#437 Packers Unscripted: After further review

we have to get to some of these controversies. But I want to start out with a couple of things from Matt Lafleur's Monday afternoon press conference in which he reviewed some of the key moments from the game, and one of those being something we didn't really touch on, and yesterday's show, which was that at first down that sealed the game, the play action bootleg to the left pass from Aaron Rodgers to Davante Adams. Now, these are two obviously all pro Pro Bowl caliber players executing a

play in crunch time. But it's almost as though we took for granted the how easy they made it look on what was what Matt Lafleur explained, was an incredibly difficult play to execute. Because of the pressure from Anthony Barr. I believe it was who was right in uh, Aaron Rodgers face, he's rolling to his leap. I just, uh, you know, it was only a seven yard completion, but it might have been from an execution standpoint, the most

impressive play of the game. And you take a chance, Mike, and when you're in a four minute offense, you take a chance every time you throw the football. I mean, you want to be able to keep the clock running no matter what's happening. And in that particular instance, I just thought it was such a well done play in that it was a high percentage throw, but yet what he had to do to be able to get out there and find his receiver, because I mean, how many

times do we see it? Actually, you could even go back to the week before against Chicago where the Packers I believe, tried to throw it to MVS ended up falling down and completion clock stops. So for Rogers to come back in, you know, have the kind of sequencing that they did get the thirteen yard game from Aaron Jones. You get them thinking more and more. You had the four yard carry. Okay, now they're looking at the run now they're cued into the run. They want to stop

the run. Well, then you pull the you know, the rug from underneath them and and find Davante Adams. I wrote about it in the game notes too. I mean, Adams was so consistent in this game. Three of the five third downs converted were courtesy of him. But then to make that catch it was second and six. It was only seven yards, but those are the type of plays you have to make if you're going to close

out opponents, especially within the division. The Packers accomplished that, and I give Matt Lafleur a lot of credit for that call there too, because Eviosuly the conservative, the easy thing to do is to just run the ball, just try to get that next first down, make the Vikings use their time outs all that, not risk the incomplete pass. And he said, hey, I've got confidence in my guys out there. I'm gonna be aggressive when I have confidence

in them. And yet he had confidence despite the fact that until that final drive, the Packers had had only four first downs in the second half, and when they called for a pass play in a similar second down situation late in the game in Chicago, it wasn't complete. It stopped the clock. The Bears did have an extra time out then when the Packers had to pump the ball back to them when they couldn't close it out

on offense. So his confidence was there. He went, He had the courage of his convictions that the play action there was the right call and it got the Packers of victory. Yeah, and it's also trusting your quarterback in that instance too, to make sure that you get the playoff and you have it play out the way you wanted to, because that is that's a difficult front. It's not like you're doing play action at inst a unit that can't get home with, you know, a four man rush.

The Vikings very well can do that, and they have a bunch of guys that played discipline and fundamentally sound football. That's how they've consistently been among the NFL's best every year. But Rogers made the correct play on it in Davante Adams, to his credit, knew exactly where the sticks were to be able to get the first down and keep that drive moving. It's really interesting because how often do you

see it's not even just the NFL. You go to college football, all these different levels teams that struggle to execute the four minute offense, and you know, they end up giving the opposition a chance to get the ball back because the reality is, if you do have your time alt's left, you know, you know, you can take eight seconds off the clock if it doesn't go right.

So from that perspective, I just thought that it was a perfect embodiment of what the Packers were good at in that game, and that Aaron Jones was their workhorse, bell cow back hundred sixteen rushing yards, Davante Adams at the hundred and six receiving yards, and the twenty five yard defensive pass reference penalty that he drew. That was the go to, the one to punch for Aaron Rodgers in that day. In that combination is what helped him

seal the victory. Yeah. Well, the other thing that I thought was a really interesting nugget from La Fleur's press conferences. He talked about the decision that he made after the forty five yard touchdown pasted its Stefon Diggs for the Vikings. It's twenty one to sixteen, but Diggs gets flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct for removing his helmet on the field after the touchdown. Catch, so it's a fifteen yard penalty personal file packers have the choice of either applying that penalty

on the p A T or on the ensuing kickoff. Now, nine times out of ten, you're going to take that on the kickoff, make them kick off from the twenty yard line, and you hope to get better field position and your next possession. But Matt Lafleur saw that after the touchdown, the Vikings were leaving their offensive personnel on the field, and he's like, oh, they want to go for two to get to one to eighteen, get within

three points. In my opinion, maybe a little early to be playing, you know, those points scenario games, but it was a low scoring game. It had turned into a little bit of a defensive battle by that point, so I can understand the strategy. But because he saw that the Vikings were going to go for two, he elected to enforce the penalty on the p A T. Which essentially, then if the Vikings still wanted to go for two, they'd have to run that play from the seventeen yard

line to get into the end zone. Instead, they just took the fifteen yards from the fifteen back to the thirty, made it a forty eight yard single extra point try with the kick, which then the Packers blocked. But regardless, even if the Packers don't block that, the decision to take the penalty where he did it prevented the Vikings from getting within a field goal even if they make the extra Yeah. I thought it was an exceptional call

by Matt Lafleur in that instance. And the other thing is too He's not going to say this, but I will say it. I mean, Dan Bailey had missed from forty seven yards earlier in that con Absolutely, yeah, you're putting back a kicker that, while historically accurate, only made of his kicks last year and already had missed one in the ball game. So everything screamed that was the

right call. I also got to give credit to Mike Zimmer too for potentially trying to get a little savvy there and maybe going, you know, allowing his his offense to try to get the two point conversion because they just had the forty five yard touchdown. That could really be a backbreaker for the Packers if you come go back and you give up the forty five yard explosive and then you give up the two yard two point conversion. Instead,

the momentum shifts back to Green Bay. I talked about it on yesterday's show with my conversation with Tony Brown. I mean, that was an opportunity for my Minnesota really to just grab everything and just kind of get everything moving in their way, you know, get the wind in their sales. And then as it turned out, and the packers kind of reduced the gusts a little bit and we're able to you know, mount the final stop that

they needed to win that ball game. Well, certainly stefon Dig's emotions leading up to that moment and his his frustrations in essence leading up to that moment, because it turned out that was the only past he caught on the day, was the already five yard or for the touchdown. It got the best of him there, and it did cost the Vikings because that was that was a big penalty.

But that leads me to what I want to talk about here as we get into some of these some of these gray areas, controversial calls, whatever you want to call them, And we'll start with what happened with Digs, which is what I think um was part of his frustration that had been building during the game the offensive past interference upon replay review that took away his short touchdown pass in the second quarter. Um first time, you know, it only took a couple of weeks. You knew what

was going to happen. But the first time that the new rule of past interference being subject to review ends up taking away a touchdown because scoring plays are automatically reviewed, so once somebody gets in the end zone, they look at it. They're looking at everything, and they said in in the review command center in New York that Dalvin Cook was guilty of offensive past interference. Clear Darnelle Savage out of the way as Stefon Diggs caught the little

pass on the crossing route. Vikings were not happy. I wouldn't expect them to be happy. But when you look at what happened on the film was I looked at it pretty closely yesterday for the first time. I didn't really see it all that closely on Sunday. But it's a legitimate call. It sort of reminds me a little bit about when you you know, like introduced an evasive

species to a climate. This wasn't the reason why the NFL created this OPR review rule, but It's one of the sort of the byproducts of it is now these pick plays are going to be under greater scrutiny. It's an inevitable consequence of changing a rule, changing such a significant rule. Yeah, and I to be honest with you, I kind of like it. And I understand there was some pundits out there. I was watching some of the

shows that hated this. But the thing I like about it is you could argue the pick play is the most difficult thing to officiate in the National Football League. I would agree with you. It is virtually impossible to be able to keep your eyes, especially when offenses go spread where you've got two receivers on each side and they're doing their crossing patterns, and when an offense is close to the goal line where where both sides of

the ball everything is compacted. There are so many bodies and you know it's it's not you're not in the middle of the field where it's already difficult to knowl Yeah. So in in you know, these are become so commonplace and in a bang, big environment, it's really been difficult

for officials to call those plays in real time. Tremont Williams, I talked about this on yesterday show, but Tremont Williams said afterwards, you know, historically that's been something that just hasn't gotten called, and it's just been something where the defenses kind of has to bear its teeth and just

move on because they know they're not going to get that. Well, this was a shift a little bit, and to be honest with you, I feel like this was There's been a lot We're gonna talk about a lot of controversies coming up here, but this is I think an actual positive that's come out of this review is that now it's allowing the eye in the sky to look at these plays as opposed to these referees having to make judgment calls in the instant a flick of a pass, a moment in time, uh, quick bat of the eye

and you have to make a judgment call. I do actually like potentially what this could do in terms of making offenses reconsider, you know, running those type of plays, and potentially the ramifications of it. Because the other thing is too it backed up the Vikings ten yards and they weren't able to get anywhere near that goal line after that. Right, the call cost them four points because they ended up kicking a field goal there at the end towards the end of the first half, as opposed

to getting a touch on. I'm with you. I I agree with everything you said, because they are extremely difficult to officiate, and it's always it's felt for years to me, whether I'm watching the Patriots and Tom Brady or even some of the things the Packers have done over the years with with Randall Cobb and and um James Jones and guys like that, running those rub routes and pick plays and stuff like that. It's just it's always felt like it's so unfair to the defense, frankly. And yes,

there are rules. If it happens within one yard of the line of scrimmage and whatnot, it's legal. But i mean, come on, these these officials are having to, you know, watch these world class athletes with the with these very finite specific parameters on the rules. It's it's not easy. And yeah, if if this review of past interference stuff is going to UH is going to lead to some offensive past interference calls being made and helping out defenses in these tough spots, I have no problem with that.

The thing that was that's been interesting to me is what I've heard from all of the pundits or whether you're looking at the media in Minnesota, everything that's coming out of there is like, well, this wasn't what the rules intended to do to take touchdowns off the board. But you have a look at it. It's a penalty, So what the hell is? So what what? What's the I don't see what the problem with it is when you look at the film and it was clearly offensive

past interference by the letter of the law. And let's be honest too, Mike, there's a science to this, right, I mean, you look at offensive line play. You know, Everson Griffin was making that kind of tongue in cheek joke about how David box Terry holds a line. I remember hearing, you know, certain defensive linemen say that about Josh Sitton. But there is an art to it and doing it well. There's gonna be pick plays that are gonna be very much in the gray area this year

that they're gonna have to make tough calls on. This wasn't one of them. Delvin Cook did not do it the way you need to do it in order to avoid the penalty. It was a penalty. Yea, so it is what it is. But I certainly I think considering that the place started with the head of fish, I think that was who was it, John Hesse or whoever it was, Yeah, John Hussey. I believe we ended up coming out and say, well, why are we stopping the game? Mike was on a little too long, stopping the game

because you guys just missed a penalty. Yeah, Well, a couple others I want to talk about here. We can talk about him in tandem. The Adam Theeland catch the thirty yard or that got the Vikings out to midfield in I believe it was the third quarter, and then Kevin King's interception in the corner of the end zone

in the fourth quarter. Both of these were really interesting calls to me because we've seen various adjustments and permutations to the catch rule, the Calvin Johnson rule, whatever you want to call it, over the last few years, and quite frankly, I think the most recent adjustment to those to that rule is what allowed both of these plays to stand, because if you rewind the clock five or six years, I think both of those are incomplete passes.

What do you think? So it's funny They're completely different in there on completely different sides of the ball in terms of who is catching the past, but I think they're eerily similar. And why I say that is the new rule whatever you want to say it is, and you could read it off to me right now and I would not be able to honestly tell you what the difference is in terms of nuance from the past rule.

But the one thing that I've taken away from the last year and change in this new environment is basically the alteration to this rule is you're gonna need clear evidence to overturn whatever the original old judgment is of the officials. That is what holds the most water. Now, whatever that first initial reaction to it is is going to be the call, and it's gonna stand. It's why in Theeland's instance, I had no doubt from the beginning

that that play was going to stand. I'm not saying it was a catch or not a catch, I don't know, but I had no doubt that they were going to rule that a catch, just based on what we've seen

over the past year. The King one is, as I was explaining to you yesterday, I actually was a little bit more on board with it being a catch slash interception because he did it all in one one motion where it was conceivable although the ball came out, it was conceivable that he caught it and let the ball go and then continue to celebration, which is exactly what Calvin Johnson did when this whole thing started and his was ruled incomplete in the end zone at Soldier Field,

and that's what opened this Pandora's box and it's led to essentially a decade's worth of machinations over the rule and everything like that. I agree with you. I think what Kevin did was all in one motion and it was very, very similar to the original Calvin Johnson play that was ruled incomplete. The one benefit that King had is there was a lot of bodies around where the Calvin Johnson won. It was just so much isolated on him at that exact moment because well he was Kelvin

Johnson and basically beat everybody to the end zone. But you know, the thing is, again, as I just sort of illustrated alluded to when you had the Dez Bryant play, it just always seemed to be during that era of this call, it was always okay the officials are looking at these plays and they are just trying to find anything to overturn it as it now. It's looking at it and being like, Okay, we need to see something

that makes us overturn it. I just think that that's the it's just the perspective that's changed, and it's allowed more of these plays to go there insummation. There are plays last year I can think of that I had more of an issue with standing than either one of those two. I would agree with you. My my initiative

Washington last year I thought was agreed. I can't remember. Yeah, My initial reaction on the feeling one is just that because the whole time it seemed that that he was juggling the ball, and then just before he hit the ground it seemed that, yes, then he the ball was secure, and then you saw the nose of the ball hit the ground as he fell, and to me, like you slow that down frame by frame, it's like, yeah, it looks like he has it, But when you look at

how much he was juggling it along the way, and then you're going to you're going to say that in really what amounts to maybe fifteen hundreds of a second, he had that before. The nose of the ball touched clearly touched the ground. To me, like the you know, the you know, the fifty guys in a bar rule, so to speak. If I'm one of those fifty guys in a bar, I'm saying the ground helped him catch it. Even though the ball didn't move. It felt to me like the ball helped him. The ground helped him catch

the ball. Obviously, the way the rule is written now, as you said, they're they're looking for something clear and is to change a catch if it's been ruled a catch on the field. And in both of those instances that we're talking about, they were ruled a catch and an interception and they didn't see they didn't see anything that was like, you know, oh my gosh, no, that

wasn't correct, So we're going to change it. Yeah, for whatever you know they made of this whole thing of New York reviewing these things, the weight of the call still seems to be on the original official The one thing I will say that if I have any issue with the way that this has been ruled or officiated over the past year, it's that it's kind of turning into a game of craps to me, where it's like, Okay, well we know that this is what it's going to be,

but every once in a while and someone's going to roll a seven and it's and you're gonna end up having a thing overturned or changed. But it doesn't. But I don't think that particular instance has any bearing on any other ones. So I guess I'm trying to say is my biggest issue is it seems like they're taking everything in isolated event as opposed to trying to have some sort of common thread among all of them. If

I had any issue with it at this point. Well, the other one that I want to talk about before we go, it wasn't in the Packers game, but it

was in the Bears Broncos game. And actually it was a couple of things on the Bears final drive, one being the roughing the passer call on Bradley Chubb which gave the Bears the initial fifteen yards of that drive where they end up kicking the game winning field goal, and then the leaving one second on the clock after the catch on fourth down, the Bears get the first down,

but it looks like the clock has hit zero. The officials put a second back on saying that a time out was called in time and then the Broncos end up losing, the Broncos being the Packers next opponent here coming up at Lambeau Field. The Broncos end up losing on the last second field goal to go to oh and two, and the Bears are one on one. I'll be honest with you, West the roughing the passer one.

And it's not just because of what happened with Clay Matthews last year, but that one bothers me more than the one second thing at the end, because because to me, you know, there's a whole bunch of bodies around there in the pocket. And they called Bradley chubbed for the whole Dodi Wait things supposedly that like how he landed on Trubisky when he took him down. I mean, I just you know, thirty seconds left in the fourth quarter,

you can't call that. Daniel Hunter made a tremendous play in the game against Green Bay on his sack of Rogers where he went high on him and he landed with his full body weight on him. The only difference was Rodgers didn't get the ball out of his hands. If he did, I'm guessing there probably would have been

a penalty in this instance. The reason I really didn't like this is because you know, to me, it looked like Chubb made a really good football play, and you have Trubisky, because Chubb's rush was behind him and not in front of him, is able to get the football out At what point? I always go back to this, and I don't mean to keep bringing this up, I think every single time we discuss it, But it's Mike

Kevin Green. You can't control an accident. Rule. You have Bradley Chubb moving with so much inertia towards the target. Once the target throws the football, he can't stop himself in more, especially if he's trying to get that quarterback a strip, sack, whatever down to the ground. You can't

control an accident. I just the one issue I've had with the way that this has been officiated over the last year emphasis or no emphasis is they just have not been able to find the difference between the black and the white. There's this gray area in there that they keep wanting to put towards one side or the other. It's not that way. Chubb's play was not a penalty, and I'm guessing when the NFL ends up announcing their fines later this week, he's not going to be fine

for that for that play. So it's just it was really disheartening from that perspective. The time out was interesting to me because I wrote this an inbox and I don't know if you agree with him or not, but I guess the way that you should do it is if as soon as that ball leaves Mitchell Robinski's hands, to have somebody whether it's a coach or a player, immediately just signaling time out the entire time to make sure that you get the call. Um. It was a

really it was a bang bang play. You know. The reason I say this is because I think the game's over, but because it's two thousand nineteen, you know, they gave him the opportunity. And hey, credit to Eddie Pinero. I mean, what a phenomenal catch or a phenomenal kick to to win that ballgame. I mean, the Bears did what they needed to do. It's just unfortunate that had happened the way it did for the Broncos. Yeah, I think one last thing on the roughing the pastor just to reiterate

a little bit of what you said. I think there needs to be some distinction between a football play and egregious content. And that's what I was saying. They can't figure it out what the difference is. I mean, they've they've altered the stuff with the catch rule to include a football move. Maybe some of these other rules need to have a language of like a football play if

it just looks like a football play. And the one thing I really wish officials would do in this particular, and since there's a lot of times where you've gotta get that flag in there right away and you gotta figure it out. But if a guy gets thrown out of the sidelines, if he goes, if he's whipped out of the sidelines, there's always like a pause for a second or two and then the flag comes out for

whatever reason. Any time a quarterback is touched like that, that yellow flag is out there, it's it's it's take a breath for a second. The play is over. He's not any more danger. And just think about what you saw. See how the quarterback reacted to it. Is he in pain? Was it? Was it blatant? But no, I mean immediately the first thing, the reaction is get that handkerchief out on the field. That's unfortunate. YEA, one last thing, I know we have to go. Marv's bart going to be

barking in my ear in a second here. But I was asked an insider inbox if a play like the Bradley Chubb play at the end of the fourth quarter that obviously influenced the outcome of a game, is that going to lead to those being subject to review like the past interference. My initial answer is no, because the only reason we are where we are with past interference is because it happened in the NFC Championship game and

determined which team went to the Super Bowl. So I don't think we're to that point with roughing the pastor where it's going to start to fall under the replay rule. But if that's thirty seconds left in a playoff game, we're having a different discussion, I think absolutely. And the one thing I really wish they would do is actually get together as a group and talk about it and potentially pick up the flag. They did it with Ty

Summers last weekend. He had that hit along the sidelines and they decided, you know what, he was running it wasn't a flag that he was tiptoeing trying to stay on bounds and and got laid out and got laid out. Fine, that's cool, let's pick up the flag. They need to start considering that more. Get your officials together, make a because there's three four guys looking at the backfield in that instance. I just think that it needs to be

on the refs right now. But you know that if Chad Beebe had been a quarterback, they never would have picked up that flag. Absolutely not, absolutely not. That's you're exactly right. I mean, that would have been an entirely different situation. All right, Well, thanks for indulging me today in all of these all of these issues, but we do have to call it a wrap on this edition

of Packers Unscripted. Be sure to follow all of our coverage of the team on Packers dot com, 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, See you next time. M