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 lambeau Field to talk about Wes. A playoff clinching victory for the Green Bay Packers seventeen to nine over the Chicago Bears, the last game at lambeau Field for this season, but not the last game of the season for the Packers because they now have the number seven seed, they will be playing in the wild Card round, taking a nine to eight record into the playoffs. Hang on, here we go.
Here we go, buddy, I'll tell you a little story here, a little story time with Wes hod to start the show. All right, Last year, my good friend Rob Dmofski. For as much crap as I give him, I actually watched his son Hogan during his run up to the state championship with the the Peer boys basketball team. Went to all the tournament series games and they were lucky enough and fortunate enough to win the Division on state title
at the Coal Center. When I got done, I said to myself, man, I wish I would have enjoyed it more.
I was just so nervous.
And then after the game ended on Sunday, I got the same feeling like it was like I didn't want to talk to anybody. Our boss, Duke Bobber in the last two minutes of the game, was trying to tell me, hey, you know, this is what's happening with the Rams right now, this is what's going on with the forty nine ers, and I was like, nothing, I want to hear nothing. I want this game to be over. I want the Packers to advance and then we could talk about everything else later.
Yep.
But as I've stepped back from it, we're now two days after the fact of this game. What a fun football game that was from the Green Bay Packers, the way that Jordan Love performed, to have Aaron Jones with his third consecutive one hundred yard game, and then certainly Dontavian Wicks being the latest receiver to step up for them.
The Green Bay Packers. So many times, Mike, the Chips have been down, they've needed to rally, and they did it once again, and they got the three victories they needed to, as you said, get themselves back in the postseason.
Yeah, when you look at this game, it all starts with how Jordan Love performed. And we've always you know, we've wondered because not that there haven't been big games, but you always wonder when it's a first time starting quarterback, how is he going to respond when the pressure is really on, when you have to perform. Jordan Lov went out last week at US Bank Stadium in a do or die game and showed what.
He's made of.
And he showed even more I thought against the Chicago Bears that was an absolute tour to force performance. Twenty seven out of thirty two, three hundred and sixteen yards. He goes over four thousand yards on the season, a one twenty eight point six passer rating against the defense that, as we had talked about all last week, had been allowing only fifteen points per game, and quite frankly, Wes I wrote about this mentioned this in a couple of
the things that I wrote. I thought the Packers completely dominated this game in every facet except the scoreboard. They didn't score as many points as they should have the fact that this game ended seventeen to nine. I'll give the Bears some credit. They certainly made some plays that made some things difficult on the Packers, But it felt to me like the Packers were just stopping themselves and not being able to put this game away offensively until the final drive to be able to kill the last
six minutes eight seconds. You're backed up on your own six yard line in a one possession game, six minutes and eight seconds, four first downs. The Packers put the game away with their offense on the field. I thought it was a nice reward for the defense to not have to go back out on the field after a pretty solid performance from Joe Berry's crew.
Well, and what a way for the defense to leave the field right with Carl Brooks's sack pushing the Bears out of field goal range, out of scoring range, they had to punt the ball despite being down eight points with six minutes to go.
Yeah, and then they don't get the ball back.
Yeah, it ended up it was fourth and twenty two or something. I mean, yeah, in any almost any kind of normal down in distance on four town, the Bears are probably not punning that.
Football because if you get a three and out, you get the ball back ninety seconds later, two minutes later. But Green Bay did not allow that to happen. Michael, I want to talk to you about that six minute drive. I want to talk about how good Green Bay has been in four minute situations this season. But before I do that, I just want to expand on the Jordan Love piece, because you're right, there was some adversity that hit this team in this game, and it was not
being stopped on third down. It was the miss forty one yard field goal. It was the missed opportunity right before halftime when the clock ran out. It was Jordan Love trying to extend for a first down on a scramble and then fumbling the football right every time though, when there could have been a moment for Jordan Love to falter, to wilt, he came back and in so many ways this game against the Bears reminded me of what we saw from him against Kansas City. This kid
does not blink. Yeah, he is calm, he's collected, and he made some incredible throws throughout, including on that six minute drive to finish the thing in some key situations as well.
Yeah. Absolutely, the third down conversion throws to Jayden Reid on the third and two and the Packers are still inside their own twenty yard line. Then he you know, steps up, buys some time and finds Tucker Craft on the third and eight, where there was still enough time there for the Bears. If the Packers are punting there they don't convert on third and eight, there's still enough time for the Bears to possibly go down and tie
up the football game. He hits Kraft and then Aaron Jones finishes it off with the with the final first down that allows them to then kneel it out. Jones, as you said, his third straight hundred yard game, and this one came against the number one rushing defense in the NFL. Really impressive, what now, really impressive what Aaron
Jones has done down the stretch. And we've talked so much about about how much he's meant to this offense, but for him to average five yards of carry against one of the top run defenses in the NFL, and you've made these statistical comparisons before his longest run was seventeen yards. It's not as though that averag was skewed by a forty or a fifty yard run that he
busted out somewhere. Those are great when they happen, but when you're looking at the big picture and you're averaging five yards of carry and you didn't even have a carry longer than seventeen yards. That just shows how consistent that production has been upfront by the offensive line opening holes, the tackles that Aaron Jones can break, making guys miss.
He is at the top of his game right now, West and we hadn't seen that really since Week one when the hamstring first you know, went out on him crossing the goal line at Soldier Field. Aaron Jones is at the top of his game and that has helped this offense get to the top of its game.
One hundred percent.
I mean, when you look at three straight games of one hundred yards rushing and the Packers winning all three of those games, that's really as easy as it boils down to. When you're getting production like that from Aaron Jones, it shows twenty and one now in the regular season under Matt Lafloor, when Aaron Jones gets at least one hundred total yards twenty one and two all time underneath Matt Lafloor. In those circumstances, this guy is looking as
fresh as he's looked all season. Yep, he's looking fast he's looking powerful, and while he was very explosive in that win against Minnesota, he actually came back and you could have told me that was Jerome Bettis by the way that he was moving piles, keeping his feet moving, looking like a guy that is really trying to pull this team on his back to get them back to the playoffs.
Nobody wants it more than him.
And as I tweeted, you probably didn't see it because you were doing the live blog, but I took that old grinch, little meme, jiff, whatever you want to call it. When his heart is kind of busting out of the frame, he's trying to get the sled from falling down the hill. That's Aaron Jones.
Yeah.
He puts it all out there.
And at a time in which they did not have aj Dillon at all, he wasn't even in the cards because of the stinger, this thing needed to be on his shoulders, and he.
Was the bell call that the Packers needed him to be.
Yeah. Well, I want to talk about this defensive effort because I certainly don't want to overlook it, but I want to go back and make one more point about Jordan Love because because my favorite, my favorite sequence when you talk about the no blink and the response to adversity. Jordan Love fumbles the ball away on the scramble, the Bears recover. It's fourteen to six. The Bears drive and kick a field goal and get to within fourteen to nine early in the fourth quarter. It's a game the
Packers are absolutely dominated. But yet there's most of a quarter left to play. You're only up by five points. Anything can happen. The very next play, his very first snap after fumbling the ball on the previous possession, what does Jordan Love do? Play action bootleg to the left, fires it downfield for Jaden Reid, hits him in stride, big play, fifty nine yards down the field and the Packers are in position to get points again. He just
lets it all hang out there. I mean, that fumble was critical and could have completely shifted the momentum of this game. And what did Jordan Love do. He went out and just took it right by and just didn't let the only turnover of the game, didn't let it bother him. And that's something that, as Matt Lafleur said after the game, you can't teach, you can't coach that
kind of stuff that's just in him. That's who he is, and we've just seen we've seen it start to come out more and more as this Packers offense has had more and more success.
I've said it for three years, Michael, whether it's just the way he handled being behind Aaron Rodgers or how he's handled becoming the starting quarterback the Green Bay Packers, Jordan Love has just completely aced this test. He has been at every part of his career. Now in year four, he has been the player the Packers have needed him to be. Year one was all about learning, Year two is about showing strides. Year three was showing he could do it.
Yeah, and year four is.
Proving that he is a bona fide NFL starting quarterback. And before we pivot to the defense, I just want to mention this quickly. Aaron Jones, everything he did on the run, five catches on five targets, Dantavian Wicks, you look at his stats, six on seven. Bo Melt steps up again with another five catches. The Packers lose Romeo Dobbs in the first driving this game has to go to the hospital to get observed for that chest injury. Is allowed to come back but doesn't doesn't play in
the rest of the game, and it didn't matter. Jordan Love was Jordan Love and the guys around him. I think there's so much to be said for how these guys, when they're given their opportunity, respond to his leadership. And ultimately, when you have a game where Daniel Wheeland doesn't have to punt once, feels that momentum down in and down out.
Yeah, And what Dontavian Wicks did in this game was just emblematic of how things have gone for this offense with the perimeter weapons all season long. He'd missed the last game and a half. He exited at halftime against Carolina on Christmas Eve after catching a touchdown pass. He misses one and a half games. He comes back and he scores two touchdowns, gets both of Jordan Love's touchdown passes.
And for those who haven't seen it, I would encourage them to check out your story The Key to the Game story that was posted on Sunday night, Dontavian Wicks playing with heavy heart that game on Sunday. The date was the date of the birthday of one of his three Virginia football teammates. That was murdered in that tragic shooting in Virginia before Dantavian Wicks came to the NFL. So please check out that story. You found out about that. Wix was talking about it at his locker after the game.
Really good story and just definitely worth the read.
Well, and to understand what he went through and what that football team went through last year. It's something that they're going to carry with them the rest of their lives. And you can go on Virginia's page. They still have the emblem with the V and acknowledging and remembering the three players. In this case, Lavelle Davis Junior was the one that unfortunately lost his life in that would have
been twenty two years old on Sunday. And as you know, Dantavian talked about afterwards kind of playing through him, living through him a little bit there and after his second touchdown mentioned he did go to the sideline and cried. You know, just an emotional evening. But my goodness, this fifth round pick. When you saw all those stats he
put together his junior year, breaking Herman Moore's last season record. Yeah, you're understanding more and more why this guy is the player that he's become here in a very short amount of time. Yeah.
Absolutely, well, we do need to shift gears to the defense.
And I'll just start with this. We us. If you had told me all the discussion in previewing this game and everything last week talking about what the Bears were going to have to do in order to keep the Packers on their heels and possibly ruined Green Bay season, if you had told me that the Packers were going to hold Khalil Herbert and Justin Fields to a combined fifty five yards rushing between those two guys, I would have said, the Chicago Bears are going to have a
really hard time winning this game. And that's exactly what went.
Down on twenty carries slash scrambles.
It's not like it was a situation where the Packers got up and the Bears just had to start throwing, right. They tried, They tried their darnedest, but they couldn't get a single carry of more than nine yards in this game. And it was a full attention to a detail approach match with a natural aggressiveness that I thought was really integral to this thing. Kenny Clark mentioned it. They ran a lot of inside stunts with their defensive tackles. You'll see that a lot with edge rushers, just trying to
confuse the tackles a little bit. But when you do that in the interior, it's just trying to muddy things up. It's trying to get bodies moving, it's trying to close up gaps.
Yeah, Carl Brooks has become outstanding at that. He throws his body into multiple offensive linemen, as you say, to muddy things up, to muddy the waters, and that's created opportunities for sacks. I actually have the video of a couple of those in in what you might have missed piece that's on the website if you want to check out those clips. I mean, Kenny Clark and Carl Brooks are becoming quite the tandem when they get that stump call in the middle.
Yeah, and then Kenny was able to get his seven now up to seven and a half sacks on the season off of that, the Packers just it was perfect, man. They only allowed four plays of more than sixteen yards in terms of just the explosiveness passing wise, by not allowing Herbert to get going, it neutralized everything the Bears wanted to do offensively. Back to back games for Herbert with over one hundred yards rushing, green Bay kept him to twenty eight on twelve. Yeah, justin fields. We talk
about all the time, he's gonna get his yards. This game, he did not get his yards. And while they didn't turn over the football, while they played relatively clean, there was just nothing spectacular about what the Chicago Bears offered. And then when they would get into the third and long situations, they could not stay on the field.
Green Bay.
Again, for everything they've been through over the last month, I felt like that was one of the strongest defensive performances they've had this season.
Yeah, five sacks of justin fields, and more importantly, four of those five on third down. You know, timing is everything, right, you get a sack on third down, that's how your defense gets off the field. The Bears. If I'm not mistaken, the Bears had six possessions in this game, and all six of them they crossed the fifty yard line at some point on each of those drives. Packers defense rows
up in the moments that it needed to. I mean to have six possessions by the opponent that crossed the fifty yard line and there are only nine points on the board. Three field goals, one of those being the the you know, the doink, the deflection that goes in.
Uh.
This was this was a game. This was a game that that the Packers defense was big in the clutch, in the big, in the big moments to keep the points off the board. And you hope that that's something that can continue because you know, we'll talk a lot more about Green Bay and Dallas and the big matchup in the wild card round coming up on Sunday. Two offenses that are going to move the ball a heck of a lot, and it already looks like a game that's probably going to be decided in the red zone.
Who's going to be able to finish drives and who's going to settle for field goals. The Packers defense can can keep this up and force a couple of field goals that could be the difference in the game.
And my last point on this because you need it all. You need to have the pressures, you need to have the sacks, you need to have the defensive line contributing the way they did. You're gonna need a bottle up Tony Pollard. But Michael, there's a two time All Pro cornerback that was back on the field on Sunday for Green Bay. The shoulder injury appears to be behind him. The issues that led to the suspension appear to be behind him, and jyr Alexander to me, looked like he was having.
Fun again out there. It was it's going to take some time.
It's going to take some time to get his win back and feel, you know, feel the way he wants to feel to be out there. But when you're talking about a test like DJ Moore in what the explosive possibilities are of the Bears offense, now you're ready for ceedee lamb, You're ready for these challenges that Dallas is presenting.
If there was.
Ever a time for number twenty three to be back on the field for the Green Bay Packers, this is the time. This is in twenty twenty one. He's not coming back to play eight snaps and dime. They need him out there as much as possible. Yeah, and I feel like this is definitely the leap, the step, the propelling propellanation, if I may call it that, but no, but just just the impat for what could be something special. Yeah, and I'm excited to see what Gayer can do with that opportunity.
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You're right, You're right, I could well. Looking at the playoff picture, the packers are the seven seed in the NFC, they will travel to face the number two seed Dallas Cowboys, who wrapped up the NFC East Division title with a blowout victory over Washington. Pretty much what we expected there. So the seven versus the two is Green Bay at Dallas. That will be three thirty pm Central Time kickoff from
AT and T Stadium. Just to run down the way the rest of the playoff picture looks, the Detroit Lions are the three seed. They will host the six seed Los Angeles Rams. Tampa Bay wins the NFC South as the four seed, they will host the five seed Philadelphia Eagles. San Francisco is the one seed with the lone by.
That's how the NFC looks right now. Just your any of your thoughts and we'll speak maybe on more the specific matchups on our next show heading into the weekend, but just your thoughts on how kind of things shook out in the NFC and the placement that everyone fell into.
This isn't just for product placement. I'm gonna do this one more time to Mike Tomlin to the Pittsburgh Steelers, because if Pittsburgh doesn't get the job done against Seattle.
The Green Bay Packers aren't in the.
Playoffs, right, Everything that could have went against Green Bay for the most part.
By that, I think I actually have to drink right when I toasted.
Yes, yeah, you should, you should.
But things didn't go well in terms of how last year everything fell Green Bay's direction, it didn't go that way this year.
Yeah.
The one difference maker was Pittsburgh picking up that victory because Seattle was able to eke out their win. So you had Seattle, New Orleans and then also New Orleans by proxy of Tampa Bay.
All those teams ended up with nine wins.
The Green Bay Packers need to win a football game to keep themselves in it, and because of that, it was nice to see Pittsburgh also get.
The number seven seed over in the AFC side of things.
Yeah, Seattle, as we had talked about Seattle pulling out those last minute victories with touchdowns against Philadelphia and Tennessee, all of a sudden, they were, you know, they were the team that was that was keeping themselves in control of their playoff fate until Pittsburgh made the long flight out to Seattle, and with Mason Rudolph at quarterback, that pittsb offense is found has found something different. And as you said, the Steelers, they're the seventh seed in the AFC.
They will travel to Buffalo game. Buffalo is the two seed, having beaten Miami in the Sunday night football game to end the regular season. So Buffalo ends up winning the AFC East. Quite the game there though, too, because actually, if Miami had won that game, it would have been, based on the seeds a rematch the following week, Buffalo would have been right back at Miami to play them again in the wildcard round. Instead, Buffalo jumps up to
the two. They're gonna host Pittsburgh. Miami is the six. They will go to three seed Kansas City, and then Cleveland as the five seed, will travel to four seed Houston. Houston ends up winning the AFC South with a big victory over the Indianapolis Colts on Saturday night, and then they watched the Tennessee Titans knock off the Jacksonville Jaguars to knock Jacksonville out of the division race and out of the playoffs. Houston's a division champ with the rookie
quarterback CJ. Stroud, the first year coaching Dimiico Ryans, and they're hosting a playoff game in the AFC.
Yes, it's a great it's fun how the playoffs actually lined up when you look in in terms of it. And I felt like green Bay was a part of this. I know I've talked ad nauseam about how I felt like the playoffs would be better if green Bay snuck in. I just feel like over Seattle, over New Orleans, there's just more to like about that team. There's more upside, there's more value. There's a reason why it's sitting in
the three twenty five slot on Sunday right. And while you may not have household names as much yet with Houston and some of these other squads, c J Stroud being the rookie, being kind of the savior there of that franchise and playing the way that he played this season and the way he played in that game.
That's that final drive, that final drive for that touchdown to take the lead against Indianapolis. A couple of the throws he made on that drive were just phenomenal, I mean absolutely unbelievable for a rookie to be making those kind of plays with the season on the line, the pressure that went with it. Really impressed by c J. Stroud, and I got to believe he's the offensive Rookie of
the Year in the NFL. I think he probably had it wrapped up before that game, but he left absolutely no doubt that he should get that award.
But then you look at obviously there is the Deshaun Watson factor between the matchup with Houston and Cleveland. I'm sure stuff will be made of that this week. But how cool is it that it's Joe Flacco who was signed off the coach what less than a month ago, just a little over a month ago, and then he didn't even play in Cleveland's finale because he was so important to them in a game that didn't have.
Any additional meaning.
And then now he's going to lead the Browns, the Cleveland Browns, the franchise that has not really had any success since they were reintroduced into the NFL in nineteen ninety nine. He's going to be the team to try to mount a rally here with him, to try to
propel them to something special. And then, if I may just quickly closing on the Dallas Cowboys, because this is going to be a supreme test, I do think there is a lot to like about this football team, But I have continued to say, Michael Dallas is eight to no at home at at AT and T Stadium. I believe that they were. They also undefeated last year at home as well. It might have gotten all the way up there maybe right about that.
I don't recall specifically.
Whatever the case may be.
I even called them in one of the appearances I did this week the greatest show on turf in twenty twenty three. I am so excited to see this incarnation of the Packers take on the Cowboys. And I understand we will talk on this and we'll preview it on Thursday. But when people were talking through various scenarios of well, could they go to Detroit? Could they go to Dallas?
Detroit would have been fun. The Packers have.
Already beaten the Lions at Ford Field this season, but independent of the Mike McCarthy discussion, to see the Green Bay Packers now test itself against a team like the Cowboys, I personally was kind.
Of excited to see.
That's how the ball bounced when it was all said and done.
Yeah, I am too. I just I think this, I think this matchup is really something you're talking about. I don't know exactly where what the statistic are where they are ranked in terms of the entire season. But you're talking right now about about two offenses in the Cowboys and the Packers that are playing as good an offensive football maybe as anybody out there. Because I mean, you know, don't be fooled by the Cowboys only scoring the twenty points or whatever it was against the Lions when they
beat them. I mean, see ceedee lamb. I think it was fumbled one through the end zone when they were going to get a touchdown there, and the whole fiasco with the tripping penalty probably cost them, you know, four points there. So this is this Dallas team has one heck of an offense, and this Packers team is playing as good at offensive football as any team in the league right now in my opinion.
And as I always tell anybody, if you are a football fan, if you are a Packers fan, there is no better time to be alive than in January when you're one of the last fourteen teams left in this thing.
It's exciting.
It's exciting that the Packers and Jordan Love's first year as a starting quarterback have been able to make this jump and seeing how long this ride goes, if you can take it all the way to Vegas, who knows.
But it is a fun thing to be a part of.
And when I opened the show and talked about my kind of nerves and everything, it was mostly built out of the idea of story.
I felt like this team was good enough that this should be the story.
It should be getting back to the Playoffs with this particular team, Not when the receivers are two years older or you have some other guys that are going to be maturing from this young core.
No, right now. Seeing what this team, with all the.
Strides it's made since week one, where it can take this thing now in January, that to me, Michael as a writer, as a as a reporter, that's incredibly interesting to track and I'm excited to see how this plays out.
Yeah, one hundred percent, it's going to be a fun week around here. But with that, we will call it a rap on this edition of Packers Unscript. You'd be sure to follow all of our coverage of the team, all the preview stuff leading up to Packers Cowboys on Sunday from Dallas. We will have it all for you on Packers dot com. For Wes, I'm Mike, thank you for tuning in. Everybody will see you next time. Mm hmm