#579 Packers Unscripted: It's showtime

Green Bay. If you want to start offensive side defensive side, I'll let you pick. But what's it going to take for the Packers to come out victorious? First and foremost? Not getting caught up in the narrative. And what I mean by that is there's been a lot of consternation about Aaron Donald. What status, What is his status gonna be? What is he gonna look like? Is he gonna be the Aaron Donald that everybody's accustomed to see in the

term inator that everyone's accustomed to seeing. And my my best advice for that is, don't pay attention to it. Aaron Donald is showing up on Saturday afternoon. He is going to be ready to play. And it was funny this earlier this week, Mike someone mentioned inside Ringbox like, Hey, you know, with him having the rib injury, does that

mean they should maybe gear their game plan towards him. Like, if you ever find yourself in a position where you have to gear your game plan towards Aaron Donald, I don't think it's a very good game plan. Your What the Packers need to do is is you've said multiple times, do what they do best and respect the opponent that they're going to see. Be prepared for the league's top defense, the league's top scoring defense. Be prepared for a unit that is going to challenge you, particularly in the in

the trenches and the line of scrimmage. If the Packers come out in respect Aaron Donald and understand the threat that he presents and down in the front, I feel like Green Bay will be able to find its magic, be able to, you know, figure out where its offense needs to go to succeed and make those adjustments. And then whatever happens with Aaron Donald the rest of the way, that's up for the the Los Angeles Rams to figure out. Yeah, And that's where I keep coming back to with this game.

And you said it is the do what you do best. And when I look at I look at the offensive side of the ball. For the Packers. There are three things the Packers have done really really well offensively to get to being the top scoring offense in the league. They've protected the football, They've converted on third down, and they've scored touchdowns when they're in the red zone or the gold zone, whatever you want to call it. But okay,

here's the thing. Third down the Packers are like second in the league and third down conversions the conversion percentage, the Rams are third in the league. In third down defense. That might end up kind of being a wash as you go through this game, because both the Packers offense Rams defense very very good. But in turnovers and in

red zone play, the Packers have a distinct advantage. Green Bay was plus seven, I believe plus seven, yet in turnover margin through the regular season, the Rams were minus three. Now to be minus in the turnover margin for a full regular season and still win ten games, that doesn't happen very often. But if the Packers continue to protect the ball, you can't discount how important it was for

the Rams to win the turnover battle. In Seattle to zero last week and knock off the team that was the division champ in their own division in the NFC West. As far as the red zone goes, Packers number one in the league, and it's been even higher than that during this winning streak to close out the regular season. The Rams, they're not bad in the red zone defensively, but twelveth in the league. That's a pretty big discrepancy there,

number one versus number twelve. As far as the Packers offense versus the Rams defense, that's where green Bay has an edge. You have to play to where you have your edge in the playoffs, and I think that's where

this game can be decided for the Packers. Yeah, I agree with you in the other aspect that I think you have to look at with green Bay too, and the way that their offense is built is they've found ways to establish drives to shore and ball games and that's kind of been the blueprint for the Rams two in a lot of ways. I mean, they are number two to Green Bay's number one in time of possession. But last week, if I'm Matt la Fleur in this coaching staff and I'm looking at that footage from the

Seattle game. I'm looking at and going, you know what, the way the Rams played that for all the different problems that they had, the quarterback issues that they had, that was a pretty good blueprint. If you're looking at your Sean mcvain, you're saying, Okay, I want to make a run. We want to win a super Bowl with this team. They kind of set that out when with

what they did against Seattle. And it's another reason why I think they have to be respected because, as you said, they won the turnover margin that was huge, But what did they do with that turnover margin? It was cam akers then turning out all of these total yards, all of this production, being able to extend drives and and find ways to control the clock. Yeah, you lost John Wolford, and John Wolford looked pretty good early on. Jared Goff has been limited. How much that's the thumb, how much

of that is golf, we don't know. But the fact of the matter is is the packers. You talk about advantages, decided advantages, distinct advantages, advantage advantages. One of the things that plays into that is Green Bay knows exactly who they are and what they need to do to win

They've done it all season long, Mike. To get to thirteen and three, they have probably most likely the National Football League's m v P at the most important position on the field where the Rams have some question marks going into this game, regardless of who they put out there. The fact that they haven't said it, the fact that you know, we even have to ask about them saying it, it tells you that there are questions there. Green Bay

doesn't have those questions. They need to have the answers on Saturday and show that the team that won the NFC regular season that was the top seed, they can be the unit that goes out and carries that over into the postseason. Yeah. Absolutely, And and I'm with you with the where you started the conversation about don't get

caught up in the narrative. There are all kinds of potential distractions here, whether you're talking about Aaron Donald's injury, whether you're talking about Cooper Cups injury, whether you're talking about the quarterback situation for the Rams, whether you're talking about Jalen Ramsey and all his trash talking and what he might do to try to throw Davante Adams off his game. Don't get caught up in any of those distractions.

If you're the Green Bay Packers, you have to do what you do and to switch things to the defensive side of the ball. I think you and I are on the same page here. This all starts with clamping down on cam Acres, the rookie running back, second round pick out of Florida State. He's been a revelation for that Rams offense. He was He's exactly what the Rams offense did not have last year. The year before, they had Todd Gurley Offensive Player of the Year, they went

to the Super Bowl. Last year, the Rams didn't have this kind of a running game. And there's so much of this offense, particularly with a quarterback like Golf and I think Wolford falls into the same category. The play action game is huge for these guys, and they are

very very effective as play action passers. I from what I've seen of the Rams, and I've been saying this all week, I think Jared Goff, if he's a straight drop back pastor I'm not saying he's a bad quarterback, but I think he becomes a very ordinary quarterback in a straight drop back passing game. If you clamp down on the run and take away the effectiveness of the play action and turn whoever's that quarterback for the Rams and do a straight drop back passer without that play

action game. I think that completely plays to Green Bays and fan Well, let's go back in the archives. Let's go back to the multiple seasons of Packers Unscripted, the West Hogkwitz, let's be real moment of the week. Let's bring it back. Let's talk about it for a second.

The let's be real moment of the week is there was a reason why John Wolford fit what Sean McVeigh wanted to do offensively and why they felt okay about him if they didn't have Jared Goff because he also is a guy that has some mobility to him and he can thrive in a play action type scheme. But everything that McVeigh does, and even to some extent, what Green Bay does with wanting to establish the run, it

has to start in that first and second quarter. It has to begin with being able to sort of impose your will and allow your quarterback to adapt off that that that's when Goff becomes dangerous. Jared Goff is at leven. I think it's a hundred and eleven passer rating in two games I believe against Green Bay. I mean, he has had respectable performances and it's been built on explosive making, taking advantage of explosive plays, opportunistic happenings in the game,

and also just being able to establish the run. Cam Akers is a guy I've been I've loved since the draft. He's been one of my favorite guys on the board. I draft him my own fantasy football league and he was there the entire season. I mean, I just felt like when push came to shove, even though they worked with Henderson for a while and obviously Malcolm Brown has been there for a few years, it felt like Acres

is where this thing was trending. And when they finally, you know, kind of took the reins off and just let him go. You saw the impact he made. Now that being said, he's not a wonder kind. I mean, he's not this guy that's just gonna be uh, you know, you can't stop him, you know, like we're looking at with with Derrick Henry. Last month he was held the thirty four care thirty four yards and twenty one carries.

There are answers for him, but the Seattle Seahawks did not have those in the wild card round, and it bit them, man. I mean that was ultimately as much as the turnover has hurt, the fact that they couldn't solve the first and second downs and end up being in multiple manageable situations. That's why the Rams were able to move the ball as wall as they did. Yeah, and when you look at the Packers right now defensively, we've been talking about it for the last several weeks.

The Packers run defense is in a very different place than it was earlier in the season, in a very different place than it was in the postseason last year. We've talked about that fifty seven yard run by David Montgomery on the Chicago Bears first handoff of the game back in Week twelve, that Sunday night game at lambeau Field.

That's what That's been a turning point for this Packers run defense because since that fifty seven yard run by Montgomery, opposing running backs over the last six games have averaged only three point nine yards per carry. Against Green Bay, that's all that the opposing running backs have been able to do in in essentially traditional run game situations. The

Packers will take that any day of the week. And that's what it's going to take to try to take away this this uh, this play action game of the Rams. And then to further the point I was making earlier about the red zone, Okay, the um It's interesting you look at the statistics West, the Rams red zone offense fifty seven point nine percent, the Packers red zone defense fifty seven point seven percent. That's almost identical in terms

in terms of those percentages. If the Packers can play to that now and and just to tell you those percentages being identical, the Packers defensively eighth in the league, the Rams offensively nineteen in the league. The Packers have an edge there, and and and the Packers red zone defense has been better down the stretch these last three or four games than it was earlier in the season as well. So again that's another thing. I see both of these teams being able to move the ball between

the twenty yard lines. I think both of these offenses the coach the coaches are creative that there's playmakers on both sides, but when the ball gets inside the twenty yard line, this game comes down to are you gonna score touchdowns? Are you're gonna settle for field goals, and I think that's where the Packers have to win this game. Yeah, and I don't want to get into the whole bend or brank Brand bend, but don't break easy for me

to say, uh, mentality stuff. But I thought one of the things that Dom Capers didn't get nearly enough credit for was the fact that the Packers were exceedingly good in the red zone throughout his tenure. They were when they were at their best. It was when they route rose up and answered in that area the field. The problem ultimately became down the stretch, just too many explosive plays. Well,

you look at what Petton has done this year. Mike Petton has done this year with his unit, Packers have not had very many explosive plays, especially with the deep

passing game. They've been able to curtail that. And while there have been instances, mostly in the first half of the season, where teams move the ball a little too much, probably for green Bay's liking, green Bay in the last six seven weeks has really, as I've said before and gotten some people making fun of me, batting down the hatches. I'm gonna say it again in that area. Because here's the thing, like we've seen it time and time again.

You can pull out multiple examples pass Packers games. There is a huge difference between three and seven seven and it changes the complexion of the game. Just look at that matchup against Chicago too, and in the fact that the Bears weren't able to punch some of those in and the way it changed things. So that's where this comes back to me. For Green Bay being able to finish eighth in that category and also have that uptick the second half of the season, that bodes well. It

shows that guys are on their assignments. They're being able to have their containment, protect their edges. Chris Barnes is crashing down into gaps, he's staying clean. The cornerbacks aren't making foolish mistakes getting too handsy with with the receivers. They're all those type of things that play into playing eleven man solid red zone defense, and the Packers need to be able to bring that against the Rams. Yeah, and you mentioned like the Bears game for the Packers

was a really good example. They did give up the one deep ball over the top about a fifty plus yard play or whatever. It was, but then the defense rose up and forced a field goal attempt. When defense of lee We've talked about this a lot. When you when you do give up an explosive play, when you can recover from that and not let it lead to

a touchdown, you're fine. You know those those don't hurt you as much, and you know that's a that's certainly an area of the Packers have improved on in I thought as the year has gone along, the other thing, I think you just have to be ready for and this is where I think these last couple of games have have been good for the Packers in terms of you have to be ready to handle momentum swings in these playoff games that things are gonna swing wildly back

and forth. You look back at the Rams and the Seahawks in the wild Card round last weekend, when Darius Williams got that pick six, which I believe was the rams fourth pick six of the season, if you can believe that, I mean, that's really impressive. So again, we're not stressing the turnover thing too much here as we go into this, but it just felt like Seattle never recovered from that momentum swing when the Rams got that

pick six, took it to the house. It just felt like the Rams were in control of the game the rest of the way. And these last couple of weeks the Packers have gotten off to a fast start against Tennessee. Tennessee climbs back in, but then the Packers regained control and finish it. Same thing kind of happened in Chicago. You have to be able to handle those momentum swings and snatch it back when when you have those opportunities. I think the Packers have done a good job of that.

They have to continue to do a good job of that in the playoffs. Yeah, and and and this is such, this is gonna be a momentum game, Mike. I mean, you've seen it already. That stat was brought out to me and I haven't corroborated yet, so I hope I'm not spouting false knowledge. But that stat that when the readers brought up about Sean McVeigh and his team's their record in the second half when they lead at halftime, I think they threw it out at thirty seven to nothing.

I don't know if that's factually true, but it is startling when you look at that type of production, and you follow the Rams enough the last few years, you understand the way they play and why they've been successful with Sean McVeigh as their head coach, and that's played into it. The fact that they can shorten games, the fact that they can take the momentum and if they get it, they'll seize it, they'll hold on to it.

And they have veteran players now that have been in this system for three or four years that understand what their role is in those instances. Green Bay. I thought that's where they've made the big jump this year, in year two underneath Matt Lafleur. Last year, the construction was there, the foundation had been built, but it was everybody still settling into it, understanding what is being required of them.

This year they do Aaron Rodgers playing faster, the running backs seeing their lanes and and understanding the wide zone scheme and what the Packers are looking for there, and then ultimately the passing game with Davantae Adams doing Davantae Adams things. And then you've got your Robert Tonnions of the world stepping up and making huge contributions when I think expectations are rather modest for him going into the season. That's where this team to me is different than the

thirteen and three team a year ago. And it's why I feel like this game at lambeau Field, with green Bay having a full week and a half extra time to to get ready for this in the Rams, making a flight back to l A, practicing in l A other and also coming out here on a short week with dealing with the injuries that they are. Everything points to green Bay. But that doesn't matter if you don't show up on Saturday afternoon. Yeah, you've got to play your game, absolutely you. You have to be able to

do that well before we go. I do want to get your thoughts West on the other divisional games. I've always considered this, you know, maybe the best weekend of NFL football of the entire year, when you're down to the final eight four in each conference. The other one in the NFC, of course, is the NFC South Showdown Showdown number three of this season between Tom Brady's Buccaneers and Drew Brees Saints. What are your thoughts on this one.

It's funny when everybody was talking about Brady moving over to the NFC. I think these are the type of matchups that people started salivating over right away, right, I mean they wanted to be able to see primetime Aaron Rodgers,

Tom Brady, Drew Brees. Those type of matchups happened before the Super Bowl because everybody's gonna watch the Super Bowl, and then as it brought out, and when I were discussing this over the weekend, as we were setting our schedules and trying to figure out, Okay, when where the

Packers are gonna play. When you knew it was gonna be Brady versus Brees, that things going in primetime, You and I had a ticket book towards an afternoon football game on Saturday, and and here we are Low and Behold, and both of these teams, though they just didn't dominate all year, they had to kind of work through some things. They have had their moments, and this is sort of in a lot of ways, like that rubber match between

the two understanding Okay, who's one who's lost. Certainly the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have something to prove in this game. But at the same time, I just look at New Orleans and this is what it's all about. Everybody knows what their salary cap situation is like for next season,

it's not pretty. Uh. They invested heavily into winning a Super Bowl this year, they got healthy breezes back, Michael Thomas is back in their defense, has been able to maintain uh an air of dominance here that I think some people were wondering a couple of ago if they were going to be able to do that. So it's a great matchup in that regard. And then certainly from Tom Brady's perspective, do you look at the way he's played over the last month and a half as he

settled in the Bruce Arians and Byron Leftwich is scheme. Um, it's gonna be fireworks. It's gonna be an absolute banger of a game that I hope you and I on Sunday afternoon are going to be eager to watch for, you know, packers ramifications. Yeah, you just this. This is a heck of a matchup, and and you just wonder here, here's the one thing I'll say with regard to the Saints,

because you're right, they've they've gone all in. They know that Drew Brees is nearing the end, possibly at the at the very end here if he if he retires in the offseason. You wonder what the psyche of this Saints team is going to be if they are in a close game down the stretch. Because they lost the Minneapolis Miracle, you know, they lost on the bad call to the Rams in the NFC Championship game that one year, they lost in overtime to the Vikings. Again last year

in the wild card round. They've they've got some night marriage, they've got some demons to exercise here and uh and to do it against the division rival and with a with a matchup like Drew Brees against Tom Brady. Um, yeah, it's it's absolutely going to be one to watch, Mike. I want to mention this to this tells you how precious these moments are as well, because over the last decade, I would challenge anyone to debate me on this, Green Bay in New Orleans have been the cream of the

crop in the NFC. I mean, they are the most consistent, viable title contenders in all those regards. But yet they haven't made it back to the Super Bowl. Um, you've had I'm not calling them fleeting, you know, moments or flashes in the pans. But you saw Seattle pop up and you saw you know, San Francisco and New York a little bit, and and certainly a championship to Philly, Atlanta getting there and now San Francisco getting back again. But it's been Green Bay. In New Orleans, it's been

Rogers and Breeze. And uh again, I'm not looking ahead. We'll have to see all this weekend plays out. But if it comes down to Rodgers versus Breeze for a spot to go back to the Super Bowl, uh, those those storylines will write themselves. In addition to the fact that if it would end up being Rogers versus Brady, I get that too. But the Packers and in Saints, in their administrations, their brass have kept themselves in this hunt for a decade in the league. That stresses parody.

That's incredible. Yeah. Absolutely. On the a f C side, Baltimore is at Buffalo, Cleveland is at Kansas City. Um. The the Baltimore Buffalo game really really intrigues me because especially because of what we saw last week from Baltimore, where Tennessee was kind of having their way early, their offense was getting things going. They got a couple of scores, they got up tend to nothing and then all of

a sudden, here come the Ravens. It was like it was like this, this train started cranking up, coming down the tracks, and then and then Tennessee could not stop it. Um And you know, Baltimore will probably try to use that that same type of formula. I mean, Josh Allen, he'd probably gonna be able to come out and drive the Bills down the field on the first possession of

the game and get some points on the board. But can you do can you play like that for four quarters against a defense like Baltimore's and then, you know, try to contain the singular most unique, nobody's liking quarterback in the NFL in Lamar Jackson. This uh, this, this game, this game from a matchup standpoint, is really really intriguing. It's fantastic. And in the other aspect of this too, Mike,

you and I all weak were asked from people. You know, Hey, the NFC, you know they have a bunch of older quarterbacks and a f C has a bunch of younger quarterbacks. What do you make of that? Well, what I make of it is you're seeing Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, who, by all accounts, are gonna be guys that are gonna give the National Football League a lot of problems for the next decade. In one shape or form, they are. They are two of the guys I think really stood out.

And then you have Baker Mayfield over in Cleveland too. That those recent draft classes that have produced this talent in the a f C. Now you're trying to see, Okay, other than Patrick Mahomes, reigning MVP the league, who was you know, drafted a few years ago too, Can any of these young guys guide a team to a super Bowl, to a to a ring, you know, much like Aaron Rodgers did a decade ago when when he got that opportunity.

That that's what I'm looking for in this matchup. And for Buffalo, as i'm gonna say that, I'm gonna echo the same thing I said last week going into that game, is that they are a team that has been building towards this moment. It hasn't been an overnight success story. It's been a long, gradual process, finding their quarterback, finding their defense even before that, and now here they are,

they're going up against the Ravens. And for the Ravens, as you mentioned earlier this week, a chance to exercise some demons from last year as well. So it's gonna be a very compelling matchup. Yeah, the other one in the a f C, Cleveland is at Kansas City, just like you wrote it up at the beginning of the Yeah, exactly. Well. I I give the Cleveland Browns a heck of a

lot of credit for getting forgetting this far. They've certainly dealt with you know what they had to deal with last week with the COVID issues and the coaching staff, and then they go on the road to a division rival at Pittsburgh and and uh and you know, blow them out of their own yards, so to speak. But I just don't know if Cleveland's defense can really hang in there against Patrick Mahomes in this Kansas City offense.

I think this Chief's offense it's just it feels like it's it feels like it's too much for what Cleveland has on the defensive side of the ball. And Baker Mayfield he probably is gonna really enjoy and have a lot of fun in a shootout maybe with Patrick Mahomes. But I just I think the Chief's offense is too much in this game. Yeah, I get so many two thousand eleven Packers vibes from Kansas City's offense, not saying that they're even remotely similar, but just in terms of

their production in the way they've gone about that. This year, they were Super Bowl champions, they succeeded, they thrived, and here they come right back and they're every They're up in everybody's business again. And Mahomes certainly doing what he's done at his age is just remarkable. But for the Browns perspective, the great thing about this is that, I mean, do they've won the lottery already? They They've They've been able to get back to the postseason for the first

time in eighteen years. They want to playoff game now for the first time in twenty six years. Right, They now are in a position where they're playing with house money and you're going up against the best team that everybody's had in their power rankings all season long. What do you have to lose? So Yeah, to mention your Baker Mayfield thing there, I would totally embrace this. I wish the best of luck to Cleveland's defense trying to

find a way to to find the answers here. But for Mayfield, for Stefan Stefanski for Alex van Pelt, who was calling plays last week. This is go go have fun, see what happens, make a miracle happen. I don't know what the line is like on this game, but you know, I just feel like the Cleveland Browns, for everything they've been through last year, everybody thinking it was gonna be their year. This year, everybody jumped off the hype train. It was it wasn't fun to talk about the Browns anymore.

It was last year was about the Browns. We gotta find our next team that we're gonna overestimate. And here you are. They're right back in this thing and there they're really become the team that I think everybody felt they could, you know, since the day that Baker Mayfield became a Cleveland Brown. Yeah. Well, it should be a whale of a weekend of NFL football the Divisional Playoffs. Two games Saturday, two games Sunday. It starts with Packers

Rams at lambeau Field PM on Saturday afternoon. With that, we will call it a wrap on this edition of Packers Unscripted. Be sure to follow all of our coverage of Saturday's big playoff game on Packers dot com for wes I am Mike, thank you for tuning in. Everybody, We'll see you next time.