#511 Packers Unscripted: Pieces to the puzzle

Time kickoff. I want to start the show today by talking about a couple of offensive players for the Packers, one who has been around for quite a while and one who's only been around for a couple of months. First off, the one has been around for a while,

wide receiver Davante Adams. Some interesting discussion yesterday with both Aaron Rodgers Davante Adams going to the podium in the lambeau Field Media Auditorium here during Championship Week, kind of following up on obviously adams big performance against the Seattle Seahawks. Rogers comments after that game about the chemistry that he feels now with Adams approaching that level that he had with Jordy Nelson, and quite frankly, this is a connection.

It's definitely reaching that special level, and if it stays at that level against a very, very formidable San Francisco defense, it'll be really interesting to see what the Packers can do out there on Sunday afternoon. Yeah. One thing that stands out is obviously how important Davante Adams is to the offensive rhythm of this team. When he was playing in that first game against San Francisco, they were still

kind of getting back into a rhythm once again. It's funny how that discussion has kind of gone by the wayside, that whole thing about oh, Davante Adams is gone or is back, but the offense is playing worse. It's it's crazy how that that can that can quickly change, and no one seems to ever I really want to address it at that point. That's cool, um, But here we

are now with him. You know, you look at that game last week and it was arguably one of Aaron rodgers best performances, certainly in the postseason, and Davante Adams was a big reason for it. That the connection that they had not only on the scripted stuff, but even the plays that they're drawn up in the sands, so to speak, you know, before before the snap, like that thirty two yard catch off the fade route, the route adjustments and uh and those uh, those split second decisions

in the heat of the moment. Yeah. And you know, Davante Adams for everything that he's accomplished, you know, in in this maturation that he's been on here these last few years, I don't think he gets enough credit, not only for the building that relationship with Rogers, but doing it as quickly as he did. You know, Jordy Nelson was in this offense for three years, most of three years before he became an elite receiver, a go to

guy in this offense. That happened during the Super Bowl run of two thousand and ten and and he took off from there in eleven. But Davante Adams, for all intensive purposes, was doing this right off the bat. He had performances like that in his rookie season. Now he was the third option, but he still was an important part of that NFC championship run. Two thousand sixteen was his breakout year. They get to the NFC Title Game

and here they are again. Statistically twenty years from now, people, I might not look at this as his finest season because he missed the four games at the turf Toe. But Davante Adams definitely is the primary playmaker in this offense. And when you develop a relationship with Rogers and a trust with Rogers that he's willing to put it out there that this is right there with how he felt it with Jordy Nelson after spending ten seasons with him, I just feel like that's the ultimate praise. Yeah, I

think so too. And it's really special here where Davante Adams is putting himself in the Packers postseason record books, because not only did he break Jr. Michael Finley's single game record getting a hundred and sixty yards against Seattle last week, but he now has six touchdown catches in the postseason in his career, which is tied for second in Packer's history. And Sunday's game against Seattle was his third one yard performance receiving performance in the playoffs, which

is tied for first in Packer's history. And when you look at the way that breaks down in the in the record book, last Sunday was only Adam's seventh postseason game of his career, and these other guys that he's tied for second or tied for first within these categories have all played. They all played ten, eleven, twelve postseason games in their career and Adams is at seven. So I think that speaks a lot too, just his abilities when the lights are brightest brightest, so to speak. He

is a He's a big time performer. He's a clutch performer in the big games, and the Packers are certainly going to rely on him here against the forty nine. And when you think about him and Jordy Nelson, Randall, Cob James Jones, all these top top receivers the Packers have had, what's the number one trait that stands out to you about all of them because they all were different types of receivers, but it was in those big moments they didn't shy away from it. Uh, Davante Adams.

If it's fourth in one and we've seen plays I think Detroit was one of them where it's fourth in one and they need a yard and yeah, that was a big time conversion there that that was that was a crucial part of that comeback. Yeah, and you need a yard and you need to be able to move the chains and Davante Adams is it. He's that guy. He's become that guy. And for so many years that was Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb and the guys that are just you know, when the chips are down, who

do you trust? And for Rogers to have that faith in Adams at this juncture of his career is incredible. And the other thing is too, you know, this is an offense that I think is it's always been rhythm based. We've talked about that since the beginning. Even when they you know, they do some of the unscripted stuff and playoff schedule. The way that they moved the ball down the field and the momentum that they derived that from,

it's all based on rhythm. And I think one of the things I've always said was when you look at Nelson and probably James Jones and specific, I feel like Adams and capsulaves both of their games, both of their strengths. He can run the stop routes, he can be consistent, he can look for the change and move them. But there's still that dynamic, big play aspect to his game.

Down the field. He can make those huge catches over the shoulder um you know, being covered, and it doesn't he doesn't bat an eye at it now you look at a game like San Francisco and as I wrote an insider inbox on on Thursday, I don't know what their game plan is going to be. I don't know if they're gonna have a lot of Richard Sherman on him, if the safeties are going to be on top of him. But as Adams, as he was speaking at the podium, is part of the news conferences on Wednesday, he doesn't

really care. He feels like he's going to be able to win and get open and he that goes back to the very beginning with him, and he kind of expounded on that about whether he was at Fresno State or even back to his high school days. He always felt like, if I run my route better than you, then then I know I can. You don't know what I'm gonna do, so I inherently have the advantage in that. Then you met, you want to throw in the athleticism, the vertical, the forty times, those type of things that

really separate him. So it's just it's been really fun to watch. And again, he's twenty seven years old. He's in the primaries career. Conversely, I think Shorty's twenty seven year mark was in two thousand and twelve, So I mean Davante Adams. There's a lot of football left to be played and he's on path to be a real special player. Yeah. Well, I had asked Aaron Rodgers when he was at the podium yesterday. I asked him specifically

about Adams. We all know that Rogers has thought very highly of Adams throughout his career, from the day he arrived and as you said, the performances, a couple of really big performances he had as a rookie. But I asked him, Okay, so is there something about adams game that is different this year that is leading to you to talk about the make the comparison to the connection that you had with Nelson, and Rogers basically pointed to one thing, and it was it's Adam's memory. He focused on.

Recall was the word that he used. And I remember conversations that I've had for doing yearbook stories and other features and stuff with Rogers and Nelson, and all of the conversations they talked about that they would have, whether it would be in the hallway outside the meeting room or on the sideline at practice or on the sideline during a game, talking about all these different things that would come up in the past. Hey do you remember

this from Miami? And or how about that against the Giants in and Rogers and Nelson had that, And what Rogers was saying is that he's hearing Davante Adams bringing those types of past moments and past situations up in conversation now a lot more often. His his recall is

getting to the level that Nelson's was. And we all know about Aaron Rodgers encyclopedic memory when it comes to everything that's happened, every third down situation in this stadium or that stadium, or that season, or fourth quarter, first quarter or whatever. I mean, his mind is incredible in that way, and he's able to develop the connection with the receivers when they start to remember things in much the same ways that he does. And I think that's

where this thing is headed now with Adam. Yeah, because everyone it's it's been a big line and the conversation people have had for years now about being on the same page with Rogers, and I think one of the things about it is, you know, everybody, I'm sure you

did it too in college. You have your group reports, and if you're a tremendous student and you know the material really well, if you have four or five people in your group and you can lead that group, okay, could you still get an A if everybody else is just kind of lackluster and you know, maybe not pulling their weight. Yeah, you're probably good enough to do that.

But what can you accomplish When you surround yourself with people that are just as motivated as you are, just as well researched as you are, you can get a lot done. And I think when people always think back to two thousand and eleven, there was obviously a lot of talent there, but there was a lot of people that were at the peak of their athletic primes but also very dedicated to their craft. And Davante Adams learned

from all of these guys. He's known James Jones since I think he was in high school, you know, growing up in that connection that goes way back historically. He worked with Jordy Nelson, you know, for three years. He'd been with Randall Cobb for the past four years. These guys all left those impressions on him of not only how to approach your business, but how to lead. And I feel like when he was thrown into that role, he was welcoming to it. And there's gonna be receivers

here in the next few years. Al Lazard might even be one of them. Now that they're gonna be guys coming in. There's gonna be that next Davante Adams, there's gonna be that next Randall Cobb in so much to say, you're not going to get the identical guy, but you're gonna get players, young receivers that he's going to have

to mentor just like Nelson and Cobb mentored him. And I think he really understands that, appreciates it and knows that the more he understands and the more that he can call, the better it's going to make that group project for Rogers and the Packers. Yeah, no question about it. Well, I mentioned we'd also talk about a player who's only been here a couple of months with regards to this offense, and I'm referring to running back Tyler Irvine. Packers picked

him up in November, I guess late November. I think, yes, I believe his first game was Washington. Yeah, threw him in right away on returns, pump returns, kickoff returns made a quick impact there. But the interesting thing here about the evolution of his involvement and his impact on this team is now what he's doing on the offensive side. We've seen We've seen some some jet sweeps, handoff pitch type of plays. We've seen him run some wheel routes

out of the backfield. No past receptions or you know, deep connections down the field, but those are in the playbook as well. This is really interesting how this has evolved because Tyler Irvin has always just been kind of pegged as a special team's gap, and that's not who he is here with the Packers, and he's gotten to this expanded role in a very short amount of time. So I can't I can't tell you what happened in

Houston or Baltimore, Jacksonville. I don't know. I didn't follow him as much then, but it was really interesting a conversation I had with with Aaron Jones. It was about a week or two ago about Irvin because he's the one that came up with the swerve and Irvan nickname, and it has been really complimentary of him, and I just that was Jones who came up. I didn't. I didn't realize that. So it was funny at least in

the Green Bay locker room. Maybe he had it elsewhere, but he is incredibly familiar with him, and I thought that that was interesting. I'm like, because I didn't. To be honestly, I didn't know anything about Tyler Irvan until

the Packers claimed him. And he said, yeah, I went back to my time at UTEP because he would look at the league leaders, the leaders in the country in terms of rushing, and there was this little, you know, smaller back much like himself at saying was a state that was just running over everybody, and Irvin had like total yards his last two years there, in addition to

everything he did as a returner. And it was funny to me going back and looking at the scouting reports of him getting the two thousand sixteen draft, because he was a fourth round pick of the Houston Texans and everybody was drawing these comparisons Jamal Charles H. Darren sprawls that this guy could be a really dynamic playmaker and at the time it looked like the Texans we're going

to pair him with Lamar Miller. So in three years with Houston, he only had nineteen touches offensively in addition to what he did a kickoff and punt returns. They eventually moved on from him. He lands in Baltimore on their practice squad, they move on from him, and then

he ends up being claimed by Jacksonville. The thing that ties this all together then is Aaron Rodgers going to the podium and talking about the conversations he had with John Wojahowski and with John Eric Sullivan, the Packers personnel directors, and that the Packers have had an eye on Irvin for some time in all the stars finally aligned for

him to come into Green Bay. So, whether it's the Packers personnel department, whether it's Aaron Jones, this guy really hasn't surprised anybody, but seeing what he has added to those jet sweeps and those pre snap motions, it's important because it seemed like all year long the Packers were kind of searching for who that guy was gonna be. Trevor Davis did a little bit, Geronimo Allison did it,

and Lazar did it again last week. But with Irvin, for the first time that I can recall, last week, you actually saw him start to be utilized in that pistol formation with the two running backs, and the Packers are running plays off of that for a guy that wasn't on the roster six seven weeks ago. When you talk about differences and why this matchup could be different, I just think that this adds a new wrinkle that

San Francisco is gonna have to prepare for. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a changeup, And in some ways it was born out of necessity because Irvin started getting more snaps on offense when Jamal Williams was injured and he was being rested, particularly in the Detroit game the regular season

finale in Week seventeen. But then it's just the more snaps that Irvin got on offense, the more Matt Lafleur and the offensive coaches were saying, yeah, like, I mean, Tyler Irvin isn't suddenly going to get the ball twenty times on offense, not when you have Aaron Jones and Davante Adams and whatnot. But the coaching staff felt like, hey, we we there's a role for this guy. There's a way that we can use him, and we're going to

continue to use and moving forward. So um much like you know j Sternberger in a sense, the rookie tight end who spent the first first half of his rookie season on injured reserve and then and then was activated.

Now he's only made one catch. He made his first NFL catch last week, but we've seen him, yeah with the fifteen yard penalty attacked on, but we've seen him get more and more snaps here down the stretch as the season goes along, because every time he's in the game, the film shows an impact of some kind, and that

kind of stuff doesn't go unnoticed. So even though you know, here we are talking about two guys that are getting upwards of a dozen or even two dozen snaps on offense here as the Packers are in the postseason, they were getting zero in the first half of the season. But it just it just goes to show you how a team doesn't stay static, it doesn't stay the same. There's this constant evolution and uh and Matt Lafleur and and the offensive coaches have certainly paid heed to that well.

And this is why I also like this move for Brian Goodkins, because you know, there was a time there that he was you know, the Packers were kind of getting sort of railed on for trading Trevor Davis away. Yeah, and you know, I think that took a lot of people by surprise. They got a six round draft pick for it. I'll admit it took me by surprise, just just based on just based on how we had seen Davis being used in training camp, in the preseason games

and whatnot. I thought they they had sort of the niche for him on offense and that they wanted to use him in that way. But then they decided to move on. So he goes to Oakland and they claim Trey Smith, and things didn't really work out with Smith, and they you know, they try again and they go and find Tyler Irvin. Now, the one benefit to that because a lot of times you want to keep your

core as consistent as possible through the season. But again, this is a conversation I think I've said before on the show, but I go back to that the talk I had with Tim Mass eight years ago. You know, if you're a specialist, if you're a return er, if you're even on specially like the playbook isn't as expansive, you can come in and make an impact, whether it's a kicker, punter, returner, lungs, what what have you, you

can slide in and Irvin has done that. And I think it's a credit to good accounts because you know, they wanted to get better on their returns. They also were able to get some draft equity for it, but they were able to eventually, through that process find an answer.

And you know, I think, I want to say, Dallas Morning News wise or with Rick Goslin's ratings, I think the Packers are probably gonna end up in that fifteen to twenty range for they're going to be somewhere in the middle of the past, which when you consider where things were looking in the middle of the season, it's just incredible what Irvin has been able to add both on kickoffs returns and then and punt returns, in addition to the fact that the Packers are covering a lot better.

And for Matt Lafleur and his coaching staff to say, you know what, we're seeing what this guy's doing on special teams, we think he can help us on offense. That's the life of an NFL coach and that's the life of an NFL team. Understanding your personnel, learning what their strengths are in finding ways to implement It doesn't matter which phase of the game it is. I mean, we we covered that Detroit game a couple of weeks ago, Jamal egg News catching passes, you know, and they're doing

things with him with the Lions. So I mean, that's just the way this game goes. And for the Packers, if you're looking for difference makers, if you're looking for reasons to believe this game could be different, it's not gonna be Tyler Irvin probably having a hundred and fifty total yards. But it could be a punt return, it could be an end around that goes you know well and breaks for a for an explosive gain. All these things are things that have to be in the back

of your mind. So for Irvin as Jamal as Aaron Jones says, adding a little bit more lightning to this offense, that all creates more mismatches potentially for green Bay to exploit. Yeah. Well, one other thing I want to get to before we go today, West will switch gears to the defensive side of the ball for a minute. Um. Some of the conversations that were going on in the locker room with

players after practice yesterday. It was interesting. Blake Martinez shared with a few reporters, including me, I'm gonna be writing about this on our website actually later today that when the team came back from the blowout loss in San Francisco, you're heading into a regular Monday. You're going to come in, the coaches are going to show certain aspects of the film. It's sort of like a full team, you know, film

review study. But the defensive guys got together and they all showed up an hour early, and they got together just as a defense. They had put in a request with the video department to say, hey, we want we want the video of all of the explosive plays that we've given up up on the season to that point it was whatever twelve eleven, eleven games into the season. We want video of all the explosive plays. We're gonna look at them. We're gonna try to, you know, get

to the bottom of this. And they spent an hour in the film room together going over this stuff and and in essence discovering that the communication on the defensive side of the ball, there were too many assumptions being made about you know, Okay, this is my job and this is that guy's job. And they figured out, with the help of Mike Petton and practice repetition and everything, that they've now become this very noisy, talkative defense. Than

and Trumont Williams used the phrase over communicate. They over communicate everything defensively, and it's a big it's a big part of how this unit has cut down on the

explosive plays. And I just found the story interesting because you wrote the story back in the preseason or towards the start of the regular season where the defensive group come back from Baltimore in the preseason where they had just played the first quarter against Lamar Jackson and the Ravens and that offense, and they didn't like how things had gone, so they came back and got together and looked at it and you know, started to try to

fix some things on their own. It sounds like there's a similar group of guys that did that coming back from the San Francisco game. And there's no denying statistically that this Packers defense has played a heck of a lot better down the stretcher than it was through the middle portion season when all those explosive plays were happening. And then it kind of all came to a head

in San Francisco with the blowout defeat. Yeah, it's kind of I was kind of awe struck by when you mentioned this story to me, because obviously you were over in Martinez's huddle. I was over talking to Brian Blogg at the time. And the thing that stands out to me about the Baltimore story edition to the Ravens being really, really good that we weren't quite sure at that time, but yeah, they turned out to be a pretty dark

and good club. So it was how well the Packers played through that month of September and at the end of the preseason that that was kind of the one hole, so to speak, into that for them to do this again after the San Francisco loss, to me, that's again revisiting, revisiting, taking stock of where you are and trying to find ways to improve for the final stretch. And it's been very coincidental that Green Bay played as well as they did in September and they played as well as they

did defensively in December after both of those conversations. The thing that it stands out to me about the overcommunicating thing, because it's it's one thing just to say it right. It's it's one thing to say, oh, we're gonna over communicate, we're gonna work on that. But those of the way I kind of look at it, it's sort of like your mom telling you to clean your room. Right. She can tell you once and you're like, yeah, I'm gonna

do it. Don't worry about it. We got this. If she keeps nagging you, or it could be your father too, by the way, if she keeps on you, he keeps on you about it. Did you clean your room? Did you clean your room? Did you clean your room? Did you clean your room? Eventually can be like, all right, fine, I'm gonna clean the room. I got this. All right, We're good, and you're gonna do it because you want to be done with it. And I look at this very similar with this defense there. All these guys know

what they're doing. They've been studying this thing since April. Some of these guys have been in the defense for two years now. With Petton. They understand the responsibilities everything like that. But it is sometimes that just getting on me about it again, talk a little bit more. Can you remind everybody what their assignment is? Can you tell

people what you're doing and who's got this player. That stuff is important because that's where you go from okay, you're sure that something is going to be covered to eight. And I think that's one thing that was my big takeaway here is when you look at the reduction and explosive plays, a lot of times, as much as people want to put it on one player, they want to put it on this aspect of the game just so

they can understand the reasons something's faltering. Realistically, at a lot of times it goes back to how that unit as a whole is performing. And some of the guys were talking about two is that you know they in essence, they were getting away with some of the lack of communication because the explosive plays weren't killing them necessarily. They

were still winning games. A lot of the explosive plays they were giving up, they were good enough defensively to rise up in the red zone, get the stop and allow the field goal. But then when what happened in San Francisco where some explosive plays happened, the offense had a bad day, the defense was getting gash, particularly late first half and into the second half, where the game got out of hand. Suddenly they look at it and go, okay,

well it really cost us. And if we want to get to the super Bowl, if we want to make a playoff run, that forty Niners team, that's the level that we need to get to, you know. So is you know, I hate to use the the the overused phrase wake up call, but in a sense that San Francisco game really was the wake up call for the defense that it's like, Okay, what we've been doing. The forty Niners proved that what we've been doing is not

going to cut it. And uh um, and so they had kind of the players only beating type of thing with the film session that then led into the rest of the full team review of what happened in San Francisco, and and Tremont Williams point blank said he doesn't think that the team would be where it is right now. They wouldn't be as good a team as they are right now if um, what happened in San Francisco hadn't happened.

He says, it turns out it was a good thing as much as yes, it's the game that has decided this championship game being played out West as opposed to lambeau Field. But in the bigger picture, it's what this Packers team needed to get themselves squared away. Jimmy Garoppolo in that game fourteen completions for two fifty three yards and the San Francisco nine point nine yards per passed. The Packers were one point nine in that game. You talk about you know what, Kyle Shanahan, Matt Foor saying,

this is gonna be a different game. It's going to be a different game. Those reasons you're not going to see that again. The thing that Green Bay needs a center on now is can you get the takeaways that they didn't get the first time. That's what I keep coming back to Jimmy Garoppolo. I think there's been three games this year, maybe four where he's not had to turn over, whether it be an interception or a past.

If you reduce the explosive plays and force them to make, you know, to go further down the field, farther down the field, that's where you're gonna get those chances. Yeah, takeaways on defense and third downs on offense. Right, But you know what, we're treading into keys to victory territory. That's tomorrow's show, so we'll call it a wrap on

this edition of Packers Unscripted. Be sure to follow all of our coverage of the team here on NFC Championship Week on Packers dot com, Subscribe to us, like us on iTunes and other podcast services, and check out all the great video content on the Packers YouTube channel for West, I'm Mike. Thanks for tuning in, everybody, See you next time.