Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another edition of Packers Unscripted from Packers dot Com. I am Mike Spoffer, joined once again by my trusted colleague Weston Hodquitz. We're coming to you hear from our studios at Lambeufield and Wes Packers Training camp is underway. There is one practice in the books. As soon as we get this show recorded, we're headed out for the second practice of training camp. But I'm just gonna start with how you doing, my friend.
I'm doing all right. It's funny to me that we blink and we're always back.
Yeah.
It just it doesn't seem like it was already over a month ago that you and I kind of signed off for the summer to go about our vacations.
At the end of Mini caamp.
Yeah, and we just find our way back here. But the thing that also was hilarious about that how things can change macro level, micro level, the small dominoes that fall in a fifty three to ninety man roster, and certainly probably one of the more newsier days I think that I've ever experienced in terms of the first day of training camp for the Green Bay Packers.
Yeah, well, two things I want to try to accomplish with this show before we shuffle off for practice number two. One is to review what happened in practice one, but also then to look at things a little bit bigger picture, kind of the overview, a training camp preview, if you will. But in terms of day one, the biggest news, without question, is that the Packers have not finalized a new contract
for quarterback Jordan Love. Yet everybody seems optimistic that the finish line is in sight, that it's there, it could happen perhaps any day now. But until that happens, until it is signed, sealed, and delivered, Jordan Love will not be practicing. He has reported for training camp he is going through the meetings and all the other camp activities except for practicing. He's basically eliminating his injury risk until
the new contract is finished. So that meant on day one, Seawan Clifford and Michael Pratt were running the offense and Sean Clifford was the guy with the first team unit.
Yeah, it was fun watching Sean work out there. I mean, this is a guy that I thought put together a really strong preseason last year. Now again everybody was sort of deferring to Love. Throughout that process because they wanted him to get as many first team reps, They wanted him to get as much preseason work as he could going into his first year as a starter. But Clifford ended up taking and really running with that number two job to the point it wasn't even very much a competition.
This year, he's gonna get pushed more with Michael Pratt coming in. Both of these guys, you look at their backgrounds very similar in terms of playing a lot of college football at different levels. Obviously Penn State for Clifford and Tulane for Pratt. But I thought, you know, for how things ended for Clifford, I'm sure that wasn't a great taste to have the three interceptions by Zane Anderson at the end of the mini camp. You have to go into the summer kind of, you know, marinating on
that a little bit. But he came back, he took charge. He's a natural born leader. I love the way he started the red zone period. As Matt Lafleur said, with the tighter constraints with the practice schedule this ramp up period, they have to be very careful with what they do to get everything in, so they focused a lot on the red zone. He opens it up a nice pass right to don Tavian Wicks near the pylon. Keyshawn Nixon didn't even have a shot at it, just based on where the ball was placed.
And it wasn't bad coverage news. It was good coverage, just a good play.
But when you run a goal line fade and you put it literally, you know, inches from the ground where Wicks was able to nab it, that those are the type of plays that happened. But I thought the way he led things they kept pretty much. There was you know, some little things here and there that the offense had to work through, but by and large, when you don't have QB one out there, I think it was commendable what Clifford did to keep the train on the tracks. Yeah.
Well, Clifford admitted to reporters that during the spring and as that mini camp rolled around, he was kind of testing himself in a way to figure out what he can do and what he can't do. He was he was pushing the limits a little bit in terms of maybe the aggressiveness and whatnot, and that's why we saw some of the interceptions. What I like about Clifford is that you know, it's it's not like it rattles him. It's not like it completely changes his approach. He knows,
he knows what he was trying to do. He's he's learning from that and and the opportunity to run the number one offense is important for him. And as he said, you know, this is a you never know business. Nobody is gonna want, you know, or expect Jordan Love to get hurt during the regular season, but obviously it could happen and Sean Clifford might need to step in and try to win a game or two for the Packers.
As for Love's contract, as I said at the top of the show, it doesn't seem to be something that people are overly concerned about.
The goal.
The hope was that it would be done before training camp. These things are complicated, These things take time. All of the salary cap ramifications, you know about how things are structured, financial, you know, the timeline, all of that kind of stuff. So what I got from Brian Gudakunz does that while of course they wanted to have the contract done, they
want to have Jordan Love out there. They understand where he's coming from, and quite frankly, if you're Jordan Love you were here all spring, you were here for Mini camp, all during this, during OTAs and everything when he didn't have to be here, he was exercising patients at that point. With regard to the contract, now training camp is here, his only leverage to spur them to get to the finish line is to just say, hey, I'm not going to practice until this thing is done. It's part of
the business. It's not ideal, it's not what anybody wants. But I think both sides understand what's going on here, and hopefully, whether it's twenty four or forty eight or seventy two hours from now, this whole contract thing will be done on over with.
Yeah, maybe even by the time the show goes out. You never know.
Yeah, that is certainly true, because that's the thing with the way the packers do business, and obviously with now what we're learning the way loves Camp does buses and this is not being negotiated in the media. No, there is nothing out there, you know as far as how this is working or how close they actually are. There no specifics. So yes, it could happen as soon as we turn off the cameras here or it could happen a day or two.
I was telling a friend of mine the other day too, because I've been making a lot of inferences in inbox about how, you know, don't confuse silence with stillness. There's things happening you're just not hearing about it. Absolutely. Another line I used on my friend is there's no Dominoes tracker on contracts. It isn't just like okay, it's ready now. No, it doesn't work like that in this business.
Nobody's got the egg time or running.
No. But seriously, like think about it. Like Kenny Clark, that's the perfect example that he gets the extension. Yeah, on Sunday, I'm in the middle of driving actually to Title Town to grab dinner with some friends, and it's like, oh, Kenny Clark is now extended for you know, three more years. And that was a conversation that Kenny said. They'd actually been negotiating going all the way back to February at
the Combine. They were a little few things there, obviously, Brian Gudecuin said they want to get something done, but until it was finally done, that's when we heard about it. Same thing with love and while you and I don't always talk dollars and cents on the show. Jordan Love is making eleven million dollars this year. That's what this two year contract he did, you know, is worth. He had thirty two touchdowns at forty one hundred yards last season passing. I would say he's worth a little bit
more than that. I think everybody appreciates that. And really, when you look at the way quarterback values have gone, and Gudacun's touched on this a little bit. They're aware of the Jared Goff deal, They're aware of the Trevor Lawrence deal. They know in the pantheon of quarterbacks where their guy, who they see is a franchise quarterback probably fits.
It's all part of the picture.
And you want to take care of it. They've allocated the funds for it, thirty million or whatever it is and salary cap room despite the fact there's fifty million in dead cap. But they were moving forward. The Packers aren't a very healthy place financially. It's just making sure that you can find that contracts that makes sense for both Love and the Packers. And my hope is Mike by that time, maybe by the time we get through this week, maybe by the family night, whatever it may be.
Love gets the deal done. He's back on the practice field and the Packers get looking at twenty twenty four.
Yeah, I think we're going to be there sooner than later. As far as other day one news on the practice field. On the health front, Zach Tom cleared or at least partially cleared from the torn pectoral muscle that kept him all out during the spring. He's back on the practice field on a limited basis. He's not taking eleven on eleven snaps yet, but he was out there for the drills, so that was really good to see. The other torn pectoral, of course, was tight End Tucker Craft from the spring.
He is not quite back yet, but it sounds like it might not be too longer, too much longer for him, at least according to Brian Gudakunz, a couple new injuries to some prominent names that popped up that we weren't necessarily aware of. Jaden Reid is currently not practicing because of a toe injury. He called it kind of a freak out accident while he was coaching at like a youth football camp, not something that he's concerned about. Doesn't sound like that.
Really was it?
Huh, what's that?
That was it? That's how that happened. Yeah, that's what Brian Brian Goodcuinz made a joke about, like, yeah, it might have been he's running round.
Jayden said something about that. He that he didn't really have like the right footwork or i'm sorry, footwear on, and so that might have contributed to this little problem with his toe. So it doesn't sound like anything folks are overly concerned about there. And then rookie, a third round draft pick, running back Marshawn Lloyd Is was not on the practice field for Day one, listed as having
a hip injury. So we'll see what happens there. So so that was a bit of news on the health front for the Packers.
Yeah, and I think Lloyd actually talked with reporters in the locker room afterwards too and mentioned, you know, just something you go through those initial practices or whatever you want to call them, like when the rookies first report back that walkthroughs.
Yeah, those early workouts.
Feeling a little bit of tightness there again, and hopefully everything can clear up with that. It is what happens, Mike, there's gonna be guys. There's gonna be injuries that happened during the offseason training. Certainly a couple of things that flared up with the offseason program. It's why you have a ninety man roster, It's why you build for these sort of things. But I thought what kind of stood out to me was the opportunities it's afforded other guys
on this roster. When you look at you know, outside looking in, the packers are stacked at receiver. You know, how are they gonna allocate all these reps? Well, if there's a day where Jayden Reed is an out there, that means a little bit more bow meltin, that means a little bit more you know, don Davian Wicks being able to incorporate some of those guys into things. Aj Dillon, whom I think I'm gonna write a story on later
this week. He was the guy taking a bulk of that work behind Josh Jacobs, and then a guy like Ellis Merriweather, who was on the practice squad last year, got a lot of work without Marshaon Lloyd being out there.
So Emmanuel Wilson got his Emmanuel snaps on the first practice as well.
Yeah, So it's that's always the thing and one of the biggest aspects of this whole thing when you look at Ben Simms, the amount of work that he got this spring and now into the summer as number two tight end and a lot of those first team offensive you know, multiple tight end packages. You have to make sure you take advantage of those opportunities mean to get them.
But the best news of all to bring this thing full circle Zach tom being back, being limited, but on that road back to the football field, the fact that he could have an entire training camp here to rebuild the strength and rebuild the confidence. Because I'll tell you what, Mike, what that young man has done in the first two seasons of his NFL career and how dynamic he's been at multiple positions. I think the arrow keeps pointing up
for him and the Packers. He proved last year and a lot of people wrong that he couldn't play right tackle. He showed he could he could do an extremely high level.
Yeah, I would think that he's he's going to be back at his right tackle post sooner than later. And however much the Packers want to talk about, you know, finding the best five on the offensive line. Zach Tom is one of the best five that the Packers have and as long as he is healthy, he's going to
be a big part of things on this offense. With with regard to Tom not taking the eleven on eleven snaps and Andre Dillard, the former first round pick who was brought in as a free agent, he is currently working or at least in the first practice, he was the guy at right tackle with the first team offense. A couple other things with regard to the depth chart, we saw Jordan Morgan, the rookie first round pick out of Arizona. He was rotating at right guard with Sean
Ryan with the number one offense. So it would appear, at least based on day one, that Jordan Morgan's best opportunity to win a starting job as a rookie first round pick it will be in that competition with Sean Ryan at right guard, So that will definitely be one
to keep an eye on. And the other thing that jumps off the jumps off the practice field when you first see it is the guy who has lined up next to Xavier McKinney at safety with the number one defense in the first practice was the rookie second round pick, Javon Bullard from Georgia.
Yeah, and that remember talking to you in the offseason program, thinking, man, will they go that Darnell Sayage route of just having Buller be the guy out there with them all spring? They didn't go that direction. He got some reps with Xavier McKinney, but it was Anthony Johnson Junior that really took a bulk of those first team defensive snaps. You had five six weeks to develop these plans. I think that speaks volumes that they gave Buller that first opportunity
on day one of training camp. When you look at what his makeup is, what his athletic ceiling is, I think he's a perfect compliment to McKinney. And while McKinney is only twenty four years old, he's the type of guy that I think you want to have someone like him handling a young rookie in this league, with his experience of being a day one starter, a guy that had to be wise beyond his years when he went
to New York. Sure, and I think also with that second round background, I mean, he knows what it means to be a high safety pick that teams are going to want to build the secondary around, but they're so dang versatile there. I mean, Evan Williams getting a lot of work. Katana Laedeppo is still on the NFI list because of that toe injury he sustained at the combine,
but they oversee the lawn. That's been my big thing all off season when I talk about that position and to have that many options, I think it not only enhances the competition, but it gives you a lot to think about in terms of where you want certain guys lined up, Because even if it ends up being Bullard at safety, there's still a lot of flexibility that they can do in terms of how they handle the slot in both the nickel and the dime.
Yeah, and I think Bullard's experience in the in the slot at Georgia obviously it's what led to him perhaps being drafted as high as he was, but I think it's going to serve him well as he makes the transition to the NFL as a rookie. I want to get to some other topics that you and I will
be watching for and whatnot is training camp unfolds. But first 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 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 plus
years of better. All right, we're just gonna go back and forth here a little bit. Wes. I'm gonna let you take the first one, then I'm gonna come back with another one, and we'll go back and forth until we run out of topics. But under the umbrella of what are you watching for, whether that be position battles, whether that be certain details, whether that be specific players, what's at the top of your list other than some of the things we've already talked about.
It's an excellent question. I mean, one of the things that I think yesterday in particular, that I was looking at was the defensive line, and Brian talked about it at the podium, and he feels like it's not just about Okay, well, these are our defensive tackles, these are defensive ends. It's about how that group expanded now under Jason Rebervich can really round itself out to whether any injuries that could happen, any type of issues that flare up.
They have the type of depth there that it's as he said, it's the it's the deepest they've been in a long time. But it's as versatile as they've ever been.
And to be able to have guys like Colby Wooden, you know, Lucas vanass Rashawn Gary, players that can play multiple positions in that front, I think is going to be so key and and honestly, like once, we're a week away from the pads going on, so we still got to get through some of this ramp up period, this acclamation period to really see what these guys look like.
But my goodness, Mike, just watching how the defensive line, the defensive front was getting off the ball in the offseason program, in some of the team periods, I mean, it just you can tell the swagger that has been infused into that group because they're.
And they're being trained in a different way they are, frankly in terms of as you say, the you know, getting off the ball, because this is this is an an up the field, attacking front as opposed to a read and react, So they're being trained to play a different way.
And I did like what Brian said. I mean, he's probably the first person that's acknowledged like, Okay, there are some drawbacks.
Yeah, exactly. It's it's like if there weren't, everybody would play it this way, right, So, I mean you have to learn how to play. You have to learn how to play that aggressive style without making yourself too vulnerable in other places. That's where the transition really comes in.
But it is it's about turning up the heat on the quarterback. It's about reducing the amount of time that he's back there to make decisions. And ultimately that could the hope is is that type of pressure is what also helps you generate more takeaways. And that was the number one thing that had to change from last year. You can boil it down, you can blame this, that and the other thing, but the Packers did not have enough interceptions last year. They did not take the football
away enough last year. And the way that that defense was playing, the way it was set up, the philosophy behind it, it just wasn't conducive to having success This Jeff Hafley defense, especially with his background as a secondary coach. I think that's gonna be the real true litmus test of this thing. I've said it once, I'll say it a thousand times. I don't care about top one, top five, top ten, wherever you finish ranking. It's about how you feel when your defense is on the field. Yeah, and
you could be I've said this year before. Twenty fourteen ring fifteenth in total defense by the end of the year, but the second half of that season was a much different picture than they painted in the first half.
Yeah, when you talk about turnovers, all you have to do is look at the two playoff games last January. Right, the Packers get the interception from Alexander, the pick six from Savage, Yes, and they you know, they go on to a blowout in Dallas. What do they do in San Francisco? They drop multiple interception opportunities and the game gets away in the final minutes and your season is over.
So there is no overstating the value of generating those turnovers and what this new defensive staff is after.
So what I'm looking for in these practices, what I look for yesterday, especially once those pads go on watching these balls go to work, watching them go up against this offensive line, because that approach too, I think is only going to make the Packers O line better.
And I think that's going to I think that's going to get much much more interesting when the pads go on in a few days. Certainly, two of the things that all throw out right now that I'm definitely watching for and this is these are This is going to be ongoing throughout all of training camp. It's that battle between Eric Stokes and Carrington Valentine for who is going to be the starting corner in the base defense opposite Jay r Alexander. Were already seeing them rotating. They were
rotating during the spring. This is a This is a competition that is far from over. Somebody's going to win that job, somebody is, somebody's not. But the Packers feel good obviously about their depth at cornerback. And then the other ongoing competition, of course, is going to be at kicker. There are three still in the competition, with James Turner being claimed off waivers at the end of mini camp. So Anders, Carlson, Greg Joseph James Turner. All in the mix.
We saw Turner, he went four out of six on field goals as the you know, day one kicker in training camp. I'm sure we're going to see the other guys, if not as soon as today, certainly in the coming days. So those are those are two competitions that quite frankly, could go all the way up until you know the passports and checked for Brazil. Quite frankly, you know that those competitions might not be decided for quite a while.
And the fact, looking specifically at those cornerbacks, they're gonna need both of those guys. And Brian Goodkin said, as much as it relates to Eric Stokes and making sure he can put those hamstring issues behind him, we've seen it, Mike, we know. And I think when you look at in terms of the proven depth, cornerback is not one of the Packers deeper ones right now. I mean they have Corey Valentine, although he's currently out right now with the
hamstring injury. He's sort of the backup right now to Keishawn Nixon in the slot. But you know they need Gyr Alexander, they need Carrington Valentine, they need Eric Stokes. There was a reason why they waited until the seventh round of draft Kayln King. They felt good about what they had, but also sometimes is how this board falls.
So whether it is Valentine or Stokes that prevails, or however they go about handling it, I think those two guys, throughout the course of a seventeen game season are going to be pivotal to what Green Bay wants to accomplish.
Yeah, anything else near the top of your list.
I think when the position battles all shuffle out, I think what really surprised me the most, I think, and I feel like I've said this in the past, but it really truly feels more than any other year. The difference between being on the roster and potentially starting at a lot of these positions is so thin. Uh And and I think about it. Obviously, receivers the one that will jump off to the page to a lot of people,
but Packers have multiple offensive linemen. I mean guys like Royce Newman, Guys that that have that have been in this thing for a long time, that are competing for spots. Uh And, and that's gonna be something I think that really drives them going forward. Uh. Inside linebacker, I mean Eric Wilson and Isaiah McDuffie. They're holding their own trying to stay in that base defense, Edger and Cooper trying to weave his way into that as well.
That that was That was The next thing on my list was was if and when are we going to see Edger and Cooper make his way into the first team defense or are Isaiah McDuffie and Eric Wilson gonna, you know, gonna hold him off. I think it's it's I know that, I know it's the four to three. It's really more about the first two inside linebackers because I don't know how often that third one is going
to be on the field. But we'll see what happens with Cooper, Isaiah McDuffie's knowledge of Halfley scheme and having you know, the connection there obviously in their past at Boston College. That seems to be going a long way right now for Isaiah McDuffie. So it's going to be interesting to see just when, where and how Edger and Cooper kind of breaks through. Because the Packers drafted him in the second round to be a big part of it. Everybody knows that.
And athletically he's just different from everybody. But you have to weigh that out where you have a guy like Edgrian Cooper that's played as much college football as he's played. You have someone like Eric Wilson who has been in the league now for seven years, right and while it's been predominantly on special teams in Green Bay, he's a guy that's had one hundred and thirty tackles in this league. So that's where it gets really interesting to me, and
where these position battles could potentially shuffle out. And seeing that, you know, every guy the Packers resigned, there was a reason behind it. It wasn't just Richard Stachi's special teams. They wanted to give them a chance to compete on defense and right now they're doing that.
Yeah. Absolutely, Well, we got to get rolling because there's another practice waiting for us. So with that, we're going to sign off on this edition of Packers Unscripted. Be sure to follow all of our coverage of training camp. We will have new fresh stuff on the site on Packers dot Com for you every single day, and we will be continuing with two shows of Packers Unscripted per week, most of the time on Tuesdays and Thursdays, unless something gets in the way. But we're going to try to
stick to that as best we can. So for Wes, I am Mike, thank you for tuning in everybody, and we will see you next time.