Hi, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Packers Unscripted from Packers dot Com. I am Mike Spofford, joined as always by my partner in crime, Weston Hodkowitz. We're coming to you hear from our studios at Lambeufield, ready to discuss Sunday's upcoming game noon Central time, kickoff at Lambefield. It'll be the Packers against the Los Angeles Rams. So, Wes, let's take a look at this Rams team right now, and the first thing that jumps out to me is
the schedule that this team has had. Like my goodness, they start the season actually by beating the Seattle Seahawks, and the Seahawks only have two losses so far this year. One of those was in the opener of the Rams. But then they have had very close competitive losses to the forty nine Ers, to the Bengals, to the Eagles, and then, unfortunately for them, they kind of took one on the chain in last week against the Dallas Cowboys,
getting blown out. I think they were down, you know, like thirty points before kind of some late late scores closed the gap a little bit. But really that game last week against Dallas is the only one the only one they've played, yeah, against one of the better teams in the league that hasn't been close. Hard to say exactly you know where things are headed with this Rams team, but it's a competitive bunch.
It is a competitive bunch. Scrappy, I think, is the word that comes up. Salty is the way you think about it.
But Larry likes that word salty, big.
Salty, gay No. But I mean the thing about it, though, is the Packers are probably meeting a team that has dealt with more injuries. Maybe not on a hole as Green Bay has, but definitely right now when you compare their injury reports. Stafford right now working through his deal here day to day. The thing about it is, though, for as much as I think there were questions about Okay, Sean mcay is going to come back, what do they have? What has impressed me the most is in the Rams
have done this continually. There's always somebody else that seems to step up for them that you weren't expecting. They've done it for years in the backfield. I mean, Cooper cup in some regards came out of nowhere and it's happening yet again here with this young football team.
Yeah. When you look at the big story this week and leading up to Sunday's game is going to be the status of Matthew Stafford, the quarterback. He's dealing with a ligament injury in his thumb. The Rams have said he's day to day. At the time we are taping this, all we know is that he did not practice on Wednesday. Sounds like it's something that could end up being an end of the week or possibly even a game day decision. If Stafford were to start, I will just throw this in.
It would actually it would be his twenty second career start against the Green Bay Packers, which is the most of his twenty one already is the most by far of any active quarterback in the NFL. Well, if Stafford cannot go, the rains would be turned over to Brett Rippen. He is the backup and he's only thrown ten passes this season. This is a young quarterback with a young quarterback with not a lot of experience, But the injuries
don't stop there for them. They're leading rusher Kyron Williams is currently on injured reserve, so they're trying to piece together a running game with Royce Freeman and Darryl Henderson, who they brought back after he was gone for a while.
And then the big story in terms of their offense is that while Cooper Cup was out and still recovering from a very long term and difficult hamstring situation, low and behold, a rookie fifth round pick out of BYU named Puka Nakua has kind of taken the NFL by storm in a lot of respects. Obviously, his name gets a lot of attention, but his numbers wes. I mean sixty one catches for seven hundred and ninety five yards
and eight games. That puts him on pace for more than one hundred and twenty catches more than sixteen hundred yards as a rookie fifth round pick in this league. This is a guy that teams have had a lot of trouble containing.
Yeah, and I love the fact that Stafford. Stafford's numbers are not good like by any means, but the guy already has two thousand passing yards on the season. They are just slinging the football right now. But Nikua, the thing I love about it is again less snead, a guy that has had virtually no draft picks for what five years. The way that they've done things. They finally get a fifth round pick here this year, it's like, ah, hey, we'll take probably what is right now the offensive rookie.
I'll say he's on his way to being the offensive rookie of the year in the NFL.
But the exciting thing for the Rams, and unfortunately for the Packers what they're gonna have to contend with is Cup has come back. And while we've seen how hamstring injuries can linger and hold guys back and aggravations, Cup has come back and has already over three hundred receiving yards as well in the year, averaging fifteen yards of catch. Just a very explosive offense. I think Tyler Higbe is one of the more underrated tight ends in the league. He's not going to be a dude that's going to
wow you. He's not going to be your best friend's favorite fantasy tight end, but another guy that helps move the sticks. The backfield has been in flux, as it's been for a while here for them. But the one thing that they do well, and I give them credit for it, Henderson comes back. They get Freeman involved, they get some veterans and some guys with some knowledge of the system and they can kind of get back on, you know, the ground running.
Yeah. One of the things when you look at when you look at sort of the statistical profile of the Rams, one of the things that doesn't really make a lot of sense is how well they move the ball and the yardage that they pile up. But it hasn't translated to the points they've had. They've had trouble finishing drives.
And then on top of that, they had a kicker who has since been released, but they had a kicker who had missed six field goals in the first you know, five or six games whatever of the regular season, so forty three field goals, believe, Yeah, well that's and and that's they haven't been able to they move the football. They moved the football all the time, but they have
not they have not been able to finish drives. And then they left a lot of they've left even more points out there because they had a kicker who wasn't wasn't making making kicks. They've since made a change at kicker, sorry man, and are looking to uh, you know, looking to get you know, in better shape with regard to their to their red zone offense, to be able to
put more points on the board. They don't have. They don't have much of a running game, but with getting Cooper Cup back with you know, to two at wells doing some things for them in the passing game. You have Tyler Higbee who's starting to become kind of a mainstay at tight end, you know, kind of an old stand by if you will. In Sean mcvay's offense. This strikes me as an offense that is potentially ready to bust out, you know, because because of the way they've
consistently moved the football this year. I think this is going to be a significant challenge for Green Bay defense.
And they what on the chops to the Cowboys right before this, I mean the Rams right now. This season, I think, as you were talking about in the intro, they've been the quintessential team of They've beaten who they've needed to beat, and they've lost to the teams that probably they were the underdogs against, with the exception probably that Week one game. I think that caught everybody by surprise a little bit, especially with what the expectations were
for the Rams this season. Right that being said, I think if I'm the Packers, I got to think about the fact that it was a slow start for the Rams last week. And if you ever want to see how important Slover's fast starts can be, just watch the first two quarters of that game against Dallas, where Dallas basically put that thing away before they even got to halftime.
Yeah, I mean, the Cowboys got an early score, then Stafford threw a pick six, and then the next time the Cowboys got the ball, they scored again, and it just you know, it started to It started a snowball on the Rams, and that game got away from them in a hurry. On the defensive side of things, of course, it all revolves around Aaron Donald. I believe, three time NFL Defensive Player of the Year if I'm not mistaken.
He has four and a half sacks so far this year of his team's fifteen sacks, so he has roughly one third of this defense's sacks. It's a unit other than Aaron Donald. There aren't a lot of big, recognizable
names necessarily on this defense. But again, I'll say, when you look at things statistically, except for last week's game against the Cowboys when the score really got away from him, I mean, this is a team that didn't give up a whole They only gave up i think twenty three points to the Philadelphia Eagles, who have a pretty darn good offense. They did not give up a whole lot of points to the Cincinnati Bengals. You know, early in the season. Obviously they held the Seattle Seahawks and check.
So this is a this is a defense that's held its own but is coming off of a rough game. This is a team, a team that is coming off of a rough game, and it'll be interesting to see exactly how they respond to that. And I think the expectation from a guy like Sean McVay is that his team is going to respond well because it is a veteran team. There aren't a whole lot of young guys out there, with the exception of their leading receiver.
No, And I think this was the area when the Rams are I don't want to call it a rebuild, but what they were sort of doing with taking down the tent a little bit and selling some of their wares, it affected the defense quite a bit. And it isn't so much changed the way they're ranked or any of those type of things. They're just not taking away the
football right now. They're tied with Green Bay twenty ninth in the NFL the fewest takeaways so far in the league at six, so that has been a big challenge for them finding a way to make those impact plays. And why you look at a game like this where turnover margin may weigh so heavily, but Aaron Donald is who he's always been. I'm sure this is going to
be a matchup that Elton Jenkins is relishing. It's a good time to get Jenkins back to health a little bit more with that knee, and certainly something in the Green Bay Packers offensive line is going to have to be cog because, unlike a lot of teams where you're worried about the edge pressure and what gets generated through the middle but determined on how much attention you pay outside, everything starts in the middle at the three tech and at those positions for the Rams, and they build out
their pressure from the rest of that. Yeah.
Absolutely, Well, let's use that to just transition into what we think our keys to victory are for the Packers in this game. A couple things obviously that stick out to me. The one that is most obvious is this Packers offense has to find a way to get in the end zone in the first half. I mean, it has been since Week two since the Packers have scored a touchdown in the first half. That needs to change to put the Packers in a better position. Just one
touchdown in the first half. Somebody's got to find it. They've got to put it together and do it to just put themselves in a better position on the scoreboard going into the second half, when by and large they
played some pretty decent offensive football. But the other thing that sticks out to me with this is there's a lot about this game from the defensive matchup for the Packers against this Rams offense that strikes me as it could be very similar to last week's game against the Vikings, and that it's an offense that doesn't run the ball
that well. You know, their leading rusher is out. They're trying to piece it together with the running game, but they have a veteran quarterback who's been there, done that. They have weapons in the passing game. If the Packers stop the run like they did against the Vikings, I think they're going to get the Rams in a lot of third and seven plus and third and eight plus, and the Packers defensively got killed in those situations last
week by Kirk Cousins. When they get in those situations on Sunday, and I think they will, they have to get the stops and get off the field when that down and distance is supposed to favor you. The percentages need to favor the Packers as well.
It's critical more than any other game Green Bays played this season because, Mike, when you were talking about the inability for the Rams to finish drives this season, it hasn't been an issue of them kicking too many field goals inside the red zone. The red zone offense is actually in the top ten in the NFL. I think their goal to go is in the top five. When
they get down the field, they finish. It's been the issue for them of getting stopped right around the fifty yard line or so when they're working their way in. It's why Maher missed as many forty plus and fifty plus field goals as he did so for Green Bay. If you get this opportunity again, if you get them in thirty and eight plus six seven times, you have to be able to get out of the field. You
have to keep those percentages skewing in your direction. No team in the National Football League has attempted more field goals this year than the Rams. They're twenty five, lay the league by four and unfortunately for them, they've missed a handful of those as well. It's a rookie kicker or whatever that's coming off a practice squad that is the guy that has replaced Maher. They didn't sign Mason
Crosby after that workup. So for the Green Bay Packers, standpoint getting off the field defensively and as you said, offensively, we're gonna keep saying it until it changes. Might You have to start faster, You have to find waste to get going. The Green Bay Packers, on paper, have a significant advantage with their ground game compared to the Rams. I tip my cap to Henderson and Royce Freeman. These guys have done it. They've done it at a high level.
Henderson has come out of nowhere to really be a consistent playmaker for them the last three years, whether he's been on the roster or not. Yeah, and you can't allow them to get their footing. The Packers have to be able to hold their ground like they did last week. But conversely, whatever you have of Aaron Jones and obviously have an AJ Dillon out there as well. The Green Bay Packers have to be able to run the football.
You can't be in a situation where Aaron Jones or where you should say, Jordan Love is going to be in third and eight plus on his side of the ball. Yeah, trying to make something happen.
Yeah, absolutely, I mean, just to show you from the you know, the defensive side of things. I think I saw these numbers correctly, but just what, you know, one rough day on third downs like the Packers had against the Vikings can do. I believe just from one game, the Packers went from ninth in the league in third
down defense to seventeenth. Yeah, with that one bad day, with allowing the Vikings to convert as many of those third and longs as they did, and you just you have to be able to get off the field in those situations because and yes, both of these teams have struggled to take the football away. But you know, I thought one of the one of the key, one of the key things we saw in last week's game against Minnesota.
The opening drive of the second half, the Packers are down ten to three, the Vikings get the ball coming out of halftime, and right away on the first series, they're in third and nine and then the Packers give it up. It's an explosive play. Suddenly the Vikings are out to the fifty yard line, converting that early third down, and then they end up finishing that drive with a touchdown. And it's not even just that allowing that third and nine led to a touchdown, but allowing that third and
nine flips the field. If you're not a defense that's going to be able to take the ball away on a consistent basis, then you have to win the field position battle, which means if you get them in third and nine back at their own twenty five yard line, that's where you got to get the stop, because you don't know if that opportunity is going to come up again.
And then even if it does, you stop them at the fifty, they're going to punt you down to the ten, and then you know your offense that's still trying to find itself is in a tough spot having ninety yards to go. All these kinds of things have been working against the Packers, and the way that game went last week, you can see exactly the things that need to change this week.
And all things are not equal. If one thing happens, there's always a butterfly effect on the rest of the game. So I'm not going to ask so to be so simplistic as well. If the Packers get a three and out there at the start of the third quarter, how does it change things? But I will say this, Yeah, that two score lead or at that point, I guess it was a three score lead that they ended up getting.
That changed the complexion of the football game because then and now it's twenty four to ten, when the Packers finally scored as opposed to seventeen ten. You don't know then how if you get stopped, if you're kicking field goals, if you're doing that kind of thing. It's when you start to get that advantage, especially against a team like the Vikings and Kirk Cousins, where they're going to use those odds in their favor. Green Bay can't allow that to happen.
Yeah, absolutely well, we'll take care of a little sponsor business here. Wes Sirius XMNFL 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 curds, mac and Cheese, golden fries, and creamy shakes, all paired with your favorite sub or sub and a
bowl Cousin Subs fifty years of better. All right, one story that I would encourage folks to check out on our website. It just went up on the website not long before we turned on the cameras here. We found out earlier this week West that the Packers Salute to Service nominee for the twenty twenty three season is running back Aaron Jones, and you wrote about it. You've written about Jones and his the military background and his family and all that. So tell us what Aaron said when
you told him in the locker room. Hey, dude, you're the Salute to Service nominee.
Yeah, that's exciting moment there for Aaron Jones. Some people get to open up boxes. Some people just have me coming up to him being like, hey, can we talk about the Slutive Service nomination. But that being said, I'll tell you what, man, the guy's been a multiple time Man of the Year nominee for them. He actually was nominated for the Saluted Service Award previously for Green Bay in twenty eighteen. A lot of great people involved in
this organization. T Bone, Tom Bachan in the equipment staff has been up for at numerous times. Chris Gizzy, the packer's strength and Conditioning coordinator, was the nominee two years ago. A former service member. Obviously, we know the story with him in September eleventh and his attachment to the Groom mid Packers and an image that'll be forever associated with this franchise. Darren College, You've done stories on just to quickly surmise
everything with Aaron, because I think it's very important. This guy comes from a military background, his parents, Vergis and Elvin Senior, both of them fifty six combined years of military service retarding retiring sergeant Majors in the Armed Forces, and to be able to find ways to continually give back has been such a huge thing for him and Elvin Junior with the A and A All the Way Foundation, such a cool thing to see him get recognized for this again because of how much of a front facing
member of the organization he's been. In the Salute to Service Month, he's been the spokesperson for a number of the Packers' efforts the last few years, this year, even earlier this week, both him and were just both talked at the turnover there for the Huddle for Heroes events, fifty six veterans all there. They're writing letters for service people, active duty service members. So many cool things associate with that.
So it's so neat to see Aaron get that, you know, recognition, so deserving and honestly, I'm gonna tell you right now, I'm actually really pushing. You know. We always have these efforts and you know, pushing and you know, wanting to make sure that your guy wins. This is the year. I would love to see this be the year for Aaron because of everything that he does. And that's why I wanted to take this time out is that you have,
you know, sponsorship business. This is the hot business over here. Okay, just to remind fans because now with the Salute to Service, you can vote and the opportunity to vote your favorite nominee actually does help determine the three finalists which will be decided on and voted upon. And recognize that the NFL honors in February, and to do that just to go to NFL dot com Forward slash Salute Fan Vote now until November thirtieth, one vote per day is permitted
per fans. I encourage people to go check out that link. There's a link in the story as well. If you don't want to just go off of what I'm saying right now, you can check that out on packers dot com. But so excited for Aaron and an incredible thing and hopefully see him be able to get that. It's not just about oh he gets an award, it's you know, money that gets donated two different branches of the military in his name, and such a cool thing. I'd love to see him get recognized in that way. Yeah.
What is that website at NFL dot com slash forward slash Salute Fan Vote, Salute Fan Vote, NFL dot com slash Salute Fan Vote. Yeah, cast your vote for Aaron Rodgers. It would be great to see him that. I'm sorry, yes, Aaron Jones. Sorry, Hey, we do the show, Brain Brain the brain locked there for a second. My bad with that. Before we go, a quick glance at the week nine slate in the NFL, and I tell you, Wes, there
are some really intriguing games out there. It starts actually Sunday morning with the NFL's first game in Frankfurt, Germany. The NFL has played in Germany in the past. I believe this is the first game in Frankfurt Miami against Kansas City. That one certainly stands out the other ones. I'll just read these off to you as the as the games that jumped out to me, and I'll let
you talk about whichever ones you want to. Seattle at Baltimore one of those NFC versus AFC matchups that's really intriguing with two teams that are off to uh to darn good. Starts big time matchup in the NFC East with Dallas at Philadelphia and then on Sunday Night football, which hopefully, you know, we'll get home in time maybe to catch the second half when we get all of our coverage of Packers rams donn and on the site
and put to bed for Sunday. Buffalo is at Cincinnati in prime time, and who knows, maybe we'll see former Packer Rasul Douglas on the field for Buffalo. Maybe not. I don't know if he's going to play for them right away. But that's an interesting one too, with the Bills against the Bengals, a playoff rematch from last year, with this one's in Cincinnati, but last year Cincinnati went into Buffalo and ended the Bills season. So some really interesting games coming up here in Week nine in the NFL.
I love what's building too at this twenty twenty draft class, because you're getting these matchups now when like Josh Allen, you know, taking on Joe Burrow again, and it almost kind of reminds you like the Jim Kelly Dan Marino, you know games back in the FC, where every single one of them felt like they're really high stakes. Credit to Zach Taylor, I mean, they the I think everyone
understood the Bengals were gonna be good this year. Having to deal with some early season adversity, both injury wise at Burrow, but then also with the results on field, they've kind of rallied back. Bills have been kind of teetering on both sides of it, but have been really solid once again, always teemed to be not to be trifled with. I am really excited to see what the Cowboys do against the Eagles, though, I think that's probably
the main the marquee matchup for me this week. Just from the standpoint of the Eagles are winning football games, and they find ways to win football games. And as we talked about earlier this week, Nick Sirianni just is always thinking one step ahead right now, and he has the talent and the ability to be able to maximize that. The Cowboys have to be feeling pretty good about themselves with the way that they handle the Rams, but they're
still kind of looking for that signature win. And then Mike, I mean, just let's say it. I mean, the Vikings have a pivotal game coming up against the Atlanta Falcons, a game in which you know there's gonna be backup.
Quarterbacks, right, two backup quarterbacks, and that one with the Falcons, you know, benching Desmond Ritter and turning to Taylor Heineke has plenty of experience in the NFL. And then the Vikings are turning to Jalen Hall with I think the guy the Vikings want to go to in Kirk cousins absence, is on injured reserve. They're waiting for Nick Mullins to get healthy to be able to take over that offense, but they have to go with Jalen Hall for now to try to get themselves above five hundred.
Yeah, Josh Dobbs getting brought in there to try to help that situation. I mean, this is a real pickle for the Vikings because you're on this winning streak and you're feeling so good about yourself and then you lose the guy that was pretty much the catalyst for all this.
Yeah, you've won four your last five after an zero to three start, but now all of a sudden, it's you're kind of back to square one because you lost your quarterback.
And then yeah, Miami in Kansas City, I mean, everybody's had that kind of It's a weird thing because the Chiefs are kind of working through some stuff right now, but at the same time, the Dolphins are kind of like in that Cowboys standpoint where they're still looking for like a big marquee win, and certainly Kansas City would qualify. Is that if it would work out that way?
Yeah, it just looks to me like, you know, I mean, if if you know this Kansas City Miami game could have you know, I think both of those teams are going to end up in the playoffs when this is all said and done. But the winner of that game, you know that that this game could have big implications in terms of playoff seeding down the line obviously Dallas and Philadelphia. If if, if the Cowboys don't beat the Eagles, the Eagles are you know, really sitting in the catbird
seat as far as the division. If if the Cowboys want to have a you know, realistic chance of taking that division from the Eagles, I think they have to go into Philadelphia and and and win this game at Lincoln Financial. And then, as I said, Buffalo and Cincinnati is a is a playoff rematch from last year. Cincinnati, Cincinnati is you know, seems to be finding itself, Buffalo
still having you know, some ups and downs. But again another game that you know, two teams that you think are you know, gonna have a pretty good chance of being in the playoffs. And this is one of those results that could that could have an impact on the on the seating and the order of things.
Come January and the complete opposite of what happened for so many years right now at the AFC East where it was always the Patriots and then okay, can anybody else make a wildcard run here? Well, now you got Miami, who again its strength of victories this year is two eighty three, but you're still winning football game.
Went, they're winning the games that they're supposed to win.
And Buffalo, and then you have the Jets. You're going to be hosting the Chargers, who always feel like the Chargers are in primetime every week to meet for so whatever reason.
Yeah, they got they got paid, they got pegged for a lot of for a lot of primetime games with Justin Herbert and you know, Joey Bosa, Khalil Mack. Obviously we'll be talking about them in a couple of weeks here because they'll be coming into lambeau Field. Not for a primetime game, but you're right, the Chargers seem to be playing under the lights quite a bit this year.
Yeah, and then the Jets. I mean, nobody's underdog at four and two or four and three right now. So yeah, a lot of interesting ball. Hopefully the Green Bay Packers get back in the wins the wind column this weekend and we could start talking about some NFC North outcomes again. But yeah, certainly for the NFL big week this week with.
Yeah, absolutely, Packers looking to to end that four game losing street, get back in the win column and see if they can have something to build on with that, we'll call it a rap on this edition of Packers on Script. To be sure to follow all of our coverage of the team on Packers dot com. We'll have all of the coverage of Sunday's game from Lambeufield again, a noon Central time kickoff Packers in the Rams right here in Green Bay for Wes. I am like, thank
you for tuning in. Everybody. We will see you next time.