#443 Packers Unscripted: Down to the wire

final score, but it's the chances you had. And the Packers had their opportunities two gold to go situations in the fourth quarter. They come up empty on both of them. And that's uh, that's the NFL for you sometimes, Yeah, especially on Thursday night football. Remember I was talking to you about just the randomness of these games and credit where credit is due. I mean, I think Doug Peterson

called heck of a football game. Carson Wentz showed exactly the type of franchise quarterback he is for Philadelphia's offense. And you know, Jordan Howard was able to come up and sort of break out a little bit in this game. All that being said, the Packers still had a chance to win it late. The defense, you know, there were issues there at times. Early on it was working with short fields after a couple of special teams breakdowns, and then later on the run games sort of wearing them down.

But they did get the stop when they need to get it, and unfortunately for the Packers offense, two drives stalling deep inside Philadelphia's red zone. And you know, if you can't, as Matt Lafleur said, if you don't put points on the board in the red area, you either have to settle for field goals and or you know, mistouchdowns that that's ultimately going to come back to haunt you. Yeah.

The difference in the game, quite frankly, was the Philadelphia Eagles four for four in the red zone five for five, I guess if you count the touchdown from the twenty yard line where they weren't quite inside the twenty just yet, but five scoring opportunities five touchdowns. The Packers were three for seven in the red zone. They left eight points on the board in the first half when two red zone possessions stalled out and you had to kick field goals.

And then, as we mentioned, the two goal to ghost situations in the fourth quarter, and um, you know, Aaron Rodgers, he's obviously been through these situations before. He's not going to beat himself up over it. But I'm sure it was a tough night going home knowing, as he said in the post game, with everything that had happened up to that point, and it shouldn't have come down necessarily

to the play that it did. But with the criss cross by Darius Shepherd and Valdez Scantling, and Rodgers knows that if he had just held the ball a second longer, Shepherd's wide open in the corner because the Eagles completely converged their coverage on the slant with Valdez Scantling, and he tries for the slant, the ball gets deflected and it's intercepted, and and there you have it, and and you know, one of those it's like remember that game where he took the tablet and like throw it on

the ground. I mean, that's kind of I'm sure that's what he felt like after the game because he knows that Shepard was open, the Eagles dropped him in coverage, it's not there, and uh, the Packers are three and one at the quarter pole, but uh, um, you know, a strange game. Really. Based on the first three games of the season compared to this one, it was like everything flipped around. The Packers defense suddenly starts showing a lot more leaks and a lot more holes and problems.

The Packers offense gets a lot figured out. Aaron Rodgers throws for over four hundred yards. Even with all the points they left out there, they still scored twenty seven, which isn't bad against a contending team like the Eagles. But one of those things Thursday night football, I'm not really sure how much you make out of it when it's a Thursday night in September and we're still really not into the meat of the season. Well, first and foremost, you take nothing out of it. I don't care if

the Packers win this game or they lose it. I've never drawn any conclusions from watching Thursday night football because it's just it's it's it's unnatural. I've always said it's not true balls. One of the things I wrote an inbox. You want to win the game, obviously, and it counts the same as all the rest, And it counts the same as all the rest. But in terms of great you know, drawing any big conclusions from it when loser draw I've never done that. Now. A couple of things

that you mentioned are interesting to this UM. I mentioned this to Pete Doherty, my former colleague at the Press Becausette, when we were leaving. It is interesting how the NFL ultimately does pull everything back to equilibrium, though, and the Packers defense was flying high through those first three games. You have a game like this where Whence kind of slips through the grasp of Zadarius Smith, the Packers just

weren't quite able to get home with them. They weren't able to force that takeaway that had been so I don't want to say easy, but they had been just seemed like they were coming so naturally for the defense for the first three games. They didn't get that extra, you know, sort of boost that it had been looking for when it gets into the red area where they

defended two of those with interceptions in the end zone. Yeah, that shift of momentum that the defense had been providing in all of these games, whether it was by a takeaway, whether it was by a stop on a short field, those were the things that were not happening for the Packers on Thursday, exactly. And and you know, I still give a lot of credit to the defense though, man the fact that they only gave up seven points or

whatever it was in the second half. They held their ground in some really unique situations I should say, I think it was fourteen seven points in the fourth quarter. Be that as it may. Uh, they were able to kind of pull together when they needed to to keep the Packers within one score. The biggest I don't want to say tragedy, but you know, sort of travesty and this is it was a phenomenal performance from Aaron Rodgers.

I mean, he was every bit the m v P quarterback that Packers fans have grown a custom to see and over the last decade in this game, and unfortunately, it just wasn't able to be sort of stamped with

that victory. I mean, you think about the touchdown pass to Jimmy Graham and the way he was evading some of the uh you know, the pass rush um and you know, much have been made about his scrambling ability ended up having you know, a few big scrambles in this game for forty five yards too, And and some of his throws on the run, those those were the darts you know on the move that that we've grown a cuss him to seeing from Rogers over the years.

I thought, I agreed, you thought. I thought the way he moved his feet, both when he scrambled and when he made plays out of the pocket, this was this was a little bit of a turn back the clock to the to the Aaron Rodgers we've seen in other years, and hopefully that's a good sign for the Packers moving forward. He was exceptional, I mean, spreading the ball around. Eight different receivers caught a pass. Davante Adams had a major

game ten catches for eight yards, a career high. Unfortunate for him, ends up suffering that toe injury late in the ball game. So the Packers have to go on both of those deep red zone trips, uh those goal to ghost situations without their two time Pro Bowl receiver Um but just Rogers being able to sort of keep

the offense moving. And they knew at some point that if you play enough football games, there's gonna be a day where the defense needs to you to pick them up, even though they've been off to such a great start, And I thought Rogers really did that to keep them in this one. Yeah, well, Davante Adams. We had heard a lot during the week about the Packers wanting to get the ball to add him is more. Rogers talked about it. Adams certainly talked about it as well. Ten

catches for a hundred and eighty yards. Unfortunately, he leaves midway through the fourth quarter with a toe injury, and he's not on the field for the four goal to go place from the one yard line and for the final drive when the Packers once again got down inside the five. Obviously, you lament that situation because if you have your best pass catcher, your best offensive weapon on the field there, you gotta think you're at least getting

that game tied on one of those possessions. But uh um, But just the way the game went, Hopefully this injury, this toe injury to Davante Adams is not a serious thing. Hopefully it's something he can uh um, he can play through and isn't going to miss any time. But we'll just have to find out next week war things stand with that. Yeah, he gets ten days to get right here before this Dallas game, and he mentioned they're gonna

take a look at it today after the game. You know, he didn't have a he wasn't wearing a shoe on there, so I didn't even want to try it, you know, just just being safe and being smart, and certainly, you know, felt disappointed he wasn't able to be out there for them, because even if it isn't him catching the touchdown pass, you talk about the Darius Shepherd play. With all due respect to Darius Shepherd, he's been a really nice player early on here. If that's Davante Adams coming free, they're

not going to let them go there. They're not gonna send two guys at mvs. They're gonna have, you know, somebody or a safety somebody you know, had with their attention on Adams. Philadelphia, you know, to their defensive credit, I mean, they were working through a ton of injuries in the secondary. I mean they were down to third, fourth, and fifth stringers by the end of that game, and they had practice squad guys on the field in goal to go there in the in the fourth quarter, and

to their credit, they held up. Yeah, And the thing that was interesting about this in so many ways, it was the game I think you and I both expected. It was very difficult to run against that front, but Aaron Rodgers in the passing game was able to get their momentum moving and you know, able to you know,

extend the ball. I think it ended up being four hundred and forty one and four and sixty total yards no fo this game fourner and forty two ye or four and twenty two yards passing excuse me for Rogers. He only had the one sack, which I thought was a real testament that offensive line. With Brian Bulaga going out before halftime, Alex Light had to finish up there.

You know, a lot of adversity for both sides, and you know, for the Packers perspective, um just not quite enough to you know, put those final points on the board to extend this thing into overtime. Yeah. Well, the Packers defense, we had talked about it the last couple of weeks. Teams have been running the ball and the Packers, but the great equalizer had been the takeaways. And I think one of the things that we saw in this game. A couple of things that I'll that I'll point out

here at least what's been going through my mind. One is that Carson Wentz, without question, the best quarterback the Packers have faced so far this year. And guess what, Elite quarterbacks don't give the ball away as much as lesser quarterbacks in this league do. So you lost that great equalizer with the takeaway. Like we talked about before.

The other thing, obviously, in any quarterback, whether you're Arson Wentz or anybody else, when you have a running game that's doing what the Philadelphia Eagles running game was doing, that's going to help a quarterback stay in complete command of what's going on in the field. But the other thing I'll say is defensively, this just felt like a game that it started out poorly, not necessarily the defense's fault,

but then it's snowballed. And what I mean by that is special teams gave up a long kickoff return, the Eagles take advantage of the short field to get a touchdown. Then you have a kickoff that goes out of bounds. They get the ball in the forty yard line, they only have to go sixty yards for a touchdown. Then they get the strip sack of Rogers back in the red zone only seventeen yards. They get a touchdown there.

Three touchdowns are given up. The Eagles have twenty points on the board, yet those three touchdown drives barely covered a hundred yards because of field position. But then, but then the snowball effect happens in the second half, where then suddenly the Eagles are putting together the seventy five

yard touched on drives. They do that twice in the second half and um and then when the Packers defense has that opportunity with the Eagles on the one yard line after the failed fourth and goal, yes they got the stop, but the Eagles drove fifty yards and got out to midfield before that stop occurred. And that was another another big factor in this game, even though the Eagles didn't get points on that drive. So it just felt like it felt like a snowball type of game

for the defense. That you just wonder if the field position is not such a big factor in the first half, if ultimately at the end of the day that point total the Eagles end up with is a little bit different. Yeah, And you know, ultimately to Mike, I mean, no one in the locker room is going to say this. Everybody's going to say that they were well prepared for this, and you know, I think mentally in a lot of cases they were. But you also have to recognize the

fact of how this defense is structure right now. The rotations, you know, they haven't gone incredibly deep yet. You know, they've been asking a lot of these guys to play, you know, a significant amount of snaps. Even in this game. I think there was what eight guys with over fifty

of the sixty two defensive snaps. When you have that, you're on short rest, it's difficult to keep gas the tank um And I don't want to try to make I'm not trying to make excuses, but I just think that this was not for this particular defense and the way the Packers are playing it right now, it was not advantageous to go up against an opponent like Carson Wentz in that running game after what they saw on

Sunday from the Broncos. Be that as it may, Uh yeah, I mean there were opportunities there, you know, four big plays and they just weren't able quite able to get it. Some of that is due to Carson Wentz being six five and two thirty pounds or two aren't forty pounds whatever he is, and you know, some of it, you know is some you know opportunities down field too that

they just weren't able to capitalize on. The biggest issue um at the end of the day is just as you know, if you're not able to stop the run consistently on those first two downs, the third downs become more of a situation, more of a problem. There was only two technical explosive plays for the Philadelphia in this game of more than twenty yards, but they were just able to gash them in the teens. And you know, they did what they needed to do to capitalize on

the opportunities that they had. Yeah, well, those a lot of third down situations, a lot of third and shorts for the Eagles because of the way they were running the ball. Carson Wentz converted a couple of third and ones with just simple quarterback sneaks and and uh, you know, they were able to keep the ball in those cities. And that's a heck of a quarterback sneak. I mean, I challenge any defensive front in the NFL with the with how long he is and how big he is.

I thought Packers did about just about anything they could, including almost forcing a fumble with your Alexander running to the end zone. But it's just I mean, with the way that that offensive structured, and again it's a credit to Doug Peterson to having those guys ready. They know how to win when Carson Wentz is their quarterback, and

when he's healthy, it's a real dangerous combination. Yeah. Well, on the offensive side of the ball for the Packers, as frustrating as those last two fourth quarter drives were and everything like that, and again it is Thursday night football. The Eagles were dealing with plenty of stuff on defense, but at least the Packers got Aaron Rodgers into a rhythm. He was looking comfortable out there doing his thing, looking

like the old Aaron Rodgers. And at least, if there's something you're gonna take away from this game that you can really hone in on, it's that the Packers know the red zone and the gold to ghost stuff is really what you have to work on. Now. I mean they've they've at least they've at least gotten to wear in a game like this against a pretty darn good team. They were able to move the ball up and down

the field without a problem. Now it's just a matter how many points are you going to get out of those opportunities, because that's where they fell short on Thursday. And one thing I want to throw back on you very quickly here, and not to throw you on the spot, but there was something that a lot of people made, you know, a lot of noise about on Twitter after the game, and it was the fact, as you mentioned, the double conversion onto MBS and you know, maybe the

contact earlier not this. The reason I want to bring this up quickly is because I think I've been I was thinking about this all night long. There is an invasive species aspect to this change that they've made with defensive past infer question about inference, and I don't feel like the NFL at this point in time is capable of handling it. I know that sounds kind of weird, but I agree with you. I agree with you there,

you know. And and it was interesting that before he even said, because he was asked about did you consider taking one of the time out skim a little bit more time, he mentioned all that. I mean, they had their their mind made up. There seems to me that they, Okay, they opened up this can of worms because of the Saints play, and you know, they want to be able to eliminate that stuff. But it's almost like anything else

they don't want to hear about it. We saw with the NBS well and and the point I'll make west not to interrupt you, but this is what I said in Insider inbox for the column this morning that went up on the website. The language of the past interference replay review clear and obvious is the standard, okay, now to me, the past play down the sideline to m VS that Matt Lafleur challenged, that looked like pretty clear

and obvious past interference, but they don't call it. The one that the Eagles challenged looks pretty clear and obvious. That Kevin King's hand knox el Shan Jeffrey's arm out of the way before the ball gets there, and he can't catch the ball because he gets an arm taken away. That looks pretty clear and obvious. They don't call that one.

The it looks like Valde's scantling basically gets bear hugged as he's running the slant and he has enough he can't move his arms, so the ball bounces off of the pile of people and goes up in the air. So to me, what what I feel, And this is

what I said in the column. It was it's as though the standard being applied is a word more like flagrant or blatant and clear and obvious, it was not what was being applied when looking at in my opinion, that's not what was being applied and looking at the replays.

So if you're not if clear and obvious is not what's being applied, then you need to change the language of the rule because those plays when when we have the technology as we do today to slow things down frame by frame, whether you're talking bang bang plays at first base in baseball which get overturned all the time now because they're missed, and when you can look at it frame by frame, it is obvious you stop it at a certain frame whether that guy is out or safe.

You can do the same thing now with past interference. If you want to look at it frame by frame and freeze it, you can tell if that contact is clear and obviously clearly and obviously preventing the player from catching the ball. And but it doesn't seem like that's the standard that's being applied. So I agree with your original point. The NFL has has opened this can of worms.

They've come up with this language of this rule, but they don't they don't seem to be capable of handling it and applying it in a way that the rest of us can understand. And then just I think my biggest issue. I know there's some people make comments about this too if you actually just follow, and I'm not just talking about the Packers, you follow it really the NFL and how they've been officiating these things and how they're reviewing these Everything seems like it's a case by

case basis. There isn't a standard for what they're looking for. It's like, okay, what do you look at on this play? And to their defense, I mean, there is some subjectiveness to this. No past, no play is going to look just like another play, but there also doesn't seem to

be any consistency either. And be honest with you, Mike, I feel like, even though they made these changes to try to make things more clear and obvious, I think the only thing and and this is a this is a judgment by the way that's coming from the New York office. It seems to me like the real call now is it's just it's lent more credence in weight to what the original call was on the field, So it's it's almost like Okay, the referees technically don't have a say in it anymore in terms of what the

final decision will be. But boy, that initial you know call on the field is going to be what you know, New York isn't gonna do much to overturn that. Yeah, I mean, and that's that's what I've been saying for years, is that the more technically you want to get with replay and replay reviews, I don't quite understand, frankly, why you're going to give the call in the field that much weight, because those calls on the those calls on field, the what the what the officials are seeing are not

that's not being helped by technology. You've got the better technology now to officiate it properly, but yet you're still giving all of the weight to call on the It strikes me as a flawed system. And when you look at this past interfereence stuff we saw in the Minnesota game in Week two, the Packers benefited a touchdown by the Vikings is wiped out when they review it and

they see offensive past interference. The game last night, there is an offensive past interference called when the Eagles score a touchdown and then the review takes it away. And then on the play where Jordan Howard is all alone running down the sideline for a twenty yard reception, Blake Martinez got picked off right in the middle of the field. He couldn't get over there to handle his assignment. He's looking around, like, where's the past interference called? Well, it's

a scoring play, so it was automatically reviewed. They obviously weren't interested in calling offensive past interference there to wipe out that touchdown. So here we are. You got the overturn that was made in week two, and the calls and the non calls that are made in week four. It's still in September, and and there's no there's no rhyme or reason as you say, to what's going on, and it is every single play is like a case by case basis. I think that's a great way to

put it. Yeah, and when you know, because people say now you know, you see people on Twitter like, oh, this is gonna get overturned. I never say that about any play no more, because I just don't know what I'm doing that in the in in the live blog during the game, I'll just say I don't know how this one's gonna go, folks, you know, I mean, I really don't. We gotta go. But I want to mention to Jamal Williams. I know, obviously a scary situation with him. Um,

it appears by all accounts he's gonna be okay. I know he was held overnight for some observation. I had some tweets that he put out there saying that you know, he's in good spirits. He's I think one of them he said, like the only thing that's hurting is like his his not ego, but like his like it's like there's nothing to be ashamed about on that play. And yeah, he's it's it's almos. It's almost as though his pride

has been pride. It's like how he has he has no reason, he has no reason to feel that way whatsoever, not with what happened to him on that play. And there's an argument that Derek Barnett, who ended up getting the strip sack, which was a huge play in the game, there's an argument that he shouldn't have been on the field. There's some reports though, and I don't know if this

is true. I mean, there's some real credible, you know journalists that are putting this out there that the league office had set out a memo saying that he wasn't ejected because he turned his shoulder. I mean he didn't. He like, like he tried to turn his shoulder last minute his helmet collided with Jamal Williams while by the way, williams helmet was being held. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's yeah, whatever, but hopefully you know, everything is good with Jamal Williams.

I mean, you talk about I just hope. I just hope he's all right. And and uh Maddox the dB for Philadelphia as well, even though it was his own teammate that took him out in that situation, certainly he hates his I mean, two guys being taken off on stretchers. I mean, that's too too many. And to see it both in the same night that it certainly gives you pause. No, it definitely does. And I mean for Jamal Williams, you know,

I mean again the point I was gonna make. I mean, he's just a fun, loving, care free kind of guy. Into his credit. I mean, I think the first thing he put on Instagram was actually a well wishes to Matics before he ever provided any you know, any update on himself. I mean hoping that he was gonna be okay. A terrible situation from that perspective, but you hope both of those guys, you know this, this won't be a lingering issue for them going forward. Yeah, one thing I

want to run past you before we go. I know Marvin, our producer, says, we gotta get going. But Week four in the NFL on Sunday, you got Bears, Vikings, you got Lions, Chiefs, you got Cowboys Saints on Sunday Night Football. Which which game you got your eye on the sharpest? The Cowboys and Saints is the one, because you know how difficult it is going into the Superdome. But more importantly, there is some strength of scheduled questions with what Dallas

has faced so far. There's gonna be none of that with this game in New Orleans. I know they're not playing without Teddy Teddy. They are playing with Teddy bridge Water. They're playing without Drew Brees right now. But Bridgewater really looks solid in that game and playing with his own crown behind him, I think that's gonna be a really

difficult matchup for Dallas. And let's be honest, too, I mean Detroit, you give them credit where credits due there to zero and one at this point, but a very difficult task with Patrick Mahomes and and they get they get the Chiefs at home, and the way things are right now, I mean, if the Lions can pull off that game at Ford Field, they'd be three oh and one and they would be in first place at the quarter pole. The Packers at three and one will be

tied with whoever wins between the Vikings and the Saints. Technically, the Packers would obviously have the tie breaker at this point because they haven't played two games against those division rivals yet. The rematches are yet to come, but but should be an interesting Sunday of football. Oh, it's gonna be great. And then you have the Patriots and the Bills both three and o in their division, and just say, it's gonna be a lot of fun contests across the board.

But yeah, I think you know there's some gut checks here coming up in me Cleveland going into Baltimore right now at one and two. Um, definitely a tough week for some of these teams. Yeah, alright, with that, we will call it a rap on this edition of Packers unscripted. Be sure to follow all of our coverage of the team on packers dot com, subscribe to us, like us on iTunes and other podcast services. You can find him on Twitter at west Hod, I'm at Mike Spofford at

Packers for the team account. Thanks for tuning in, everybody. We'll see you next time.