#492 Packers Unscripted: Possible prominence

Indianapolis Colts. The reason I'm starting there is because with two weeks to go now in the regular season, we have four teams in the NFC that are all at eleven and three the forty Niners, the Seahawks, the Saints, and the Packers. So the race is on for division

titles in the NFC West and the NFC North. The race is on for those top two seeds and the first round buys that would go with those in the NFC and Matt Lafleur on Monday, his weekly Monday Day after game press conference made the Packers objective over these last two weeks pretty clear. It is about winning to earn as many home games in January as possible. This team wants to be playing at lambeau Field because as

of now they aren't coming back two road games. The Packers want to get back to Lambo in January and play at home again. Yeah, and Zadarius Smith kind of talked about it too with wearing his jacket and this is nice leather kind of fur jacket in the locker room. Uh, you don't want to be out there in January. It's it's tough. It's a tough environment to play and the Packers are able to practice in every single week at

this point. And it's been a very cold November and December, so that is a big advantage for them if they can make this thing go. And you know, I've talked to a nauseum about you know, Roger's feelings on it and importance of it, and I know there's been this sentiment. I even had this conversation with my buddy Scott a few days ago. Roger seems to always play well in warmer environments. Are in domes, sure, but you're talking about

communication issues, You're talking about cross noise. I mean you think of the Supernome, what that place is like when it's not a playoff game. You know, Levi Stadium I think has a really good environment to it as well in a home field advantage for the forty Niners. So unless they're playing in at and T Stadium in Dallas,

which just seems to beat Lambo South. It's just you want to be able to play these January games at lambou Field, and the way that this line's up for green Bay right now, with back to back games against Minnesota Detroit, they're in a position to not only do that right now, but also get that first round by, that very coveted first round by. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean to go through the scenarios quickly. The Packers need one

win to win the NFC North Championship. They can either beat the Vikings this coming week or beat the Lions in week seventeen to win the NFC North. If you win the NFC North, you're guaranteed at least one home game. The Packers would be no worse than the three seed.

But to get a top two seed, which would come with which a first round by would come with that, the Packers need to win their last two games that would get them no worse than the two seed, and then the number one seed is also in play, because if the Packers were to win their last two games, and if both the Seahawks and the forty Niners each take one more loss, then the Packers would actually be

the one seed. So if you can keep all that straight, and I'm doing my best too, but at this point, it's one week at a time, because the Packers can win the NFC North and that's all they can win Monday night in Minneapolis. The Packers can win the NFC North. Meanwhile, the Vikings are looking to clinch a playoff spot because they need one more win to knock the Rams officially out of contention and get themselves in the playoffs here. So um, but yeah, this whole thing, I mean, we've

heard Aaron Rodgers talk about wanting to play games at home. Obviously, the Packers, we all know they made their Super Bowl run in two thousand and ten. It was all on the road. They but they have not in the Aaron Rodgers era, they have not played an NFC Championship game at home. Lost on the road at Seattle with the big comeback obviously, and then you remember the game in the Georgia Dome. I mean once that once, once the snowball started going the wrong way down the hill, there

was just there was just no stopping it. And and that that's the thing that is, it's so hard to rally in those situations when you're on the road in the playoffs and and you know that crowd, that home

crowd is feeling the excitement of their team advancing. And that's what's funny about this year, and people when asking about the identity stuff and in the conversations around that, I still feel like this two thousand nineteen team slants more towards that two thousand fourteen team than sixteen sixteen. That was an amazing train that took them all the way.

That was a completely different type of season. When you're sitting at four and six in the last six weeks of the regular season, you're playing with your back against the wall. And when they got to the NFC title game, not that that was a consolation or just a moral victory, but let's be honest, Mike. I mean, they were really up against some stuff in that game. With where the roster was at at that point. There's attrition that hadn't taken to put themselves on that run in the gas

kind of ran out. What's exciting about this particular, you know team is I just feel like, even though we've talked over and over again about they still have that best game out there. They're healthy, they have players have stepped up at different positions, and they are in a position where they're finally controlling their own destiny again during this final stretch of the season. Yeah, they have it

in their own hands. And when you don't have to rely on X, Y, and Z to to play out for you to have the scenario that you want for your playoff implications, that just goes such a long way. But you and I both know it, Mike, and you can play it back if we had a little bit better technology, we could play back the last three weeks of unscripted's talking about how you had to beat the Giants, you had to be Washington, you had to beat Chicago

to make this game meaningful. Well, Mike, this game on Monday night at US Bank Stadium is the most important game in the season for the Green Bay Packers, and they've put themselves in a position for it to have those kind of stakes. Yeah, it is the biggest game of the regular season, no question about that. And I do believe, as I said an insider inbox on Monday, I think the Packers are going to have to play their best game of the season in order to win it.

I know we're a little bit short on time today, so I want to get to a couple of other things, and we certainly have plenty of time the rest of the week to talk about this big Monday night matchup in Minneapolis. A couple of players that are starting to make their presence is felt a little bit. I guess you'd call them role players for lack of a better term, but roles that we might see increasing in significance here

as the Packers continue down this stretch around. I'm talking about one guy on each side of the ball, Jake Kumero at wide receiver and Rashawn Gary, the rookie first round pick on defense. Starting with Kumarro, he hasn't had a whole lot of catches this season. He's not lighting up the stat sheet by any means. But if there is one stat that jumps out about Jake Kumero, it's that he's averaging I believe it's around nineteen yards per catch team point three yards from point three. When he

does make a play, it's a significant one. And obviously, his one play against the Chicago Bears was a huge one forty nine yards with the catch and run. He's a guy I don't know how there's certain guys have a knack for it was, certain guys have a knack for being able to get yards after the catch. Kumaro showed on that play against Chicago that he's just he's got some kind of some kind of a knacker and instinct for that because that was a very simple play and he turned it into a big explose. He is

a gritty, gritty, gritty grit warrior. I mean, that's just the type of player he is right now, because here's the thing, like, Okay, let's just start off from the beginning of that play. Jake Kumro didn't know whether or not he stepped out of bounds. He knew what his assignment was. He fulfilled it, and he did exactly what

he was supposed to do on the play. And because he trusted all those things and trusted his instincts, it put him in a position and not only catch the ball where Aaron Rodgers put it, but it kept him in bounce. Okay, so that's the beginning of it. He got the first down, fair, big first down. You get

Clinton Dix coming from the top. So that's this incident where a lot of times the receiver can get the you know here, the footsteps make you double think catching that ball, make you double think where your footwork is. But Kumro stayed true to all of his fundamentals, all of his technique not only catches the ball but avoids

Clinton Dixon turns up field. The one thing everyone wants to compare players, right, the one thing since the very beginning that Jake Kumar reminds me of a lot of is Randall cop And they are completely different receivers, but if you look at how they approached the game after the ball is in their hand, they look to turn up field, and they can make guys miss for different reasons,

but they can make guys miss. And and I just think when you see Kumarro, this is him and al Lazard are one and the same in this and that these are two guys that were undrafted free agents, absolutely nothing given to them. They just need to drop one pass and they probably would have been cut, honestly, But it's that kind of scenario a lot of times with those guys at the bottom of the depth chart. And

they did every single thing right. And Matt Lafleur went to the podium, he said, yeah, we gotta get that guy more involved. Elvis Witted, his receiver's coach, said, Yeah,

we gotta get this guy more involved. He's the type of player that I think when you look about a stretch run here, and I'm not guaranteeing Jake Rumro is gonna have a hundred fifty yards every week and eight catches, but he's the guy that when he steps up and is accountable in all of his assignments, it's going to create opportunities for him to make big plays at critical

points and football games. Yeah, and he's also he is one of many receivers in this Packers wide receiver corps that does his part with the blocking and the run game and whatnot, and that is why he gets the snaps that he does. And we've heard it for years and years and years, whether you go back to Donald Driver or Greg Jennings or Jamichael Finley or whoever with Aaron Rodgers, it's about taking advantage of that opportunity when

it comes your way. And Jake Kumero is one of those guys who does take advantage of the opportunity when it comes his way. In that nineteen point three yards per catch, I think speaks to that. And by the way, not that this would qualified because he doesn't have enough catches. The league leader right now is twenty yards per catch. I believe that was Mike Williams from the charge from the Chargers. Yeah, so it just shows you. I mean again,

he needs more of a workload. But that's the type of impact he's making in a short, you know, kind of window here. Yeah, well, switching gears quickly to Gary on the defensive side of the ball. This is a young man. Fans have been wondering, where are the snaps, When is he going to play more? Where is the impact from the number twelve overall pick in the draft.

The Packers have been bringing him along slowly. They haven't needed to throw him in there for fifty snaps a game because you have the two Smiths that outside linebacker. The last couple of games against Washington and Chicago, we've seen Gary play. I believe it was thirteen snaps against Washington, eighteen snaps against Chicago, starting to rack up tackles, starting to rack up more of an impact. I featured him in my What You Might have Missed a little bit

last week. You're featuring him as a player on the rise in a written piece Um this week, he got his second sack of the season against the Chicago Bears. This is a young man who has embraced the role he's been given. He has raced the tutelage that he can receive from the all three of the Smiths, including Mike Smith's position coach and Uhum. And he's he's he's right where he needs to be, and he's in a position to really help this defense down the stretch. He

really is Mike because it's actually really funny. For the first time in eons, outside linebacker is not a real question going into next season. They know what the foundation is. It's the Smith's and it's going to be Gary. Is that up and comer behind them. You go back to either one of those young men, Preston or Zadarius. Now, they might have had a few more sacks, they might have played a few more snaps, but it took time to hold that position and find their way in this league.

And and both of them are breaking out now in year five with Green Bay, Rashan Gary turned twenty two years young earlier this month. I mean, and I the one thing that Mike, Mike Smith says over and over again. This is a guy that gets it. He buys in and he trusts what I was being asked of him. Because everyone just thinks, okay, you just you draft a pass rusher, Mike, you throw them out there, you get the quarterback. That's your goal. See it at your contract extension.

It doesn't work like that. It's about knowing, okay, being in a three point stance, what's asked of you inside, like what Darius Smith does. What do you gotta do to pop up and explode into that rush? So it's not just you're popping up and then being stood up right away. It's your pad level. It's being on the outside of the and and getting the proper step on the tackle because if you don't, he's already back to step or two into his stands, and now all you

have to go with is your bul rush. I mean, it's knowing those little intricacies that are so important, and those are fundamentals. Those are fundamentals. Those are fundamentals that you can when you have the talent and the athletic ability, you can get away with not being completely on your p's and ques with your fundamentals. In college football, you get into the NFL, the other guy is flat out gonna beat you if you are not on top of

those fundamentals on every single snap. And that's what young players have to because it doesn't matter if you're Sadarius or pre Sin Smith or you're a young guy like Rashaan Gary. I guarantee you that tackle has seen every single rep that his coach has put up of you in the previous week and showing all of your tendencies, so being able to evolve adapt. But more than anything, I asked Mike Smith this is at the end of his news conference, his meeting with the press on Thursday.

There is some confidence that goes into this too, because Mike Smith isn't a guy that hands out, you know, celebratory cakes for his guys when they get a sack. Yeah, they're not walking out of that outside linebacker's room with

lollipops in their mouth after film session. Always talks about pressures, but in some cases sacks are important because because a young guy like Gary, who maybe he hasn't had as many sacks as he wants, when you get that one, it reaffirms that you're doing everything right and you're on the path. The results do matter. When you're trying to build something as a young player, yea. And for him to be able to understand his role in that room and the fact that, Okay, this is what is being

asked to me today. It's a beautiful situation for him right now because so often you get a frockie first round pick that's immediately thrown into lineup and you're to be a pro bowler all the way. The Packers didn't take that tact with him. They're taking a very methodical approach with them that you know what, this is a guy that's going to be better tomorrow. You already know

what you're getting with the Smith brothers. This is the guy that's coming up, and it's going to be that next guy that you can continue to build with and create more packages like they did against the Bears and using so many three outside back or packages as they did, changing things up, going with a little bit of variety there.

And whether it's Coomro or whether or not it's Gary, those are the type of guys that when you see those guys emerged late in the season, that's the wrinkle that you can add to your football team now as you shift into a playoff. Yeah, One of the cool things too with Rashawn Gary is when you're in the locker room and you see that his locker is right in between Preston Smith and Zadarius Smith. That's just kind of a cool set up. Talk about sending a message

right as you're supposed to be learned from. Well, I know we're short on time. I apologize for the short show today, but we've got a long week ahead of us to talk about this Packers Vikings game, and we will do that as the week goes along. But for now, that's a wrap on this edition of Packers Unscripted. Please follow all of our coverage of the team on Packers dot com and subscribe to us like us on iTunes

and other podcast services. The Packers YouTube channel is also out there with all kinds of great video content for West. I'm Mike. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time. M