#591 Packers Unscripted: Schedule small talk

I'm just gonna ask you flat out when you first saw this schedule, what jumped out at you the most? Where's the bye week? Alright? I really, honest to god, struggled to find where the bye week is supposed to be. Were usually looking forward in, like you know, October, maybe maybe early November. No, December, first week of December, honest to goodness. So we got the schedule put in front of me, and and usually, and for the most part, it always is denoted where the where the bye week is.

But I just was kind of beside myself. I didn't know the week thirteen by was a thing. I always thought it ended in week twelve. You had to correct me on that. But lo and behold, that's what's happened now. The Green Bay Packers have been through gauntlets like this before. I do want to make that a point. Twice during my time on the beat, the last nine years they've had the Week four by, which has required them to

then play thirteen games to close the season. Note so they've been through stretches like this, but I've never seen anything quite like this where you have to play the month of September, October, and November before you finally get that rest. There's two ways to look at this. You can look at it like what Matt la Flour did, which is you can't really worry about it. It's not something we stress about. You play the games that are

on the schedule, and it is what it is. But for a team that does have playoff hopes and aspirations this year, they wouldn't have built this thing and kept the guys that they did if they didn't feel like

they weren't close. I do wonder if you could stay healthy, if you can take care of yourself, that could be a really intriguing time to have a buy in that first week of December, because then suddenly you got four to end it, and then now you're looking at a potential playoff push, but you have to be able to get to that oasis, and there's a lot of miles they have to cover before they get there. Yeah, exactly.

And this ties into the part that jumped out at me, which is what I wrote about on our website, is you look at the stretch of games from week five to week nine, a five week stretch in which the

Packers are playing four games on the road. You have back to back road games at Cincinnati, at Chicago, you come home for Washington, then you have back to back road games at Arizona and at Kansas City, the two time defending a f C champions That's a that's a heck of a stretch from you know, the whole travel weary, getting road we're you know, jumping on airplanes, you know, four out of five weekends and whatnot. I think that's gonna be a really, really difficult stretch for the Packers

to get through. But I'll say a couple of things about it. One, Matt Lafleur, as the head coach with the Packers the last two seasons, has navigated similar stretches before, not quite like this, but his first year in twenty nineteen, the Packers had four road games in a span of five games. The bye week was also mixed in there, but it was, you know, four road games out of five, and you know, the Packers had their ups and downs through that stretch, but then they came out the other side.

They got hot at the end of the season. They put it together right. Last year stretch of four road games in a span of six and the Packers actually lost all three of their regular season games during that stretch. They lost the two road games at Tampa at Indianapolis on either end, lost the home game to Minnesota in between. So all three of the regular season losses occurred in that stretch. But then the Packers came out of it, you know, had more frequent home games and uh and

made their run and their playoff push. So there is that kind of history, similar history, not exactly, but similar history that he's that Matt Lafleur has now levigated this team through. The other thing I will say is that in the midst of that stretch this coming season, the trip to Arizona, which is the third of the four road games, is a Thursday night game, So at least you have now flying to the West coast on a short week not easy to do. Um, really condenses your

preparation and whatnot. But at least you get through that Arizona game on a Thursday night, You get a weekend off, You get a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. You know players might even might even get Monday off. You know they're going to be in need of a in need of a break. There what a lot of the players referred to as the mini by. So you're going to have that at least before the trip to Kansas City, which then ends

this stretch of four road games in five weeks. So with that being said, you look at the entire schedule. You have this mini by after the Thursday game after eight games, you have the full bye week after twelve games, and then you have five games left in the regular season to finish out your seventeen where you're hopefully in position to to make a playoff push. So when you look at it that way, UM, it is there will be that opportunity. There will be those two opportunities to

get a little bit of arrest. But getting through that short week Thursday night West Coast trip to Arizona to get to that first little weekend off, I think that's gonna be uh, that's gonna be kind of a crux point here for the Packers season. And this is actually probably where I'm even more interested to hear your opinion on it than to give mine. Um. Some people might

not know this. The original title for Packerson Scripted was Mike Spofford's Packer Around Packerson script This is your show, But I am interested to hear what you think about this because one of the big common questions that people had an inbox after this was what do you think of the schedule? And I usually have pretty strong opinions either way. This time I really didn't, and in the main reason for that is I don't really know what

to make of it. People say, Okay, well, you're going on the road to start the season, three seasons in a row, you're closing on the road again, you have that that thing in the middle of the season. You also have this deal where you only have two back to back home games and one of them is separated by the bye. So to me, on paper, I'm not a player, it seems like a fairly balance schedule. But

I am. I'm curious what your take is on it. Yeah, I mean personally when you look at it from the Packers perspective, you know, I think having more road games early and home games late is always going to be to your advantage because of the weather situation. Now, as it turns out, two of your December home games are against Chicago and Cleveland, They're not going to be any

strangers to to the cold weather. But you know, Thanksgiving weekend, it's the Rams coming in, the same team that came in here in January, uh, last January for the playoffs. They had some issues with with the cold. You don't know how cold it's going to be on Thanksgiving weekend.

But then Week seventeen, second to last game and last home game of the regular season, as Minnesota, your big division rival coming in on January second, an indoor team, those those are the kind of matchups that can that can play to the Packers favor So in terms of starting the season on the road, the Packers playing two of their first three on the road this year, I say, hey, that just means you're getting more home games later. I think that works to Green Bay's advantage. So that's that's one.

That's one way I look at it, um you know. The other I was just gonna mention to in the last eight weeks of the season. I believe there's only one trip out of the Midwest for Green Bay, right that's to Baltimore, and which is not a long one, which is that's a that's a pretty quick flight. Yeah, I'm used to the San Francisco is in the Denver's in the seattles, So it's not a big it's not a big ask there. So I do feel like and

again it's on the Packers. It's incumbent on them to be able to survive that initial stretch that that definitely that middle portion of the season, but you can kind of see the peak and then the hill and being able to go down and on the other side to really kind of speed up and ramp up going into that final stretch of season if you're entitled contention. Yeah, absolutely, And that that's the thing. As I mentioned, all these road games week week five through nine, you have all

these road games. Nobody season is gonna is necessarily going to be defined in the first half of the season, good or bad. But if you can get if you're the Packers and you can get through that stretch, and you can be somewhere in the realm of contention. The schedule on the back end with with all the home games, you know, a mini by, then a full by in early December. That that sets up to to give you

an opportunity to make a run um quickly. Though. West Serious x M NFL Radio delivers hard hitting analysis and up to the minute NFL news that true football fanatics need. Seven three. The other thing I'll say about this schedule, and I know, seventeen games is obviously new, and last year we had the expanded playoff, you know, an extra

playoff team in each conference. But that being said, ten of the Packers seventeen games are against teams that were in the playoffs in I can't ever remember discussing a schedule where there were ten games the following year against teams that made the playoffs the previous year. That's obviously, when you finish in first place, you have those two other first place you know what I like to call the placeholder games. You're always going to have those. Those

are gonna be against playoff teams. Now, with the seventeenth game being another cross conference, you're gonna be matched up with an a f C division and you play the team that finished in first place, that's the Kansas City game for Green Bay, so that's gonna be against another playoff team. And then, as it turned out, the last playoff team in the NFC last year was the Chicago Bears. They got the extra spot, so that's a playoff team

that you're playing twice the following year. So that's sort of how things all added up well, and the fact that NFC No Earth is match with the a f C North, and the a f C North had three

playoff teams last year. The only team in the a f C North that did not make the playoffs was the Cincinnati Bengals, So the Ravens, the Browns, and Steelers, those are all playoff teams, and everybody in the NFC North is going to be playing all of those playoff teams from So from that standpoint, the schedule is really intriguing to me because it's very different to be looking at that many playoff teams from the previous year that are all lined up to play you and the Mike Spofford,

let's be real moment of this episode. The Packers are also matched up against the NFC West and being able to have the West in the NFC and the North in the f C. That is kind of a perfect storm. Oh and then, by the way, we're gonna have a se game and we're just gonna pick some divisions out of our head. Oh and we're gonna get the North versus the a f C West as well. Oh and it's the Packers and Kansas City, Kansas City as the defending champions. How funny all that worked out, and you're

gonna go to Kansas City. So be that as it may. This is us and I was someone that really bit back hard against the seventeenth game. I wrote about it. We've talked about it. I understand the business of sports. I understand why we're sitting here right now. I get it. Um, it's gonna take some time for me to get through all this. But what I will say, assuming we can, we can figure some ways out to make these things safer players or at least lessen the load on their

bodies a little bit. Things that the NFL and the NFLP are gonna have to discuss moving forward. The entertainment value of the game, you cannot argue with It's eighteen weeks of football that's attractive to networks, that's attractive to fans, they want to see these guys play. They want to see them as often as they can, and ultimately, if this is what allows the Green Bay Packers to play

overseas at some point, maybe next year. It does seem like, you know, the juice is worth the squeeze, but it's going to be a gauntlet, Mike, I'll be honest with you. When I looked at that same schedule after I figure out where the bye week was and I noticed that it's January nine for the regular season finale against the Try that that hit me kind of hard. That's a big adjustment. But they want to keep everything, you know,

after Labor Day and all those things. Totally understand that, Um, but it's it's gonna be uh, it's gonna be a grind and it's gonna be a big adjustment. I think a lot of players, coaches, and even people and you know around the NFL are gonna have to make. That was the point I was going to make. Two is seeing that January nine is now the end of the regular season when and these are the kinds of things

that just makes me feel old West. But um, knowing that I believe if I'm not mistaken the famous Packers Lions playoff game where Friz Schermer's defense held Barry Sanders to minus one yard. That was a wild card game on New Year's Eve, December December thirty one was a wild card game back in the early to mid nineties. And now here we are talking about the end of the regular season being on January night. So it just goes to show that that things don't always stay the same.

And that being said, the NFL had had a sixteen game regular season schedule since nineteen seventy eight. They had not changed it for over forty years. And uh, and now we are going to seventeen games. But I'm with you in from the standpoint that it looks like the parameters they're putting in place and and sort of the different machinations of this seven teen game schedule moving forward is going to create the more opportunities for the international games,

and particularly four teams like the Packers. Um, the Packers have not played any international games. There are other teams that have hardly played any Canada. They played in Canada. Sorry that was on an eight on an eight yard? Who else? Who could forget about? We need to do a whole another We need to do a whole another show about playing NFL football forty years Mike. I'm writing

an oral history on that game. How Trevor Davis ended up having a twenty three yard touchdown, which really was only thirteen yards, but they gave me credit for the other ten because well, that's just extra yardage, you know. Alright, Well, I want to close on this. I just want to make one more point, if you don't mind me making it. In terms of how the schedule is gonna lay out and where things are going to be, the NFL and NFL p A still have a lot to work out

this offseason. They still have a lot to work out this summer. Brian Goodikins has talked about this. I do like the fact that the Packers, by having the ninth game this year, the extra road game, they will also have only three preseason games, and as we found out that's Houston Buffalo in the New York Jets, that last week now of August is kind of an open week

for them. I have to imagine that, as Matt, to use Matt Lafleur's terminology, that's going to be an above the shoulders week for a lot of veterans being able to prepare for the start of the regular season and understand where their bodies are. I like that, Mike, because so often you've seen over the years the guys necessarily that I'm not saying they're shoeing for the roster, but you can't just play that last preseason game with just a bunch of guys who are about to get cut.

You sometimes lose legitimate contributors on special teams are off and defense in those games. I do like that it potentially removes that away from you know, that that challenge a little bit as you get ready for a regular season. Yeah, and also with eliminating that fourth preseason game, which was always just a couple of days before final roster cuts, Inevitably, you know you're playing a lot of young players in

that game. Inevitably you would have guys get hurt in that game, and it may not be a serious injury, but a guy a guy turns an ankle or tweaks a hamstring or something like that, and then something that's not a major injury and you can't necessarily get a handle on it in the first couple of days ends up factoring into roster decisions and whatnot, Whereas now the end of the preseason will be well in advance of

the actual final roster cutdown. So in terms of the health of players and young players and their opportunity and whether they should be on the active roster, you want to try to bring them back to the practice squad. I think it's going I think it's going to be a little bit more fair and equitable, not quite as not quite as random and chaotic a time in terms

of figuring out those final decisions. I think that's something that in the long run, UH, front offices general managers are are going to appreciate because and certainly young players are going to appreciate even though they're losing one opportunity to perform in the preseason and make that impression. UH, the injury part of the equation maybe doesn't factor in it. It's an excellent point and and seeing ultimately, here's the deal. You want to have the most competitive fifty three man roster,

the most competitive practice squad. You want your team to be at its healthiest point at the beginning of the season. And I like that. That's where I think this thing is trending for the league because Let's be honest, Mike, that first month of the year, that's a really exciting month of Packers football. They're gonna go down to New Orleans. They're gonna play a you know, a Saints team that's been one of the best here in the last fifteen years.

They get a home opener against the Detroit Lions on Monday Night football under the lights. They're going in a primetime matchup six days later to San Francisco, and then you get the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers at Lambo Field. That's such an underrated matchup. You're going to see that a little bit more because of this new rotation with that extra game. But that's something that only happens once every eight years. So I love it. I love the way that that side of it laid out

the Packers with all this consternation right now. But what's going on in this offseason. You can tell with the five priests, the five primetime games still a major brand for the National Football League. They want to be able to have those type of matchups. And you know, having another primetime game for the twenty nine year in a row or whatever it is against Chicago in December that's the type of football you want to see. So my hat does go off to the schedule makers for making

sure that that happens. Yeah, I think from the Packers point of view, if you're looking at this and and if there's something that is kind of annoying or to be upset about Christmas, it's well, there is, there is the there is at least it's at home. At least

it's not it might not be traveling though. What I was going to say is that you have to West Coast road trips here at San Francisco and at Arizona, and the NFL schedule both of those long trips on short week because the San Francisco is coming off of a Monday night game, and then, as I mentioned before, the Arizona road trip is a Thursday night game, so

that's an even shorter week. That's where I think the schedule makers kind of, you know, put the screws to the Packers a little bit um with with regard to that. It is interesting though, because that did happen to Green Day. Was that last year I think it was last year where they end up having the Thursday night game in San Francisco. Do I have that right. Yeah, last year was was a Thursday in San Francisco. I thought that was gonna be a huge deal breaker for them. I

thought that was gonna be a real challenge. Now, certainly the fortys had a lot of health issues, but the Packers actually end up playing really well if I if I recall correctly in that game. So you never do know, But you're right, that is a big challenge anytime you're going to the West Coast on forties. Uh, notice that's that's always gonna be something you're gonna have to really

work through. Yeah, absolutely, Well, September twelve will be the opener, and I'm sure it's going to be here before we know it. Um, but yeah, it's uh, the NFL has made this whole schedule released thing like a like a really big deal now, Like they leak out the everybody's opener like early in the day and then you're waiting till later in the day to get all the news of the rest of the schedule. It's becoming that it's becoming this, uh, this big day on the NFL calendar. Yeah,

there's not enough of them. They got to add in a couple more. But what were you doing on on in the morning when at seven o'clock or whatever, when it was announced that the Green Bay Packers were going to be playing the New Orleans Saints, and the opener I was actually I was actually on the exercise bike in my base and I see all of a sudden the messages start popping up on my phone. I was like, WHOA, Okay, I didn't know this was gonna happen. I didn't know

this was going to happen quite so early. But yes, the um I was a little sweaty when I was finishing up that bit of work. But hey, we all roll with the poet. We'll be ready for that next year when they have Yeah, I guess, so we'll be prepared now for the new For the new timeline is to lea the NFL has to start leaking at yeah maybe Yeah, we're gonna find they're gonna leak something at like three in the morning, and we're gonna have to react and get it on the website, right because we

got to do right by London. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, we're gonna find out our We're gonna find out our London game on London time. That's probably what's going to happen next. All right, we've gone completely off the rails, so we're gonna call it a wrap on this edition of Packers Unscripted. Be sure to follow all of our coverage of the team, all kinds of content with regard to the schedule. Is there for you on packers dot com.

For West, I'm Mike. Thanks for tuning in, everybody. We'll see you next time.