Hi, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Packers Unscripted from Packers dot Com. I am Mike Spofford, joined as always by my trusted colleague Weston Hadko it'z. We're coming to you here from our studios at Lambeufield to look ahead to Sunday. It is a noon kickoff between the Packers and Buccaneers at Lambeufield and it's on CBS WES. It was switched from Fox to CBS, so just so you're aware, and so the folks out there don't automatically go to Fox to look for the Packers in an NFC game.
In nineteen ninety seven, if I would have told you the Packers are going to play the Buccaneers an NFC Central game on CBS, you would have never believed me.
No, I wouldn't have believed you. But this is the world in which we live. We'll take a look at this Buccaneers club because you talk about a game that is awfully big for both squads. Here in the middle of December. Tampa Bay started the season two and zero yep, then lost seven out of nine over the next two and a half months. But now suddenly they've won two in a row. They've gotten to six and seven. I think most importantly is they are coming off of a
big road win in the NFC South. They went into Atlanta, pulled out a win in the final thirty seconds or so against the Falcons to create this three way tie in the NFC South with the Falcons, Buccaneers, and Saints all sitting at six and seven. So Tampa Bay got the win it needed last week to be able to say, all right, this division title is there for the taking and the Packers are the next team in their way.
I think it was Kenny Clark in the locker room on Wednesday night who was saying, I mean, this is a big game for both teams. Yeah, very different reasons. Certainly, you need every victory you can get and then figure out from there whether or not that means wild card or whether that in the Buccaneers case, community Vision title. But I look at a lot of parallels between these two squads because while Tampa is much more veteran lateen than Green Bay is, they had to work through some things.
Mid season was not looking good at all, but they've righted the ship a little bit. They've won some turnover differential battles. I think Baker Mayfield Buy and Large has played pretty well as of light, and Rashad White has been getting going as well defensively.
There is a lot of parallels.
Between what the Bucks are going through and what Green Bay is going through.
They are a herding unit.
If you saw neither team practiced on Wednesday, the Bucks held a walk through. The Packers didn't even do anything. They just didn't meetings. And if you look at the injury reports you can tell why. Packers a lot of things going on there. Tampa Bay, Vita Veya didn't practice, Devin White would not have practiced, Carlton Davis didn't practice. I mean, there are so many injuries on that side
of the ball for the Buccaneers. But be that as May game will be played at noon Central start time on Sunday, and one of these two teams is going to have to come out on top.
Yeah, And with regard to the Buccaneers, I mean, really you can't overstate how big that win was for them last week in Atlanta, because if they lose that game, they are two games behind the Falcons in the division with only four games left to play, so the division title is practically out the window and then they would also be at five and eight and on the outside looking in at this whole mess of teams, you know, seven and six, six and seven fighting for these wild
card spots. So just an enormous win for them. And you know they got they got points in that game,
like from anywhere and any time they needed. I mean, you know, they got a pick six from Carlton Davis, they got a safety from Antoine Winfield on a blitz, and as I said, Baker Mayfield after the Falcons had scored with about two and a half minutes to go, Desmond Ritter got a touchdown, Baker Mayfield took, took the Buccaneers the length of the field, they scored with about thirty seconds left, and then made a tackle of Drake London inside the five yard line on the final play
of the game to preserve that victory. Baker Mayfield West, We've seen him before, and in fact, this will be the third consecutive year we're going to see him in lambeau Field. In December two years ago on Christmas, he was the quarterback for the Browns. Last year in December on a Monday night, he was sort of the emergency quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams. He had just been signed off the street, you know, ten days before that, it had played in a Thursday night game the previous week.
Now he's with the Buccaneers, and you know, this is a guy who's who's seen it all and done that. He's been in playoff pushes before, he's won a playoff game as the quarterback of the Cleveland Browns. You're not gonna get anything past Baker Mayfield in terms of in terms of surprising him with anything necessarily, but he is a quarterback who can be pressured into a mistake here there. And the Packers have gotten their share of interceptions off
of him when he's played in this stadium. Yeah, I believe it's five, right, five in those last two games.
Yeah, So, I mean, Baker is undeniably an NFL starting quarterback. It was good to see him get this opportunity with Tampa Bay this year because when he went in with the Rams, and it's a.
Very unique coincidence that it worked out the way it did.
That he's played Green Bay as much as he has, but just how everything unfolded with the Panthers, it just it didn't feel right, and I think I view this opportunity now that he has with Tampa's more of the get right, comeback, second chance after obviously Cleveland win a much different direction, and he can make all the throws.
He was a number one overall pick for a reason. He's a gamer.
He's seen these moments now I think he's benefited from them, and he's obviously built up a rapport with that receiving corps. Chris Godwin's numbers aren't really there this season, but Mike Evans continues to perform and produce in a big way, and he's also found a nice secondary option with White as a pass catcher. So Packers still have their hands in their work cutout for him. But you do look at some of the things that has happened with Mayfield in the past. He is going to give you a
couple chances throughout the course of the game. It really comes down to whether or not the defense capitalize on it.
Yeah, and you and you and I were talking before we turn the cameras on here about Mike Evans, who you know, the guy has He's been in the league ten seasons, including this year. This is his tenth year. He's had over a thousand yards receiving every single year. I don't think he's ever played fewer than thirteen games in a season. I mean, his durability has been impressive. He's well over eleven thousand career career yards. Now excuse me, and.
It's hard to say.
He's I mean the I was asked an insider inbox, so what do you do? What do you do to slow down Mike Evans? And it's like, well, the guy's got ten straight thousand yard seasons. If somebody had figured out a way to slow him down, it would have
happened by now right. I mean, he's a To me, what I've seen in the times that we've seen Mike Evans against the Packers and in other times when I've seen the Tampa Bay Buccaneers play, it just seems like, whoever's quarterback is, you know, it was Tom Brady, now it's Baker Mayfield, other guys previously. It seems to me that the quarterback just waits for the opportunity when the defense is in a call that leaves Mike Evans one on one and then the ball is going that way
because it isn't. They aren't fifty to fifty balls with him when it's one on one, it's more like eighty twenty. He comes down with the ball more often than not, and you can't double cover him every play. You can't provide safety help on every single play. No defense can really do that throughout the entire course of a game. And he just always maximizes on his opportunities when he gets a one on one chance.
Yeah, and he's kind of the more I think about it, he's almost like the NFC's version of Keenan Allen.
Where I think.
It is, that's exactly what I said.
Did you really I haven't even had a chance to read it.
Yeah, you hadn't. You hadn't, And that's exactly what I said. He's he's like Keenan Allen and that he just keeps putting up numbers and producing, and yet not a whole lot of people talk about how good this guy is well, and I.
Think a big reason for that is because it ended up taking him six years to make a playoff. Yeah, and unfortunately, kind of like Alan, we're missing a really good, potential Hall of Fame career just because we're not putting enough spotlight on the guy. Yeah, he's almost like an early Elbert Poolholtz box Score. My friend Scott Vince's the one that gave me this analogy where it's like when you look at the back of a trading card, it's just perfect. There's no injury season, there's no hey, he
had fifteen catches as a rookie. No, it's just it's all production from the day he walked in the door.
Yep.
And certainly he's a player. And I love these guys because they're becoming fewer and farer between. But a guy that has been with one franchise, he won a Super Bowl with that franchise, and despite a litany of differ from quarterbacks throwing him the football, he's done. It doesn't matter if it was Josh McCown or Tom Brady. He's
been able to accomplish a lot in this league. And I actually have to take some ownership of this as well, because I overlooked him and I paid the price in my fantasy league this year because I had to make a decision. I don't know if it was the fifth or sixth round. I made a decision between him and Chris Godwin. I drafted Chris Godwin. That didn't work out so hot for me because I thought maybe slot receiver
type beck of vibes, he'll joe with Baker Mayfield. No, the guy has been and will continue to be Mike Evans and six foot five, two hundred and thirty pounds. I mean, for all the respect we gave Megatron throughout his career, I feel like in a lot of ways we definitely haven't given Evans enough flowers of his own.
Yeah. Well, and you mentioned Rashad White earlier as well, and he has been a producer as far as the receiving yards out of the backfield for this Buccaneers offense. But the other thing you have to look at right now with what's going on with this Tampa Bay offense is how White is run the ball. For the season, the Buccaneers are ranked twenty ninth in the league in
rushing offense. Honestly, that doesn't mean anything at all, because if you just look at the last three games, Rashad White has two hundred and eighty six yards of four point eight average yards per carry over the last three games. Two of the last three he's hit one hundred yards rushing. That's not that they are no longer the twenty ninth
ranked rushing offense in the league. What they've done recently is what they're hanging their hat on offensively, and with the Packers coming off of another rough game defending the run, they've got to shore that up because you can't let Tampa Bay come in here and control time of possession and control the game with the running back, because then it gets a lot harder to get after Baker Mayfield.
Yeah, and Tampa's one of these rare teams in this day and age where they just feature one bellcow back in a lot of ways. They did it with Leonard Fournette before this as well, and White has been the guy. I don't think anybody else has over three hundred rushing on the season. I think he's pretty much been the dude for them. And now four of his all four of his games with over twenty carries have come in the last six weeks.
Again, it just.
Reemphasizes that they're continuing to feed them the ball and they're getting better returns out of that. A capable back. I think everybody felt like this year, you know, everyone understood he was going to be RB one for them, and he gives them some versatility, gives Baker mayfield some
different options in which to use them. But at the end of the day, even though they've made this switch from Bruce Aerons now to what Todd Bowles is the head coach and now they have a new offensive coordinator now as well, they still kind of stuck to a very similar blueprint for how they want to structure their offense and as of late, it's been very successful.
Well on the defensive side of the ball. It's a unit that in some ways has been tough to figure out. And I know that they they've been dealing with injuries, as you mentioned, and that certainly plays into it. But just looking at the statistics, they're twenty seventh in the league in yards allowed, but only thirteenth in points allowed,
and a big reason for that is turnovers. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are actually plus six internal over margin for the year, which is not a number you would normally see for a team that is six and seven. You know, that is hovering around that five hundred mark. But it is a defense that has taken the ball away. I think that is what has helped keep points off the board,
even though they have surrendered a lot of yards. And the other thing that really sticks out to me, Wes is that from a pressure perspective, they have six different guys on this defense that have four or more sacks on the ear one of those being Antoine Winfield, who's a nickelback slash safety slash do it all dB. And when I talk about six guys with four plus sacks, that doesn't include two of the biggest names on the defense and Levante David and Devin White, who have three
and two sacks respectively. And I know those guys have dealt with some injuries and missed some time, but my goodness, six guys with four plus sacks, plus you still have David and White if both of those guys are available to play.
How exciting is Antoine Winfield as a football player?
Wow?
I mean when you look at this, Michael. I will get to those inside backers here shortly. But Winfield is a guy that in twenty twenty, when the Packers are having that back and forth with Tampa was you just sometimes you look at a rookie and you're like, this is this is the guy and it's not just because
of what his name is. He has everything you look for. Yeah, ninety seven tackles, which leads the team for them eleven passes defense, he's picked off two of those, four force fumbles, three fumble recoveries, and yeah, he's also added four sacks. He's an all round playmaker. And as Bill Huber was asking of Jordan Love in the locker room on Wednesday evening, you know, you can't really even diagnose where he's going
to be at any given time. He's used kind of in the same way that Charles Woodson was used near the end of his run in Green Bay.
He's listed to safety, but you're going to see him in the slot. They could blitz him.
They have depth in the secondary depending on what happens with Ryan Neil here.
But he's a guy that is going to be everywhere.
He reminds me, frankly, and the Woodson thing is interesting to me. He reminds me of Troy Paulamalu, except without the size. He's not as big as Polamalu was and obviously without the hair.
Yeah that part two, and maybe he just reminds you of his dad too.
But when you talk about a guy who's lining up everywhere and has a chance to make an impact defensively from almost any spot on the field. That was Paula Malu. That's why he's in the Hall of Fame. And Antoine Winfield is still very young, long way to go, but man, this guy can play.
First three four years in the league. It's incredible what he's done.
And when you think of that star kind of defensive back that you throw on a guy, he certainly fits the bill.
Levonte David and Devin White though.
Those guys are I think the prototype, and they've been the prototype for years.
Of how you want to develop a defense.
A veteran that is wise beyond his years but still plays an exceptionally high level. In David, yeah, second on the team and tackles. This season, I think he was now up to thirty three ish around that area. Remarkable the way he's been able to adjust his game. And I remember three years ago saying, this guy that's not getting enough love. He's been one of the top inside backers in this league for years, but no one's given him credit for it. He's definitely gotten his flowers now
at this point. Devin White, I think is dealing with the foot injury right now. We'll have to see exactly where he's at in this one, but is the number two to that, and then via Vita via Veya is one of the most exciting defensive linemen in this league. He's been that way for a number of years. Just a monstrous human being that also is incredibly athletic for a guy his size.
Yeah, I mean how many how many teams have their leading sack guy for the season be an interior defensive alignment. I mean, you know, he's he's a problem. I mean, he's he's tough to handle.
Yeah, And it's not it's not even like the Aaron Donald thing where Donald's just going everywhere you're gonna find him. But three two three, and he's gonna push your in two.
It is gonna be He's gonna be somewhere. He's gonna be somewhere in there, and you've got to be ready to handle him.
But to be honest with you, I haven't watched enough Tampa this year to explain exactly why they've been so far down the list in terms of their past defense. I think they're third from the bottom of the league. Their their run defense has been fine, but I mean, overall, as you mentioned, the yards allowed this year are up there. The teams have been able to move the ball on them. But they've played well situationally and been able to keep
some teams off the board too. And when you look at a team that again has gotten on a little bit of a winning streak here late, a lot of times it's going to come down to keeping the opposing team out of the end zone.
Yeah, well, we'll get to our Keys to Victory in just a second. I'll take care of a little bit of sponsor 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 Cousins 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
in a bowl. Cousin Subs fifty years of better. All Right, Keys to Victory, Wes. When I say what's it going to take for the Packers to win this ballgame? What is at the top of your list?
Well, I'm going to put on my Mike Spofford Week fourteen hat and tell you that it's going to come down to running the ball and stopping the run. We know that the dangers that lurk there with this passing offense of Tampa Bay. You can't allow them to get into a rhythm and get white going and have to defend them on both fronts. That is not a key for victory defensive or offensively. I should say We're gonna have to wait and see how this week unfolds for
Aaron Jones. I know he told Rob Reichel in the locker room on Wednesday that he wasn't really expecting to go Monday. It was more about trying to be ready for this one.
Have to see.
He said, he's probably gonna practice on Thursday. We've shot this before we go out there for practice, so we'll have to check it out. AJ Dillon is dealing with a thumb injury now. He was listed as a DMP on Wednesday. Don't exactly know what his status is going to be. He has yet to miss a game in his career due to injury. He's only missed one because only missed a couple because of COVID right back in
twenty twenty, so he's been a workhorse for them. But if you get Aaron Jones back, that still gives you one of your faces of the run game, independent of what's going on with aj Dillon and ultimately Mike as much as we're going to talk about Christian Watson and these receivers and you're not sure what's gonna happen with don Tavian Wicks with the ankle. You go back to the original structure of this offense from week one, and we talked about Aaron Jones, how this offense was going
to need him. It's taken a while. It's been an inconsistent year and the injury front. I know, he's had some fits and starts, looked great in the opener against the Bears, and then just hasn't been able to get back into a rhythm again. You hope the hamstring is behind him. You hope that we're getting close to the need being behind him and the Packers can mount a playoff push here with their Pro Bowl running back.
Yeah, and I'm totally with you, you know, with regard to the stop the run, run the ball thing again. You know what you and I were talking about it earlier this week after we got back from the game
in Jersey. And as much as you know Jaden Reid, who fortunately doesn't have a concussion and is just dealing with an ankle injury and sounds like potentially he's trending to play, but most importantly does not have a concussion was put in the concussion protocol, So that's good news for this Packers receiving corps that certainly is banged up, you know. But Reid had the sixteen yard touchdown run. He had the twenty yard run on the end around
on the Packers first play of the second half. Late in the first half, Patrick Taylor, I believe, busted off
a fourteen yard run. But the big thing that was missing from the Packers running game was aj Dillon on a just a traditional you know, not in a two minute drill type of thing like it was with Taylor at the end of the first half, but just traditional running the ball, being able to being able to bust one of those runs to turn into an explosive whether it be fifteen or twenty yards or something like that.
That didn't happen. Dylan was productive, but the Packers weren't able to get any of those big runs, and it just felt like because none of the traditional runs were really keeping the Giants on their heels. Ye the play action game wasn't you know, it didn't. It didn't get the def to react the way you want it to. And that's a credit to the Giants. They were able
to do what they needed to do. But if you can run the ball between the tackles and just get one explosive one here, a ten yard run, here, a twelve yard run there, it starts to put the defense on their heels. And then and then Jordan Love with the play action game where which is where I think he is absolutely one at his best, is out of
play action. I think that's the key to getting this offense back into a rhythm instead of you know, all of kind of the fits and starts that we saw on Monday night, which had followed up some really good weeks of offensive football.
Yeah, and I don't have any pro football focused stats for you or some you know, deep introspective analytics, but it just seems like when you have to go eleven personnel out of shotgun it is third and nine, that just has not been a successful way for Green Bay to go about, you know, winning this season. There's been some long conversions and there's been some times where Jordan Love has made some exceptional throws, but a lot of them seems to come off of things that they've built
and things that they can take. And you know, there's some that Jordan even touched on when we were talking to him on Wednesday about the end around and the reversals and some of the things they were doing.
With Jayden Reid.
Is that now that you put that on film, the way that you can build off of that and build packages that look the same but operate differently. That's the key in the National Football League.
When you look at the.
Pony package that they did it for a time with Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon. It wasn't just okay, well there's two running backs back there, who's getting it? It was okay, now Jones is motioning out, who's following them? What kind of coverage are they end? What kind of information can Aaron Rodgers take from that same thing? Now with some of this motion stuff, when you have guys
like Reid that are coming in motion. When it was going well the last few weeks, I almost looked at it as that was the one to running combination, was what Reid's doing, stretching them horizontally and then north and south with Aj Dillon. So again we'll have to take stock, we'll have to see who's available, But certainly a huge sigh of relief for the Packers that Reid didn't sustain a concussion on the short week he can be in
the fold. He is dealing with an ankle injury limited on Wednesday, but Green Bay needs them, especially depending on what happens here with don Tavian Wicks. If he's unavailable, that roster and that depth chart for the receiver position certainly dwindles.
Yeah, And the other thing you have to say when you're coming off of a game where you turn the ball over three times and you look at what Tampa Bay has done defensively in terms of takeaways, you've got to protect the football. You know, Jordan Love had done a tremendous job of protecting the football for a good stretch of games for quite a while, but had the ball stripped from him on the read option run and then you know, made a bad read, bad throw for
the pick. Those were on back to back possessions against the Giants, and then obviously there was the turnover on special teams with the muff punt. So you've got to protect the ball and then you the formula for beating Baker Mayfield in this league is pretty well known. It's pretty standard. You have to force him into a mistake or two because he does still have that gunslinger fatality. He's going to take his shots. He's going to take
his chances. But if he's taking that chance when he's under pressure, when he's not comfortable, that's when maybe you know that that cannon of an arm of his isn't
entirely accurate, you know what I'm saying. Like, if you if he's sitting back there and he's and he's got you know, he's got protection, and he's got time, and he can scan the whole field and he takes his chance, that's a much higher percentage play than when you can you know, when you can pressure him, flush him out, and then he still wants to try to make that big play downfield, that's when potentially a mistake can come.
I think you have to force Mayfield into a mistake or two in this game to help out a Packers defense that has been struggling against the run.
Yeah, and back to back games now without an interception for him and probably had his arguably his best game of the year. Even though he only threw for one touchdown against the Bears, three hundred and seventeen passing yards which was a season high, and you know, he has the weapons and he obviously knows how to utilize. He came in last year with the Rams and he fit well into that culture. They had some big emotional moments, but then after the season was like, no, I'm still
a starting quarterback. There was an opportunity in Tampa to prove it Kyle Trast. They didn't want to go that direction. It was Mayfield and he's trying to prove them right here during the final four weeks of the season.
Yeah. Well, shifting gears to the NFC playoff picture. The key games that are coming up this weekend obviously Packers and Buccaneers, as we talked about, a big one for both squads. A very interesting game on Saturday West because the Minnesota Vikings, now having made a quarterback change to Nick Mullins replacing Josh Dobbs, they are traveling to Cincinnati to play the Bengals. The Bengals who are right in the mix of a crazy wildcard picture in the AFC
as well. It's one of those things, you know, Obviously, any game, any game can go one of two ways. But the impact of this game potentially on the whole playoff race really is significant, because if the Vikings were to lose on Saturday and they drop to seven and seven, then all of these teams that are six and seven in the NFC, whoever can get to seven and seven, you're suddenly tied with them for essentially the last two spots. Then it's not just you know, trying to squeeze into
the last one. Minnesota drops back to seven and seven and a bunch of teams catch them, and you know it, the picture looks completely different. The flip side is if Minnesota wins this game and the Detroit Lions can't get themselves back on track and they lose at home to a Denver Broncos team that's been playing some pretty good football over the last couple of months, suddenly Minnesota is only a game back of the Lions, and then they're
playing the Lions twice in the last three weeks. A win here by Minnesota and a loss by the Lions could put Minnesota for all of their quarterback changes put Minnesota in position to possibly win the NFC North again.
We'll talk about this during one of our offseason shows.
But man, I really don't like how they've done this with the divisional matchups.
Like we're just talking about this with the jib.
I don't know how. I mean, what has happened? What's happened here with Minnesota playing their last three games after this trip to Cincinnati, their last three games go Detroit, Green Bay, Detroit. I don't get that at all, Like, how do you not play one of your division rivals until Christmas? Like that just doesn't make any That just doesn't so.
But be that as it may.
I could totally see why they would have scheduled Detroit Minnesota for the finale.
It's just to have him two weeks before that is so weird to make, but it is.
I agree.
Let's get back to the bones of this thing. Jake Browning seventy five percent completion percentage looks like a player right now for Cincinnati going up against the Minnesota defense that, depending on which metric you look at, among the league's best right now with what they're doing.
Brian Floores as coordinator.
Yeah, and Browning is dealing with some kind of like a forearm injury or something.
It doesn't. It doesn't.
It doesn't sound like it's going to keep him out of this game based on the reports out of Cincinnati. But he is not one hundred percent healthy. And as you said, this Minnesota defense, certainly coming off of the shutout, know out in Vegas against the Raiders, this Minnesota defense under Brian Flores is really starting to hit its stride.
Yeah, and looking quickly at Detroit there because you were the one that actually brought it up to me. I mean, Denver finds a way to beat Detroit at Ford Field. They've suddenly swept the NFC North this year, and that's where really their turnaround even began when you look at the win.
That they had over Green Bay.
So obviously Packer fans for no reason other than just to cheer against them, certainly a cheer against the Lions, certainly big Denver fans this weekend. And then just quickly I want to mention this as well. I mean, the Bears are going to be taken on the Browns. Joe Flacco has played relatively well. Certainly Cleveland's defense is what they're hoping to ride here. That'll be a big test for Justin Fields and everybody's kind of within lockstep of
one another. So each one of these games, I could say this week is a big week, but I think, honestly, like these next four weeks, we're going to keep saying this just because of how close this positioning is entering this final stretch of the season.
Yeah, and when you look at the other games that that affect NFC wild Card picture, I'll just rattle them off here, Wes, and I'll let you comment on what you want to. But the Giants, who obviously just beat the Packers, they go down to New Orleans to face these six and seven Saints. Washington, coming off of a bye week, will go visit the six and seven Rams, and Washington has not been playing well. But maybe you know, as Packer fans, you're gonna cheer for Washington here to
try to beat the Rams. Maybe the fact that they're coming off a bye week they can get something straightened out and compete with the Rams. Atlanta also now six and seven after their loss to Tampa Bay last week, they traveled to Carolina to face a Panthers team that the Packers will be playing a week from now. And then the I believe it's the Monday night game is Philadelphia is at Seattle. Suddenly. The Eagles have lost two
in a row to very very good teams. But a ten to one Eagles team is now ten and three and in a fight for their lives for a division titles so they don't get relegated to a wild card spot. And the Seattle Seahawks sitting at six and seven. They've had a very tough schedule and they've kind of hit the skids a little bit lately, losing twice to their
division rivals San Francisco. I don't know what Seattle's quarterback situation is, if Gino Smith is going to be back for Monday Night or not, but a lot of eyeballs, both in terms of the top of the conference and the wild card picture will be on that Monday night game with the Eagles against the Seahawks.
First time during the Pete Carroll John Schneider era that Seattle has lost four straight games as well, so things have been so it's.
Four in a row now for Yeah, I didn't realize that it was up.
Yeah, they lost to the Rams before facing forty nine Ers Cowboys forty nine ers. Because again, these division games have to be played within three weeks of each other. But either way, I mean bringing it back to it, and what we talked about on yesterday's show on Wednesday show is that the Packers they didn't gain anything last week, but they didn't really lose anything either, so.
They missed it. They missed an opportunity to put themselves in a better position. But the bottom line is, you know, all these teams are at six and seven and right now six and seven is the seventh playoff spot. So it's you just you, uh, It's it's like every we say this a lot, but even more so this time of year. It's like every week is just a one game season. You got to go out and win the game and then you take a look at where things
stand after that. It's all about going out and winning your game, because that that's the one thing, that's the one thing that you have control over everything else. In this crazy nutty league where all sorts of wild stuff happens, that it that's all gonna happen. There's nothing anybody can do about. All you can do is go out and play your own game.
And fans don't realize this type of stuff, but carenton Valentine after the game, on on Monday Night. Was even like somebody asked about, you know, your heavy favorites, you know, six and a half point favorites over the Giants, and he's.
Like, I didn't know any of that. Like they don't care. All they look at is.
The film and what their assignment's going to be and whether or not they can beat this opponent. Kenny Clark talks about that all the time as well. For Green Bay standpoint, you're back at lambeau Field. You've not been good on the road this year, but you're four and two at home. They've won three in a row. I wrote a story on Packers dot com Jordan Love is one hundred and thirteen passer rating in these last three games at Lambeau and.
You have back to back road games after this. You got to get this one at home.
Yeah, And honestly, let's be real, Mike, I mean, the Packers, if you're going to make a playoff run, you have to have a positive, hopefully more than five hundred record at home to get into the postseason. Then you got to try to go take care of business against the Carolina team that's really struggling right now. But if you don't take care of business at home, beginning with this one against the Bucks and in another couple weeks here against the Bears. It doesn't make your job any easier.
Yeah, absolutely, this is well, it should be a good one. It's mid December football. It's two teams that are right in the thick of things and lots of scoreboard watching to do on top of it. So with that we'll call it a rap on this edition of Packers Unscripted.
You sure have follow all of.
Our coverage of the team and everything from Sunday's game against the Buccaneers at Lambefield. We'll have it all for you on Packers dot com for Wes, I am Mike. Thank you for tuning in everybody.
We will see you next time.