Hi, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Packers Unscripted from Packers dot Com. I am Mike Spofford, joined by my trusted colleague West and Hodkowitz. We're coming to you here once again from different locations at lambeau Field and Wes. The Packers twenty twenty three mini camp has concluded. The off season program for twenty twenty three is also done. As you and I are recording this episode, the players are out at a paintball activity, firing away and having
some fun. I wanted to get your thoughts though, as far as wrapping up this offseason program. This entire twenty twenty three season is going to be all about the transition to Jordan Love. So I will just throw it out there to you as an open ended question. What were your impressions of Jordan Love based on what we got to see in this offseason world?
Good work, strong work, and I felt, like, you know, one of the things he touched on when he had his last media availability with us was two biggest points of emphasis. The first one on the field was the throwing on the run. That was something that him and Tom Clements Connor Lewis that entire room talked about going into this offseason program, they wanted to be able to
test him a little bit more there. They did a ton of drills in that area of the field early in the camp and then obviously that kind of naturally translates to what you know, the team period and seven on seven as well. That was one area of Jordan Love's game he felt like he really needed to grow in this offseason.
They put the work into it. The other one is more mental.
It's more from a leadership perspective, and that is the responsibility that comes with being QB one and Jordan Love now is officially the face of the franchise. It's just it goes hand in hand. And I thought he hit that out of the park this offseason. I mean since the beginning of the off season program. Might many times since the time that that trade happened with Aaron Rodgers. How many times did Jordan Love speak three? Four times?
Yeah?
Uh. He is a guy that has that He's quieter, but it's a quiet confidence about him. And I feel like that's really going to translate and kind of hit down to all those different levels of the offense. In the entire locker room, there are going to be you know, good days and bad days. There were a few more interceptions I think this offseason program than maybe we'd seen when during the.
Aaron Rodgers era.
But I think it's also understanding, you know, getting those reps in and trying to learn from him. And that's going to be the biggest key for Jordan Love in twenty twenty three is what he learns from his first year as a starting quarterback in the National Football League.
Yeah, And what stood out to me the most this spring, in addition to what you just mentioned, and as actually something that you also wrote about in the Insider Inbox column, I saw a young quarterback who was willing to cut it loose. Yeah, you know, I mean I did. It didn't feel to me watching the practices we got to watch when they were and when the offense was in eleven on eleven, when they were doing seven on seven, the truly competitive stuff, even though it was without any
pads on. He wasn't holding back. You know, this wasn't This wasn't Jordan Love. You know now that now that it's his offense to run and he's QB one, that he's suddenly just going to become check down Charlie and and uh, you know, and and be hesitant to uh, you know, to take his shots down the field to
let it rip. Now, we'll see what happens in training camp when when it's eleven on eleven, when all the guys are there, when the pads go on, and the competitiveness of practice, you know, kind of cranks up and gets to another notch. But I thought that's what exactly he did, what exactly what he had to do this spring in terms of in terms of not be afraid of anything, you know, take some chances and and uh and challenge challenged himself as well as challenged the defense
down the field. I mean, yeah, there were some interceptions, some things didn't go that well. That's what you look at on the film. That's how you learn, that's how you grow as a quarterback. And I thought the way I thought the way he approached it, not saying with a not saying with a careless attitude, but not being too careful and just and just playing the game in an aggressive manner. I liked what I saw on the field in a spring.
Yeah, I said it from the beginning.
Micah, I feel like there is he there's more of a gunslinger element to how he plays the game of football. Absolutely, I think you're going to see that a little bit more, probably with love than he did with Rogers.
You have to curtail that.
But of all the criticisms because the originally reason it came up in inboxes, people saying, well, he's not one to throw down field. Well, one, you don't know that you've seen him, you've barely seen him play quarterback. I know that for a fact. But two, he is more than willing to put the ball downfield. That is not a trepidation whatsoever. That play he had Mike in Tuesday's practice where it's a seven on seven drill. You know they're inside the Donal Hudson Center, so they're being careful.
Nobody who was wanting to get hurt here thirty nine days away from the start of training camp. But that throw he had to Christian Watson, his arm strength, the trajectory of the ball, Christian Watson's speed, and his ability to catch it and stride and go downfield. That was one of the best pass and catches I've seen in my time covering the Green Bay Packers in a in an you know, offseason practice period, regardless of who the quarterback is. The kid has all the intangibles of a
first round pick. It's going to be understanding the riggers and the day to day and everything that's involved with it. Because this isn't a boxing fight, you know, it isn't It isn't going to be one of these things where you got to go play once and then lkac again in three months. Yeah, it's gonna have to do it
every single week starting in July. So hopefully it gets a chance to reset here these next five six weeks, come back fresh for training camp because Mike, when they report back and the calendar starts to count down to that first preseason game, you know, that's when things really get real.
Yeah, I mean, Matt Lafleur even said it in his his final address to the media before that second mini can't practice that that when training camp rolls around, it's it's go time. There's there's no there's no holding back, I mean, and that's one of the things that's a it's a big transition for the rookies where you know, OTAs is kind of learning and and it's like, okay, you know, you make a mistake. We'll talk about it. Let's you know, let's work our way through it. In
training camp. You know, when they're eleven on eleven, they're running play after play after play. It's it's a it's it's a fast paced, competitive, get ready for the season, uh, you know, type of environment. And uh you know, Jordan Love has obviously been through that before, not as not as QB one, and he did it, you know, at
least in this uh this mini camp setting. We did see as we had talked about on our previous show, Jay r Alexander Rasul Douglas who had not been it participate aiding in the voluntary ot as they were here as the starting cornerbacks in mini camp. It made for some uh I guess you'd say some any anytime Ja or Alexander, Jay or Alexander and Rasul Douglas are both on the field, there's going to be energy and spirit
to a practice. You're going to hear a lot of barking and chirping, and that's just the way they go about it. And uh so it was you could definitely
feel their presence was back on the field. But that's also that was also important stuff, particularly in the seven on sevens for for Jordan Love to uh, to challenge himself, to challenge the defense, to to challenge his receivers to go to go make some plays against those guys before U before training camp gets here, and uh and it gets a lot more serious in terms of preparing for the season.
Yeah, for sure.
I thought it was one of those, uh sort of litmus tests, those barometers for where a young quarterback.
Needs to be. And I thought, you know, there was going to be some battles there.
I thought you saw, you know, Ji Alexander as as Love talked about, he kind of baited into one in the two minute drill being able to get that pickoff of him. But that big pass to Christian Watson that that was over Alexander as.
Well, who says zone defense never works, right, that was that was a that was a zone call and Job baited him into the into the kind of that honey hole throw down the sideline and then boom interception and that that ends the two minute drill. And that's those are the kind of plays that that guy's like number twenty three can make.
Yeah, no doubt.
And I also like that going back to Tuesday's practice inside the dun Hudson Center, you know that that red zone period where the defense is winning that drill one after another. Right, they're within the first you know what, ten to fifteen yards of the end zone. But then Love just throws an absolute dime on kind of a corner fade to Romeo Dobbs. Dobbs makes a phenomenal catch on the play that was over jyr Alexander's coverage too, so ragged it dragged.
His feet kept his feet in bounds on that one too, right in the corner.
Yep, Yeah, I mean in that kind of look, Mike, I mean credit to Corey Ballentine and and you know Schamar, John Charles and all these young corners that have been in here. Keishawn Nixon was here for a lot of these practices too, But the game's different when it's a two time All Pro out there. And I feel like that's really strong work for Love to get now as he prepares to see that type of look every single day of August.
Yeah, no question about it. Well, a couple other topics I want to get to here, But first a little bit of sponsored business. Serious XM NFL Radio delivers hard hitting analysis and up to the minute NFL news that true football fanatics need twenty four to seven three sixty five, and at Cousin Subs, we have something for everyone like our Wisconsin Cheese Kurds, mac and Cheese, golden fries, and creamy shakes, all paired with your favorite sub or sub
in a bowl. Cousin Subs fifty years of better. All right, Well, one item that we had talked about on our last show in terms of previewing Mini Camp actually did come to fruition, and that we got to see rookie sixth round draft pick and kicker Anders Carlson in a couple of field goal periods here during Mini camp. One was inside the Hudson Center on Tuesday with all the rain outside. Another was on Wednesday when the players are back out on Nichkie Field. And the first thing I'll say about
Andres Carlson is leg strength is not a problem. Exactly why he is a kicker who was drafted, not one, not one who ended up going the undrafted route. The young man has a big leg.
You know. It was funny, Mike, because we talked all off season program, when are we going to see Andrews Carlson? When are we going to see Andres Carlson kick because they've just been something. It's one thing I like actually that Bisacci does is it's very procedural. Right. I've seen them take take more reps at field goal kicks without actually kicking the ball than any other time in my
ten years covering this team. I mean, he does it religiously, making sure guys know they're blocking assignment, making sure you see what the snap looks like, the hole looks like that, everything else is there other than the kick, because ultimately, you do want to keep these guys healthy and you want to keep the you know, kicking and punting legs strong. That being said, we got to see Anders Carlson kick a lot of field goals on Tuesday and Wednesday.
On Tuesday, he's booming these things, but.
They're inside the Don Judson Center, so you're kind of like, okay, you know what is it? This is perfect conditions, no issues. Well, then he goes out to the practice field on Wednesday. In Mike, there was one period where they're doing some seven on seven work, but Carlson is practicing the operation right in front of us, and he is kicking probably seven eight feet in front of us. And I use this as my insider inbox headline, I mean, the ball
just torpedoes off his foot. Yeah, you know again, I'm not going to put this guy in the Packers Hall of Fame. We got a long way to go. We got to see what the field goal accuracy looks like.
But from a pure fundamental standpoint, after hearing Rich Basacci and Brian Gudikuntzen all these guys talk about this young man's leg strength, Holy moly, Anders Carlson has a foot on him, and it would Lastly, I'll just quickly say I was talking to Colby Wooden, his teammate at Auburn, who, by the way, I didn't know this until he mentioned it.
They also were locker mats within one of each other at Auburn, too, so very familiar feeling for both of those guys being next to each other in Green Bay. But he said, yeah, I mean, the thing you got to understand about Durors he kept calling him Durres, is that you know the amount of athletic ability that this young man has mixed with his work ethic and how much him and his brother really live, breathe and eat kicking. It gives him a really solid chance now to be
able to follow in Daniel's footsteps in the NFL. And B I think the type of you know, kicking prodigy that a lot of people predicted him to be when he succeeded him at Auburn.
Yeah, And what really caught my eye and watching him with the field goals and we saw him I believe in the two practices. In terms of charting it, he made eleven out of twelve from several distances from extra point distance all the way to fifty plus on a couple of those kicks. What really caught my eye was, particularly on the long distance kicks, that it looks pretty
effortless with him. It's not it's not like it's not like you're seeing this, uh you know this big wind up and and like you know, maximum effort and you know, a grunt when he kicks the ball or anything like that. I mean, it's whether he's kicking, whether he's kicking a thirty three yard extra pointer or a fifty three yard field goal, it looks, uh, it looks pretty easy in that that you know that that leg doesn't look like there's a whole lot of effort going into it. And uh,
just from from the appearances it was. It was impressive to watch, as you said, everything with regard to accuracy and kicking in lambeau Field. When the winds start to swirl in November and December and all that, he's gonna have a lot of stuff to work through, just like
just like any young player making that transition. But but boy, you can certainly see why the Packers were high on him as a prospect despite you know, looking strictly statistically at some of his numbers from Auburn that you know, the the the percentages and whatnot didn't necessarily jump off the page. And you know, there was some injury history there. This was a prospect that the Packers really really like and we got to see why they like it.
Well, that was one thing I talked with wood In about too.
It would be more of a concern, I think if it was okay structurally, this kid's you know, he's kicking his back out.
He's kicking his leg. It's the freak injuries that happened there.
I mean, trying to recover an onside kicked, hearing your ACL that's just bad luck, right, and then spending your senior year trying to kick while having a knee brace on your plant leg. I mean, just things that kickers are not necessarily used to or really natural to them.
But as you said, Mike, and it.
Is it's worth bears repeating the fact that he does it so effortlessly.
What does that matter? Why is that such a big deal?
Because the more you got a strain to kick that ball, the more likely it is you're gonna mishit it. You're gonna lose that accuracy piece. When you are able to be free flowing, in natural with your kicking motion, that's how you get it right down the pipe. That's one thing I learned from Mason Crosby. When everything else lines up, the distance and power takes care of itself. I mean,
obviously there's a Justin Tucker's in the world. I'm sure can probably just kick it from anywhere on the field and make it well.
You see guys like Justin Tucker, they make that extra effort when he's trying a sixty six yard or whatever. But when it's you know, fifty five or fifty eight yards and in anywhere in there, you know Justin Justin Tucker doesn't look like he's trying all that hard either.
Yeah, And that's where this all comes together and we'll have to see how this thing looks in training camp. But I think it's really interesting that the rookies, you know that the Packers drafted there. How funny is it that here we are going into training camp now and that's the only other spe that's the only specialist position where the Packers don't have multiple guys at it's Anders Carl and the Packers are going to be looking for him to win that job this summer.
Yeah, Well, one last topic before we sign off for the off season. We did get to hear after Wednesday's practice from Rashawn Gary, the fifth year outside linebacker, first comments to the media since injuring his knee the torn acl at Detroit last November, and the story on the website. I wrote a quick story after the interview on Wednesday after that after the practice, he's not making any promises in terms of a timeline. He was asked, you know, hey,
can you be back for week one? How about training camp? You know where things at? And he just said multiple times, I'll be ready when I'll be ready. But what I took from that it was more of it was more of how he said it and the attitude that he was carrying and answering those questions. He sounded very upbeat and positive. He likes the track that he he is on.
And if there's one thing we know about Rashon Gary, it's that if there is anything he can do in terms of his rehab, if there's anything the medical staff is going to let him do to try to get his work his way back any faster, he is going to do it because he's an absolutely relentless worker. And it sounds like, you know, things are pointing in a positive direction in terms of his return at some point, hopefully early in the twenty twenty three season.
I don't know, Mike if I've ever seen someone who seems to enjoy the grind more than Rashon Gary.
Now.
I'm sure he doesn't want to be having to go through a rehab right now, but when you talk about workouts, when you talk about going the extra mile, when you talk about practice, this young man gives it as all Mike and I have been. There was a moment after he got done with this presser. His scrum was on one side, I was over at Jordan Love on the other and I'm looking at him as he's walking back,
you know, getting all other things together. And I'm like, dude, if I didn't know any better, I would think that Rashaun Gary is perfectly fine and in the best shape of his life. I mean, that's how he looks right now. He doesn't look like a guy that's rehabbing an ACL. He looks like a guy that's ready for week one. Don't go running away with that. It's still going to take time. You need to make sure that the ACL is strong and everything. But the guys you can tell Mike,
he has not taken a day off. If there's something that he's allowed to do, something that he's cleared and greenlit to do, he is going to do those activities. Oh and then, by the way, spent a lot of time here this offseason was around all these young guys. Kingsley and Igbari is learning from that, Lucas van Ess is learning from that, every single young guy in there, Mike, much like with Preston Smith, Rashawn Gary has been that
guiding light in that force. And if you have a teammate, a star, a leader like him that is putting in all that effort and we don't know when he's going to be back to the field.
Well, how much does that motivate.
You when you're the one they're going to be counting on until Rashawn is back, until number fifty two is running through that tunnel again. I just think it raises the awareness and heightens the energy and urgency of everybody on that defensive side of the ball because Mike, as we've heard all these guys talk about Preston Smith, jyr Alexander, Darnell Savage, Kenny Clark, everybody talked about all last season didn't fully meet their expectations and where they.
Want to see this thing go.
Now in twenty twenty three, when Gary gets back, he is going to be hell fire in Brimstone trying to take down the opposing quarterback. And I think everybody else that understands, Okay, this is the work that Rashawn's putting in. While I'm healthy and I'm ready to go, I have to make sure that I'm playing to that standard as well.
Yeah, no question about it. And oh also, in the midst of all the rehab and everything else, he found time to finish up his class work and get his degree from the University of Michigan. He graduated in ann Arbor at the end of April. So congratulations to Rashaun gary on that that was a promise he had made to his mother when he left school early, entered entered the NFL draft with with some you know, time in college still left to go. So congrats to him there.
This is we've talked about it Wes on this show. You know, on an annual basis, we've seen the progression from a Shaun Garry a couple of sacks as a rookie, handful of sacks his second year, approaches double digits his third year, and then he was going like gangbusters last year. He had six sacks in the first eight games. And it wasn't even just the sack numbers, but you know, but just the pressures, the constant pressure on the quarterback,
the impact he was having on opposing quarterbacks. I think he even had you know, there might have been at least one one sack or something that was wiped out by a penalty I think early in the season last year. But he's on pace for double digits and who knows what he would have had. But then the injury happens in game number nine, halfway through the season in Detroit,
and suddenly it all comes to a screeching halt. But you just get the you just get the sense that at the end of the day, Rashaan Gary is gonna make this, this ACL injury and the whole rehab and recovery just a blip on the radar screen in terms of in terms of where his career is going. And and this Packers defense. I mean, Matt Lafleur even said, you know, yeah, I'm sort of you know, looking out of the corner of my eye every day at what's going on with Rashaan Gary's rehab when he's off to
the side during practice. How's he looking, how's he doing? I mean, everybody wants to see this guy back in full force, and we'll just have to see what the ultimately what the timeline is. But this Packer's defense, all of his teammates are going to be excited to get him back on the field at some point this coming season.
Yeah, and not that Rashan Gary needs any extra motivation, because I think the kid has that naturally ingrained in him that has already been uploaded into his you know, memory bank. But the fact is he is also going to you know, he's entering a contract year. He's playing on that fifty year option right now. When you were talking about what might have been had he not got hurt, you don't know what extensions look like. You don't know
what those guaranteed contract look like. Whenever he is cleared, whenever he's good to go, he's playing for that next contract too. So I just think there's so many things go in the right direction for him, and whatever happens, you don't have to worry about Rashawn Gary. You don't have to worry about what his motivation level is going to be, like how he's going to approach things. The kid is absolutely one hundred and ninety percent all ball and for the Green Bay Packers, they need him back.
They need that pass rush.
I think if he's able to get back here at some point, I don't know when, first half the season, whenever. You know, you think about the possibilities with Lucas Vannas, you think of the possibilities with all those guys. There's so many different things that Green Bay Packers can do and it's right there for them.
Yeah, absolutely, it's it'll be something to watch when whenever we do see Rashaun Gary get to get back on the field. It's going to be a big story for this team and a big lift for this twenty twenty three Packers defense whenever that does happen. So with that, we're going to call it a rap on this edition of Packers Unscripted, which also puts a rap on the
twenty twenty three off season. We will be back at some point just prior to training camp to to preview what will be coming up when when things hit full speed in training camp in late July, and hopefully, Wes, hopefully we won't be talking to each other, you know, through a computer screen. Maybe we'll be both back in the studio kind of with our old setup. We're crossing our fingers.
I won't be here.
Crossing our fingers. That will be the case. We can get back to the traditional way that that we produce this show.
So the way the Good Lord in exactly.
So with that, for Wes, I am like, thank you for tuning in everybody, and we will see you next time.