from the a c L. They wanted blogging to have those reps, so they played in that

last game against the Chiefs. I forgot about that. So I think it's possible, based on how they've divvied up those reps in the snaps that Taylor has taken with the two's at times. I think it's entirely in the fact that he actually started the first game against Houston when none of the other starting offensive line played. I think it is possible that it leaks into next week. That being said, I would be very curious if it still ends up being Taylor. But if they play a

second series, then you see Jenkins comes in. I could see that being a situation. But to your original point, the underlying message there, I do believe you kind of have to figure out which way you want to go with this thing. Though it's great that Jenkins is getting those snaps, but Lane Taylor, now, uh, you know, when you look at what he's brought to that position, the comfort level he's had with David back tr two guys

that came into the league together in two Thousan. Jenkins is a young guy, He's very athletic, but Taylor also gives you some of those intangibles that you look for when you talk about solidifying your offensive line. The encouraging thing for me with Jenkins is I thought he's shined throughout the preseason, whether it's been at the guard position,

whether it's been rotating in its center. He did have a couple holding calls last week, one of which one of one one of which Matt Floor said wasn't even on him, it was, you know, on a different player. I just I'm really encouraged by it. I guess we're gonna have to wait and see. It will tell you something though. If it is obviously still Lane Taylor going out there first on Thursday night, He's still the incumbent, right the burden of proof is on Jenkins to show

that he's worthy of being a starter right off the bat. Yeah, and as we know, the competition at backup quarterback between Deshaun Kaiser, Tim Boyle Manny Wilkins the number four right now, that will be continuing, uh, certainly through um these last two preseason games, not just the Raiders game. But where do you see this competition right now? I see it all neck and neck. Yeah, I think I think it obviously is Kaiser and Boyle. There's just so much more

experience there with those two guys. Uh. And certainly Kaiser got off to kind of a slow start last week, but then kind of rally the troops a little bit. I think Boyle that the thing about Boile watching him play so far throughout this preseason, is he has moments of just you know, sheer an utter excellence. I mean downfield passes that are on the money, big play potential

that every NFL team covets in a quarterback. He needs to string it together, though, he needs to be able to do that on a more consistent basis, And he'll be the first one to tell you that. From Kaiser's perspective, I think it's being able to immerse himself in this scheme, play within the scheme, but still be Deshaun Kaiser, be the guy that was the second round pick, Be the guy that does have natural instincts to make a play. This is going to be such an important game because

we don't know whether or not Aaron Rodgers goes. If he doesn't go, Kaiser is probably gonna be out there with the ones. Again, what can you do with that opportunity to prove that, you know what, I can run this offense. I can be there with Davante Adams. Adams said it this week. When Rodgers isn't on the field, their goal is to make sure it's as if he's never left, that they can still run with the same

amount of efficiency. That's the task for Kaiser and then behind him whenever Boyle comes into that game proving that he has what it takes the potentially be a number two. Yeah. Well, before I forget here West, I do need to take care of some sponsor business. Select Cousins Subs locations are now are now offering delivery whether you're ordering catering or your favorite sub, their de iverring right to you when you order online at Cousin Subs dot com. Cousin Subs

we believe in better. Okay, one other topic I want to get to here before we go and head off to the airport West. The first preseason game against the Houston Texans, defensive coordinator Mike Patton was on the sidelines. Now, I will admit I thought, Okay, it's just a preseason thing. He's just doing it for the month August and he'll be back up in the coach's booth for the regular season games. But I was mistaken. That is not the case.

Mike Patton has decided that the sideline is where he is going to be in twenty nineteen, and he spoke to reporters and explained some of his thought process some of his reasons behind making the switch. Kind of an interesting uh um, you know, view into his mind and his thought process. Well, first off, I'm gonna give you

a little bit of a hint. If you're a young beat writer coming into Green Bay, the easiest way to break news without actually doing anything is to read the Dope sheet on whatever day it comes out the Packers Information Guy. Packers have actually listed Petton on the sidelines since the beginning of camp. I didn't actually put that out there right away because it was like, now, what is that worth? But you're right, it wasn't for preseason.

It's something he's planning to do moving forward, and it's funny. It actually a part of it kind of has to do with lambeau Field in a way. He mentioned, you know, Rob Amovsky when we were together at the Green Bay Press because that wrote a really nice story talking to Joe Philbin's Dom Capers and some of the coaches that were up in the press box, the coach's box about how difficult it is getting down to the field, and

it's like that in a lot of NFL stadiums. But as Petton illustrated, you leave at the end of the half they have an elevator ready for you. You go down the elevator, then you get to the catwalk. They have golf carts there to take the coaches, probably about what a hundred yards or so it might, let's go with that. If you drive down that way going as fast as a golf cart can go. Then you get over to the other elevator. You take that elevator down

two stairs, and now you're in the lobby. You go across the lobby, across the tunnel, you walk down another however many feet to the locker room. Then you're there. You're there for five ten minutes, and then you've got to get back upstairs. It's definitely not ten minutes, because halftime is only twelve months long, so unless you leave the press box early before the clock actually hit zero.

And and that was the whole point, is that he didn't feel like he had enough time with the players in the locker room at halftime, just because of the transportation part of it. To make a couple of final adjustments, as he said, and also to hear the coaches message what Latin Floor Mike McCarthy was saying, and making sure that he understands what they need out of him in his defense in that second half, so he's going to

be down in the field. He said, he's actually worked with some guys I don't know who they are off hand, they are in the dope sheet. That will be sort of his eye in the sky this season. He feels like he can get the best of both worlds. And he mentioned that he kind of felt last year he was able to train some of the other defensive assistants

who were up in the box with him. As far as the information that he covets, what he wants, what he wants to know, and now that he has those coaches looking for that and tracking that information for him, they can relay that to him down on the sideline. That's what he wants. And so he feels like he, you know, gets the best of both worlds, is the

way he put it. And lastly, just being able to actually go talk to the players in between series, sit down with guys, move around to different possession groups, the interpersonal communication, there's a benefit to it. Pet and feels like it will help his defense go to the next level. And again, we're gonna see how it all plays out. Yeah, well, we will definitely see well with that, we will call it a wrap on this edition of Packers Unscripted. We

got a plane to catch. On Twitter, He's at West hotam at Mike Spofford add Packers for the team account. Be sure to subscribe to us. Like us on iTunes and other podcast services. Follow all of our coverage of the team on packers dot com. Thanks for tuning in, everybody. We'll see you next time.