#706 Packers Unscripted: Passing the torch

screen is Weston Hodkowitz. We're coming to you from different locations here at lambeau Field, and it is Thursday, which is also schedule release day in the NFL, And while things are being prepped and discussed and talked about in anticipation of the evening NFL Network show on the schedule, we are going to put off talking about the schedule until our next show because, actually, Wes, there was an interesting off season day at Lambeaufield on Wednesday, the kind

of day that doesn't happen all the time. And what I'm talking about, of course, is the first news conference for a new QB one here in Green Bay. Jordan Love addressed the media in the lambel Field Auditorium along with teammates Kenny Clark and Aaron Jones, and just wanted to ask you for your impressions, your thoughts on Jordan Love at the podium, not that we haven't seen him

there before, because he started a game. You know, he's gotten some playing time and preseason games and all that we've certainly you know, had many media sessions with him, but this was the first time, you know, with the official QB one title.

that without attribution. I may add, not better or anything, but that quote that they took was from David Yost, the former offensive coordinator at Utah State, and the quote he gave me back for that story is one that really resonated with me while he was at the podium on Wednesday, and it went like this, Mike, the kid is always going to be even keeled if you think any better, you know, listening to him, you would think his heart rate is like at about thirty good, bad

or indifferent. Jordan Love is such. I mean, when you talk about the construct of a quarterback NFL, college, high school, whatever level you want to talk about, there is a certain amount of confidence, a certain amount of quiet calmness around them that I think you need to excel at this level, and Jordan Love has that. Mike, you asked me my perceptions, my thoughts, my my you know, takeaways

from Jordan Love's presser for seventeen minutes. I thought he showed that he can be the face of this franchise. I thought he showed he can be the one standing up in front of the room and handling all types of questions. Jordan Love was asked six different ways from Sunday about handling pressure, and I felt like his comments were very salient in that there's always pressure. It doesn't

matter if it's Aaron Rodgers, you're succeeding. It doesn't matter if your first round pick, doesn't matter if you're Brock Purdy. He didn't say that. I'm saying that the quarterback is always going to have that on his shoulders. Jordan Love is ready for that, Mike. And it was funny near the end of the presser, Mike Clemens, one of the radio guys, says to him, you know, people ask me about you and they don't really know you yet, and you know, basically just just what's he like. And I

think to a certain extent. We do know what Jordan Love is like. He is a guy that is going to come in and he's going to do his job with a personality that I think resonates with that locker room.

I'll give you something to talk about here. I won't steal everything, but the comment that Aaron Jones gave us about how you know for three years you haven't heard a peep out of this guy, right, I think speaks to the character of both the man and also the type of teammate that Jordan Love has been in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

the podium after some of his regular season action. Jordan Love, as you said, he's he's an even keeled guy, and that's that's who he is on and off the field. That really is the guy that the Packers now have commanding the offense. And he didn't walk out there as you know, for his for his first session with the media as QB one and and feel like, Okay, I

have to win the press conference. I have to I have to answer all these questions so that you know, so that all the stories have you know, this certain angle or you know. He he didn't take that approach. He's he's just like, all right, you know, ask ask what you want to ask. I'm gonna give. I'm gonna give my honest answers and and uh, and I'm gonna move on with with my day because at the end of the day, he knows that it's not about what

he says in front of the media. It's it's the it's the preparation he puts in, it's the way he acts around his teammates in the locker room. It's about going out on Sundays and winning football games when September rolls around, and and that's that's really all he's all he's focused on. And and uh, and yes, there is going to be that that face of the franchise labeled

now that that he's the starting quarterback. But my favorite line of of the whole thing is, uh, you know, to follow up on what you said when he was asked all these different ways about pressure, because you know, he's following a four time m v P. You know, he he's only under contract for two more years, you know, with that extension, so he has to he has to prove himself and you know, the to for perhaps another

contract and the pressure that comes with that. And he just said, you know, pressure, He's like, that's what I signed up for. That's what you sign up for when you decide to be a quarterback in the game of football and make your way all the way to the NFL to play the position. It comes with the territory. It's part of the deal. And he totally understands that he is not going to be He's not going to be overwhelmed, you know, by that aspect of it, because

quite frankly, I don't think he thinks about it. He thinks about that those outside forces all that much. He's really he's focused on himself and he's focused on his teammates.

himself in this twenty twenty three season. But one of the big comments I've made to you during this whole journey is for all the outside consternation over Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers and what was going to happen. Is he going to leave after twenty Is he going to leave after twenty one? Are they going to do an extension with him? Jordan Love never made that situation more difficult than it had to be. No One ever thought about, well what does that mean for Jordan Love.

Love even said it. I think it was to your question. You know, after Aaron signed the extension, that was probably the moment where it was probably the hardest for him because now it's like, Okay, well I've put three years in here, what does this mean If Aaron Rodgers is going to be here for another three years, I'm clearly not going to be the guy Then but again that's not anything he raised really in the media. He's not

gone around and made it about him. He was a humble servant to what the Green Bay Packers needed him to be during that time. And when his time did come in Philadelphia last November, it was nine passes, six completions. Aaron Jones joked about it probably should have been seven. Uh, But the kid was just always the same guy. I know, you always go to the podium after games and I go to the locker room, and Jordan stood at his

locker in the away locker room. Now again a guy that typically just gets dressed and leaves and gets on the bus, grabs his food, he's all good to go. Well for that day, he had to sit at his locker for probably twenty minutes and answer questions from waves of media and same guy. So, to bring it back full circle, when David Yos gave me that quote, you know,

you hear a lot of stuff. You and I will do these profiles on kids, you know, after you know, they get drafted to Green Bay, and you'll hear all sorts of things, some of them spot on some things, you know, maybe a little bit of you know, building up and don't want to say exaggeration, but you know, different, different information. David Yos's comments about that thirty Poulse Heartbeat, good bad are indifferent Jordan Love. That's what you see and that's what you're gonna get.

Kenny Clark. Obviously, Aaron Jones spoke of you know, his support for Jordan Love and and you know, really speaking for the entire locker room, and and Kenny as well that uh, that this is a locker room that that's behind this guy. You know, they're they're going to lay

it out on the line for him. And and what struck me there is that they both spoke of just the the respect that they have for Love in terms of the way he went about all this, like what you were talking about before, how you know, he never you know, he never said anything even when there was so much uncertainty with with Aaron Rodgers signing a contract extension and Jordan Love doesn't know what that means for his future. He didn't cause he didn't cause a stir,

he didn't cause a problem. And that that alone earned a certain level of respect in the locker room because Jordan Love proved that he's a team player. He's he's here in Green Bay to help the Packers win games in whatever way the Packers want him to help win games.

And and I think that's going to go a long way in this transition obviously, you know, as the Packers are are, you know, making this youth movement so to speak, with a lot of veteran players who've been around for a while not not coming back, although the door isn't closed on all of them, but the locker room is definitely skewing younger, and there's a lot of guys in the locker room that didn't play a whole heck of

a lot of years with Aaron Rodgers. So it's not as though the transition is going to be something traumatic or overly dramatic for those players. But for veteran guys like Kenny Clark and Aaron Jones who have been around for a while, they've made it very clear that they've got their quarterbacks back.

love finds himself. And Kenny it made sense, right. He plays a position where there's usually two or three of the guys on the field at the same time with him from his group, but he had to wait most of his rookie year to finally get some of bigger opportunities and then really came on late, then took off towards the second half of his second season. Aaron Jones every single week in twenty eighteen, and at the end of the twenty seventeen season was basically being asked do

you want more touches? Do you need more touches? And he just kept smiling and saying, I will do whatever the team asks of me. You can tell both of those guys appreciated the tact and the approach that Jordan Love took in this situation. And again, when you're talking about this next step of this organization, this next step of this franchise, these are three of the players that I think you want. We talk so much about who do you want coming off the bus right who's the

most intimidating? These are the three guys I think you want representing your franchise. And to add on one more thing with Jordan Love for people that want to make this Love or Rogers Rogers in Love, the fact that Love talked about how he spoke with Rogers afterwards, and Rogers telling him if you ever need anything, if you ever have a question, you still got my number, Still

give me a call, Let's talk about it. I think Aaron Rodgers too also appreciated the approach that Love took to this thing that with his development process and now finally getting this opportunity in the very much same way, at least on the field as Aaron Rodgers did in two thousand and eight.

Clark speaking to the media yesterday. And I want to dial it back a little bit to when we heard from Brian gudakuns to a couple of weeks ago during the NFL Draft, and particularly when another first round pick was invested in the defense, in the selection of Lucas

van Ness out of Iowa. The Packers are going to have a total of eight first round draft picks on the field as far as the starting or you know, if you consider the you know, twelfth and thirteenth guys, you know, with sub packages, essentially you're starting defensive unit

eight first round draft picks. And Brian Gudokunz made no bones about the fact that the expectations for this unit are going to be very high, and even setting aside the fact that that is a unit that the Packers are going to be really counting on as they make this transition to Jordan Love at quarterback and the franchise takes, you know, takes this new road, and you know, you go back to last year and we had talked about it, where the expectations were very high for the defense and

the offense was making this a big transition, not as big as this year, but still a significant transition without DeVante Adams, that wide receiver, that was going to be a big shift for the passing game, and there was a lot placed on the defense to you know, sort of hold up its end, at least in the early going, while the offense could settle into this new reality and get things going and and you know, really starting with the starting with the London game. You know, the Packers

were out to a three and one start. Everything looked like it was all right. But then starting with the London game, you know, things started to go south for the defense and and it really didn't get back to playing the way everybody had hoped and planned until the stretch weren't run when the Packers were trying to steal a playoff spot there at the end. Kenny Clark, you know, is absolutely clear on what the expectations for this defense are.

And hearing from him, it sounds like the defense is not going to run and hide from those expectations, even as even as for a unit that didn't live up to it last year, and he knows they didn't live up to it last year, but they aren't going to run and hide from those expectations. Again. The sense I got is it's like, yeah, the expectations should be high, Bring it on, we need to come through for this football team.

with excuses to talk about not meeting expectations. He knows what the expectations are being one of those eight first round picks right now on this roster, including Lucas Faness. The weird thing about the twenty twenty two season defensively for Green Bay was I think they were at their best in terms of the talent on the field early, but it was almost like after the Rashan Gary injury and also Eric Stokes, they had to reconfigure things. I felt like they were the better team, the better unit

later in the season. They're gonna get Gary back. They need Rashaan Gary back, no questions about that. But I think it's about understanding where guys fit in this scheme and also where they're gonna get the most productivity from

the corresponding pieces. You can have the eleven best players at their position together on the field, but if it doesn't act cohesively, if it doesn't meet with the scheme, if it doesn't if all the parts do not attach, it's going to be a tough ghost still, and I felt like in the second half they did a better job playing together as a unit. The other thing that Green Bay tapped into the second part of the season that I think was important was after Stokes's injury. Rasseul Douglas,

to my eye, is his position's perimeter corner. I give him credit for try and slot. I know there's a lot of hubbub in the offseason about hey, could he go to safety? Let Rasseull Douglas be a perimeter corner. When he's a perimeter corner. The guy has what MI like eight interceptions and like what seventeen games as a packer at this point when he's playing outside, I mean right, he is a good compliment to what they're doing with jyr Alexander, especially with not knowing what's gonna happen with

Eric Stokes. I think you need dog mentality players like Keishawn Nixon in this scheme. You know, you hope that both kway Walker gets another year better and Devondre Campbell being a little healthier this year is gonna help. But everybody gets it. Joe Barry, we haven't talked to him yet this offseason, but he gets it. The defense is the area of this team that is fortified right now. It is the area of the team that doesn't have to make you know, big strides with a young unit.

They have experience coming back and they need to play to that experience level.

never for a couple of games. I mean I think back to, you know, the the game against the Jets, the one that was right after the really tough loss in London. The Jets had like eight consecutive possessions and they scored three points. Now, the offense wasn't holding up its end in that game, but the defense was doing, you know, was doing what you thought you would do with a young quarterback like Zach Wilson coming into lambeau Field.

achieve in this league. We know that, right It's it's not even it's not even realistic to ask for consistency, but it's But for this defense, I think when you compare to last year, it's about trying to smooth out the ups and downs. You're going to have some ups and downs, but you know, the valleys can't be quite so deep and the peak the peaks can't be quite so far above what is you know, sort of like

the normal standard of play. There needs to be there needs to be a leveling out of how things go so that so that the coaches, the players themselves, the other side of the ball, of the offense can know, you know, what they can count on from from the defense.

And I think that's the biggest task that Joe Berry, his coaching staff and all of these veteran players in first round picks have on defense is to is to play a smoother or more reliable brand of football, not something that swings wildly from like, oh, that looks like the greatest defense you know ever to oh my gosh, it looks like they can't stop anybody, and and this

game is completely going the wrong direction. So something, you know, some sort of a middle ground there, because if you can find that middle ground, you know the talent is there, Yeah, to play well enough to win games. And that's where the that's this Packers defense needs to get to.

no question, but the important pieces. I think this is where, ultimately and probably why it made sense where Green Bay fell last year and a lot of the rankings was when they were stopping teams. Man, they were stopping teams, and then when teams got on runs like Heineke did in the second half against Washington, they were really having a difficult time getting them off the field. That's going to be the thing. Hey, team goes down, has a

twelve play drive eighty yards, seventy five yards, gets a touchdown. Cool, whatever it happens. But the next series, you're looking for three and outs, you're looking to stop them at midfield, You're looking to get the ball back by in your direction. That's where I think the Packers defense needs to get to this season.

of angles for you. But until then, for Wes, I am Mike. Thank you for tuning in everybody, and we will see you next time.