#430 Packers Unscripted: Getting defensive

it's an uplifting ten to three victory over the Chicago Bears. Now, for all the preview shows we did leading up to the game, if you had said, hey, Mike, you remember that game the week seventeen of two thousand and ten, when the Packers beat the Bears ten to three, it's gonna be like that, I don't think anybody would have believed you. But it's Week one in the NFL, and you absolutely never know what kind of game you're gonna get.

You don't know what you're gonna get, and you don't know how quickly the helium can be taken out of the balloon. And if you're looking at like the Chicago Bears, I mean you and I were in the city for twenty four hours before this game. There was such a vibrance in the air, so much excitement, and everybody walking around in the streets wearing Bears jerseys. It was. It was incredible and you had Sadarius Preston Smith, Adrian Amos just put a small, slow stranglehold on that enthusiasm in

this matchup. And you and I were discussing it as we got into the studio this morning. I mean, one of the most complete, dominant defensive performances the Packers have seen in the last few number of years. I said, it was one of the stingiest performances of the past decade when you go back and look at some of these things. They gave up three points and that was after that they they've been given the Bears have been

given the ball at the thirty six yard line. I mean, just to see five sacks, eleven passes defense, uh, eleven quarterback hits, nine passes defense and interception from Amos. There's so many things you can talk about with this matchup, but three out of fifteen on third down for the Chicago and oh for two on fourth then absolutely the biggest stat though the Green Bay Packers were able to go into Soldier Field and pick up a game after when you know ten to three, Uh. There it is

a catapulting as you said, uplifting victory. When you see the sidelines, the way they reacted to it, the way the players were in the locker room, there was a lot of jubilation over what a lot of people would say would be a relatively boring If you look doing the statistics, the score h Affair, Well, it is the first time the Packers have won a game scoring ten or fewer points since the ten to three game at the end of the regular season in two thousand and ten.

And I actually also saw a stat on somebody's little TV screen we're flying back on the plane in the middle of the night that last year, Apparently throughout the entire NFL season, only two teams were able to win a game scoring ten or fewer points in the entire NFL season. So this kind of thing doesn't happen every day.

But hats off to the Packers defense, and in particular the free agent spending spree of Brian Goodakunst in early March, Zadarius Smith, Preston Smith, Adrian Amos, they all had a tremendous impact on this football well, and that's part of this thing that that is so interesting in my regard, is that you had three marquee players at the Packers sign on the defensive side of the ball. In all three of them completely rose to the occasion right off

the bat. Adrian Amos and Zadarius Smith actually had had lunch this week and Amos had told him, He's like, you know, I want to make a big play. As much as the narrative, as much as what the reporters and in media wanted to make it about him returning to Chicago facing his old team, Amos said, it never was like that, and if you know him, if you get to know his personality, I can confidently say it

wasn't about that. What he wanted to do is he wanted to prove to the Green Bay Packers, proved to Brian Goodacuns that they made the right investment in him. He wanted to make a big play. This is a guy that was somewhat you know, when you go back and look at there were some people that dogged on him a little bit because he only had three interceptions

in his time in Chicago. He made play after playing that game, he helped coordinate that defense and when it mattered most, him and Tremont Williams working in tandem with each other, and overthrown pass Williams, forcing Traubinsky to you know, throw a little bit more on it because he was underneath and Amos is able to interception to play that those two had actually talked about on the sidelines based on something they'd seen earlier in the ballgame. Phenomenal from

that perspective. Zadarius and Preston Smith, though, Man, I don't know what more you can say about these guys. Six quarterback hits, two and a half combined sacks. They were in Mitchell Rubinsky's face all night, and I tweeted this during the game. The pass rush benefits the secondary that benefits the pass rush. You saw a perfect marriage between

those two principles. And Mike Petton afterwards had a big, big smile on his face and his we know that's not something you're always going to see with the fact of the DC. Yeah, absolutely, Mike Patton with with that big smile and hopefully he's able to keep it here um through this really part of the season, because unfortunately the Packers offense was up against a pretty darn tough defense as well, and it wasn't It wasn't the prettiest debut at all for Matt Lafleur and Aaron Rodgers and

this offense. But and quite frankly, west boy, that first quarter three straight three and ounce minus twelve total yards, a couple of sacks in there on third down. I mean, that first quarter was was as ugly as it gets. But all of a sudden, that first offensive play of

the second quarter kind of the double play action. You had a play action of a regular run of play action of the jet sweep coming behind, and then boom, you take the shot down the field with with Marquez Veldez scantling in one on one coverage makes the play forty seven yards. A couple of plays later, Packers go up tempo, a couple of plays later there in the end zone, and suddenly it's seven to three. And it was as though it was as though the Packers defense

that all right, we're good. Now we got the lead. Here we go. Well, what spoke to me about this matchup is one, even though it was ten to seven or ten to three, and most of the game was seven to three, it never felt like the Packers were in danger, if that's the right word. It just always felt like they were in control. Even when the offense was having its issues, even when you know Trabinsky would make a couple of plays here there they build a

little momentum. They'd always found the CounterPunch to it. Looking at that series though that you're illustrating the forty seven yard passed to Mark Quez Valdes scantling, you and I we have a pretty good vantage point. It's not the great press box view the best one in the league. That particular play, we did have a pretty goodvantage point it because you saw MBS coming free over the middle

of the field. Aaron Rodgers got a bucket load of time to work with on it connects with them forty seven yards and as you said, there's a quick past to Marcedes Lewis, another quick past at Davantae Adams. They catched Chicago with twelve men on the field, and then there's a touchdown on a fifty fifty ball or a fifty zero ball. I guess you could say to Jimmy Graham, first one of the hundredth season of the NFL, So this is when you get the off fense in rhythm

and sink. I think that's what it looks like. The problem for the Packers in this matchup was trying to find that. But listening to Aaron Rodgers and you were with him at the podium afterwards, it just seemed like he's pretty optimistic that this offense is gonna be where it needs to be, is going to get to where it needs to be. And defensively, they have a chance right now that they can win these type of ball games if they absolutely have to. Yeah, and that that's

the thing is. Hey, look it's September football. This is the new NFL. The preseason is not what the preseason was ten or fifteen years ago. This is what September football is in the NFL. Nobody's going to be polished, especially offensively. People don't play their starters, and even if they do, they're not facing real defense, the kind of defense you're going to face in the regular season. Nobody

wants to put anything on film. These are the kind of games you're gonna get in September, and quite frankly, it's all about it's almost like survive in advance. It's like find a way to win enough games in September until you get your legs under, you get your feet under for you, and you can start to move ahead into into the meat of the schedule, so to speak.

And you just got to get through these first few games and and don't put yourself behind the eight ball record wise, and and getting a big win on the road against the division opponent. You got another division opponent

coming into lambeau Field next Sunday in week two. You gotta get gotta get through these games somehow, and because in the end, they all count the same, even if you're not playing this if you there, the thing is those the practice have had years where they started six and oh yeah, I would think even the year in which Rogers got injured the first time with the collar bone, where they want four and two or four and one

going into there might have been. But as you know, what this team might if if you can't stay healthy, if things don't you know, line up the right way in December, it's not gonna matter September. The way I've always looked at it, because you know, for a while they were kind of, you know, bludging, you know, can

you get off to a fast start. The importance a fast start, and don't get me wrong, that's critical if you're looking to get a bye, you need to be able to win through th four games, right off the

bat to put yourself in that position. But you always just gotta keep yourself within the race, right, you need to get two wins, you need to maybe steal that third you got, you gotta you gotta stay in and not put yourself in a position where you're playing uphill starting in mid October, you know, And and with the Packers now having five of their next six games at home after starting off with a division win against the defending NFC North champs, you know, whether you're playing great

on offense or not. I mean, if the defense can keep this going, whatever it takes, you gotta make some hay here because the road schedule the second half of the season and things are going to change for this team. Absolutely, But to go into Soldier Field and an NFC North opponent, the defending division champion, and be able to get a victory like that, that's huge. And it's one of these things too. We touched a little bit on the defense, but I was involved in the huddle with Preston Smith

and Zadarius Smith after the game. Their lockers together right next to each other, visiting locker room figure, right, But they both were talking for about three minutes. They did their interviews in tandem. You know, Preston Smith said, well, Sadarius Smith was a captain for this game, and one of his big messages before end was we want to shock the world. We want to show people that we can be a difference maker, be a dominant defense. And then over on the other side of it, Presson Smith said,

we heard the outside noise. We're not listening to it, but you still hear it, you know what I mean. I mean, that's still an ambient noise with people when they don't have high expectations for you, when there's been issues in the recent years, trying to be able to put this all together with new parts, new draft picks. The Packers did that pretty seamlessly. So to them, they felt like they woke a lot of people up with

this matchup. And then on the other side of it, as Kenny Clark was discussing afterwards, you know they've been hearing these second and third year guys in this defense have just been hearing about, you know, defensive liability and not being the one that's holding up their end of

the bargain. This is a big moment for them. This is a huge confidence boost that is the most overused cliche when it comes to professional sports as confidence, but in this particular case, you can't under overstate it because this has been a lot of guys on this returning defense have been punched in the mouth here the last

few seasons. Yeah. When so when you listen to locker room, as you mentioned, regardless of what happened with offense, defense special teams which had a solid night, there was just a really big fervor in there of confidence, of swagger that I think it's been missing here at least over the last year. Yeah. And Aaron Rodgers went to the podium after the game. He certainly he took his share of the blame for the offensive struggles. Matt Lafleur did

as well. Both of those guys, you know, they know it's it's back to the drawing board a little bit in the sense of in sense of okay, that was that was not the opener they were hoping for. But Aaron Rodgers said, hey, you know this, this team showed, uh you know, showed the nation that was watching that we've got a defense. That was That was the quote.

And and uh, um boy, I mean every time it was interesting because we've seen in the past, when the offense doesn't have a good game, Aaron Rodgers can be pretty sour at the podium and everything like that, even after victories. You know, he's he's such a he's such

a perfectionist. He's such a competitor, and he knows that so much as riding on how he plays every time at the podium Last night, West after the game, when Aaron Rodgers was talking about that defense, his face was just lighting up, you know, like every time you'd see the smile, you'd see the eyes, you know, the eyebrows everything.

You you look at his facial expressions in that postgame press conference when he's talking about the defense, and he said it just when you have a defense like that from from the offensive perspective, what they feel they now have on the defensive side, it just gives the quarterback a lot of confidences to where this team can go. Now, you still gotta go out and play, you know, you still gotta go out and win games. And and the

Packers are going to have. Packers defense is going to have much much bigger challenges than the Bears offense, which um which quite frankly was was a big dud and a big disappointment too to their side of things. But um, but Aaron Rodgers is confident and where this team could go.

And the other thing you gotta keep in mind too with this Mike Aaron Rodgers been practicing against this defense, against this scheme, against the point scouted looks for the last month and a half and he had to go back every Wednesday or whatever day it was that he had to talk to the media and talk about I'm not playing in preseason games, and you know, it doesn't matter.

I'm focused on what we're doing. And why he felt good when they got behind the closed practices with what the offense was doing because Mike Petton's defense is complicated and he's been looking at it. So when Rogers is seeing these schemes, I bet you that he went out there last night pretty darn confident that that defense was gonna look pretty darn good against Chicago because he's had a first row seat to it for the last six weeks.

So seeing those schemes, in what Zadarius Smith had been doing in practice and Preston Smith late during the camp, you know, seeing how all these pieces messed together. The Packers have had an idea for that so I think in some regards it was sort of opening a presence in seeing, Okay, NFL, this is what we're gonna give you here, this is what we can do when we're at our best. Because, as you said, there's gonna be highs and lows, there's gonna be injuries. The Packers have

a very tight rotation right now. It looks like so you have to stay healthy. But when everything's clicking on the same cylinder, that defense is going to give you a chance to win. It doesn't matter who the other opponent is. Yeah. Well, the other thing to remember about a game like this, because the final score was ten to three, obviously it's a one possession game, there were a lot of things that showed you just how slim

the margins are in the NFL. And this is what I wrote about a little bit in Insider Inbox, which I was doing, I don't know, three o'clock in the morning something like that before I went to bed. But um, you look at certain moments the the shot played down the sideline to Alan Robinson and Tremont Williams very smartly and alertly gets him right when he's in mid air and is able to shove him out of bounds because

you don't have that force out rule anymore. The guy's got to get his feet in and if and if you can knock the guy out of bounds, it's an incomplete pass. That would have been a first down in the red zone there, Okay, And then you look at the replay challenge on the Taylor Gabriel catch down the sideline that was overturned out. A bad call in the field. Always gonna have one time out left, by the way. Yeah, well,

and that's what I was going to say. And I apologize for not remembering this reader's name, but this reader and I posted it in the Insider Inbox column, had mentioned that one thing to keep in mind there is that on the Packers previous offensive series, Aaron Rodgers took a delay a game when the play clock ran down

because the Packers only had one time outleft. He didn't burn it right there, and if he had burned it, if he if he had not, say he had not remembered they only had one time outleft or something, and he calls it. Matt Lafleur doesn't have a time out to challenge the Taylor Gabriel pass, which obviously was a potential momentum shifter and a game changer in and of itself.

So and what happened after that delay a game penalty to like a yard passed to Robert Tonyan play in a series in which they ended up getting a field goal. So I mean right, it went, it went to second and third team went from second and eight to second and thirteen. And then the big play to time and gets him across the midfield. You're into scoring range. Another one I'll mention because you talked about Adrian Amos. Obviously, he's back in Chicago for his first game facing his

former team. He makes the big play two minutes left in the end zone with the interception ha Clinton Dix knocks the ball out of Aaron Rodgers hands on that scramble. Rogers is fortunately able to recover it. But the story might have been Ha Clinton Dicks getting back at his old team and creating a turnover in a key moment now that I believe is in the second quarter or not two minutes left in the fourth quarter. But again it's it's just the margin. The margins are so slim.

There is such a fine line between winning and losing in this game, and that's why, however you want to say, if you want to call it, I want to call it an ugly win, a tough slog, whatever you want to say. A win is a win as a win, as they say, and you just you don't apologize for anything in this league because that's just how it goes well, and it's easier to correct off a win than it is a loss. I mean, And the other thing is too, I mean, it's a lot more fun certainly players, you know,

and and my thing is too. And maybe some fans outside will disagree with me on this, but I don't classify that one as an ugly win. I've seen ugly wins, I think you you know, and it goes both ways. You can win forty two to forty one, that's probably

an ugly win. There's been some negative stuff that's happened there, and we might see some of that in Week one here on Sunday in the NFL with if certain defenses that you know are are not quite up to snuff and the offenses are going to be ahead, and we might see a couple of shootouts just the exact opposite of what we saw. But from my perspective, the reason I say it's an ugly win is because there were so many things that did go right for the Packers

in this game. You talked about how close the margin was of that matchup. It applies to special teams too. I was talking with j K. Scott about this after the game, the field position battle that that him and Pat O'Connell had to kind of wage there a little bit in in Scott for his credit, was able to, you know, kind of go tip for tat with them there.

And another play that I thought was really critical is you go to that last punt where the Bears are going to get one more crack at this thing to be able to try to drive the field, and j K he's sitting there looking at the line of scrimmage. The Bears are bringing everybody in for what appears to be like just an all out punt block. The Packers were not anticipating have to squeeze their gunners in, but they did. He has to make a decision there if he wanted to go out of bounds, if he wanted

to go down the field with it. He decides to go down the field with it, just on corkside sixty three yard or that ends up getting brought back even farther after a holding penalty. Tarik Cohen's making a Willie Mays over the shoulder catch because he has to he has to run back so far to find the ball. Yeah, and the fact that the Bears had to start that series I think at the fourteen yard line or whatever it is, flipping the field position, allowing the defensive line

and the outside linebackers to pin their ears back. I thought, really low key, this was a solid performance from Kenny Clark and Dean Lowry too inside the trenches there they didn't have another inside linebacker. It was just Blake Martinez, so a lot of three defensive line fronts, and they still didn't give up a carry in more than eight yards.

There were just so many little moments of this game that I think all at Ley, for whatever happened offensively and some of the highs and lows of that aspect of it, that mattel Floor can sit down and feel pretty darn good about how his team performed. Yeah. Well, you you mentioned the special teams, and we definitely need to touch on that a little bit more, because yes, there were a couple of penalties on the Packers special

teams that affected field position. But J. K. Scott had a few of those, you know, high pooch type kicks that were fair caught inside the fifteen yard line, a couple of them you know, ten yard line and better um And you mentioned the punt at the end of

the game I had. I had leaned over to you after in the fourth quarter, after the Packers had kicked the field goal to go up ten to three, Quadrille Patterson standing in the end zone for that kickoff return, and you know, at that stage, with as much as the Bears offense was struggling, if Patterson catches that ball like barely in front of the back of the end zone,

he's coming out. He's taken a shot right there. Mason Crosby had an absolutely perfect kickoff, low line drive to the left side of the Packers as they were running down the field, but was never in danger of the pylon or going out of bounds. It you know, it comes bounding in the end zone and Patterson has no choice but to take the touchback. It was absolutely perfectly

the way you wanted to execute it. And then obviously the last punt by J. K. Scott, the sixty three yard or helped by a bear's penalty to push them back and not give them any fuel position advantage at all. Some really big moments for the Packers special What I really love about Patterson and you and I have been watching him now for five six years, he still wanted to take that out and I think, yes, he did bobble it in the end zone kind of muff. He was totally going out. You could just see by the

way his feet were moving. He didn't care if it was a squif. He was still going to give it a shot. But that was the type of kickoff you had to kick right there, and Crosby executed it perfect. And the reason why he had a hard time picking up the way it was kicked, the way it had been hitting the ground, It had bounced three or four times at that point. It was exceptional. And that's why again, when you look at the offense, there's gonna be days, Mike.

The things are not going to go exactly how you want him. On special teams, something's going to happen. Defensively, you're going to be challenged and the offense is gonna have to step up. Those different components of a team need to help the other components of the team, and in this particular case, it was defense and special teams that helped seal this one against what I get I'm guessing will still be a very formidable NFC contender. Yeah,

there's no doubt about it. The Bears. For all the ankst that there is in Chicago right now about their offense and Mr Rubisky and everything like that, that Bears defense picked up right where it left off as far as I'm concerned. The one thing the Packers were able to do that they needed to do is they protected the ball. They didn't have any turnovers. The one turnover

in the game was with two minutes left. Adrian Name has got it and that was the big difference, and that was want to know for the Green Bay Packers. All Right, with that, we're gonna 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, Subscribed to us, like us on iTunes and other podcast services if you please. On Twitter, He's at west Hot I'm at Mike Spofford at Packers for the team account.

Thanks for tuning in everybody. We will see in that time. M