Hi, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Packers Unscripted from Packers dot Com. I am Mike Spoffer, joined as always by my trusted colleague Weston Hodkowitz. We're coming to you here from our studios at lambeau Field, back from Denver, West and it bottom line, it wasn't pretty on Sunday night. Twenty seven to two was the final score of the
preseason game. And we can talk a little bit about what happened, and there certainly were some positives from the game, but the bottom line is listening to Matt Lafleur after the game and he was talking about the effort, the strain,
the grit that he's looking for from his team. I think he was already trying to send a message on Sunday night from Denver that this week, this final week of the preseason, leading up to the roster decisions, and everything is going to be about effort, strain, and grit. It's going to be about what he wants to see from his players, regardless of what the results are.
Yep, I thought that was the biggest thing. It wasn't so much about what the reaction was to that loss. It's what the response is going to be this week olding to Baltimore because now you're the team that's going to hold serve here, You're the team that's going to be hosting the joint practice against the Ravens, and ultimately that is the quote unquote final audition on Saturday for starting jobs, for roster spots, for everything in this competition.
It's a marason, but we are entering that final stretch and it's important to have that kick to get you to where you want to go. At the end, it was a disappointing result. I mean, obviously we talked about it with some of our other videos. Friday's practice. You know, the Broncos in some ways kind of handed it to Green Bay, especially after that maybe that first forty five minutes it seemed like everything on Denver's side was sort
of going its way. Now it is a challenge. I know everybody in the locker room will never use this as an excuse when you're going up against a first team in second you know, defense and offense. But that being said, for me, it was more about when the Broncos started to cycle out their starters for there was the response and the urgency to get that thing turned around. Just didn't seem to be quite there.
Yeah, I agree that that's the way I felt. It's what I was saying and the live blogg during the game, I said it again an insider inbox when through basically through the first quarter, quarter and a half of that game, it was the Broncos starters against the Packers two's the second unit players, and the Broncos controlled the action. There's
no doubt about that. They were dominating the action. The Packers got knocked back on their heels in that first quarter and quarter and a half when the starters were in there, but then when the Broncos started substituting, it just felt like the Packers never responded. They sort of felt it just felt like they were still on their heels the whole game, like the tone of the game had been set by the Broncos starters in really what was kind of an NFL mismatch when you have starters
against a complete second team unit. But the Packers were never able to change that tone. They were never able to alter what was going on, even when it became more of a quote unquote fair fight with twos against twos or threes against threes, particularly on the offensive side
of the ball. I thought after the initial ten to nothing spurt by bo Nix and Denver's starting offense, after that, I thought the Packers defense actually did okay because really the only points they gave up the rest of the game were on short fields after turnovers, turnover on downs. There was the interception, there was the fumble on the strip sack, So I thought the Packers' defense held up decently well after Denver starters left the game. There were
some mistackles, they allowed some third down conversions. I'm sure they'd like to have back, But on balance, that are right. It was you know, whether it was Sean Clifford at quarterback or Michael Pratt, no matter who was in there on the offensive line, the running game just never really got going. There was never anything consistently established there. You know, some misthrows we heard after the game, some some poorly run routes, you know. So it wasn't just on one guy.
And Matt Lafleur made sure to say that the offensive struggles were not entirely on the quarterbacks. He wasn't excusing the quarterbacks, but to say that it was all because of those guys would not be accurate. That being said, it's on It's on everybody, the guys up front, the quarterbacks, the guys on defense who missed some tackles, whatever the
case might be. It's on everybody to rebound, to bounce back this week, to learn something from what happened in Denver, and and to really kind of look in the mirror and just say, hey, that's not us, right, that's not the Green Bay Packers. I think that's the message the coaches are going to try to send this week. Yeah.
I found it funny to you know, some people at incenter inbox were asking about like, well, what is this really show? I mean, that is that big of a gap between starting lever players in the NFL and like, you know, the back win guys. I thought it was interesting because I was like, well, yeah, look at the contract difference between Mike mclinchy and Patrick Certan and what the base minimum is for in NFL first or second
year player. That tells you the discrepancy between those level of players in the NFL, right, And.
I think what people have to understand too. You know, obviously we're not trying to make excuses for the Packers here, and it really was about the effort and and the grit and all that. The Packers just didn't display that in the game. So I'm not going to say that
it was there. But when everybody's getting kind of getting all worked up and crazy about just where the Packers' depth is, if you know, starters go down and what now, you have to understand it was an entire unit of backups that was on the field, not just like one player here or there that needs to be substituted for. It was an entire unit of backups against an entire unit of starters for a quarter to a quarter and a half. That's going to be a mismatch in this league,
no matter who you're up against. I'm sorry, you know. And the Packers decided they that they were more interested in protecting their starters from the risk of injury and using this game regardless of how the Broncos wanted to play it, using this game as an evaluation tool to decide who's going to make this team, Who do they feel can help them, can contribute somewhere down the road, who individually will be ready to step in for somebody else if the need arises down the road, which it will, so.
Very different situations too, where the Denver Broncos are at home. I think I think there's a big difference between if you're hosting those joint practices.
I totally agree. We were talking about that when we were out in Denver. We've seen it. You and I have been on the road for joint practices. We've been at home for joint practices. It is a very different feel when you are the road team at somebody else's practice facility.
Yeah. So, and that was the way it worked out, and yeah, we'll see how it goes.
Yeah. Well, with that, I do think there were there were a few guys that are worth talking about who who did show up and showed something I think to the coaching staff in this game. And where I start with that is at the linebacker position, the off ball linebacker spot, and two guys in particular, the rookie third round pick for Missouri, Tyron Hopper, and the Veterans special team or Christian Welch. I thought both of those guys
really showed up in this game and showed that. I don't expect either guy to be a starter for the Green Bay Packers. That is not the way things appear to be. Unfolding. But I think both of those guys showed that if they get called upon, they're going to step in and play well.
First off, looking at Christian Welch, I mean, this is a guy that has been in the National Football League for four years now. He has cut his teeth mostly on special teams, but he knows better than anybody with the route that he took and kind of coming the long way. You need to be able to maximize your minutes in the preseason. You have to have big plays
on defense to kind of, you know, show yourself. I mean, there's a reason why he went so hard to that loose fumble against Cleven There's a reason why he jumped as high as anybody on the field to get after that interception in the second half, both plays getting off to a better start, I thought really helped propel the Packers' defense to our better performance in the second half with
the way that they performed. But then on the other side of it, you have Tyron Hopper, who unfortunately had the ankle injured crop up on him, has not been out there, and even when he was, you had Edrin Cooper, so he was kind of like the Tucker Craft to the Luke Musgrave a little bit where he's not getting all those number one reps and all that type of stuff. Well, this game, Mike, he was able to be the mic for it for most of the second half and being able to get those reps and not come up with
eleven tackles. Was it flawless? No? Are the things to learn from, yes, but you have to be able to learn those things. And the Green Bay Packers is they if you remember this, when they first drafted Hopper, they said, this is a guy we really like his upside, like his explosiveness. We think he's going to be a good football player. But they also talked about how he could
be a contributor to on special teams. Yeah. Well, now he's lined up both offensively or excuse me, defensively and on special teams against a guy that has quite literally carved out a career for himself in that phase as well. So talking to Hopper a little bit about that afterwards and just the working with Welch and what that's done for him. You know, Hopper obviously is a third round pick. Ninety nine point nine percent is on this fifty three
man roster. Welch just doesn't have that type of security right now. Yeah, but he's proving once again why he's been able to stay in the league as long as he has and just exactly the type of value he provides to the Packers as one of those depth linebackers.
Yeah, when Hopper was drafted in the third round that second night of the draft, the phrase that stuck out to me when we heard from buying Guda Kunst and talking about him is in reviewing his film and why they liked him, they referred to his stopping power. And so a guy like that comes into your program. But all through you know, OTA's mini camp, there's no pads. You know, it's you know, there isn't. There isn't the level of physical contact. We were going to have to
wait until we saw him. And even in training camp there isn't. You don't really get to see that because it's all it's all thud and tagging off and and whatnot. We were gonna have to wait to a preseason game to see the actual stopping power of Tyron Hopper in action.
And he missed the first preseason game in Cleveland. Well, in this game against Denver, he was out there and you saw what Brian Gouda Kunz was talking about when he said stopping power, because when Tyron Hopper hit the running back in the hole, the momentum of the ballcarrier was stopped and and there you can't you can't coach that kind of thing in a football player. It's just it's his style of play. It's it's the body type,
it's how he uses his body and his leverage. And I thought it was I thought it was pretty impressive, like you, like you just said, was it a perfect performance? By no means there are going to be things that he's going to look at on the film and go, Okay, yeah, I can do this, but I can do that better. The coaches are going to work with him on that.
But Tyron Hopper in his first preseason game as a Green Bay Packer, he came as advertised that he that's what we were told the type of player that he was, and I thought he showed up in that fashion.
Absolutely, And now has that opportunity going into Baltimore, probably will play quite a bit, you'd imagine as well.
I would imagine so.
And the other thing too, You've had a chance to talk to him before as well. It's so weird to me when people would look at these numbers with these guys like him and Cooper both coming out of college, and it's like, oh, they're right around the two thirty mark. Boy, Michael, I don't know what it was like covered in NFL locker room in nineteen ninety five, you know, or when you had the Winston Moss type, you know, linebackers out there.
But I do not think Tyron Hopper is small, like just just his length, his size, the way he carries his weight. I mean, these are real supreme premier athletes that we're dealing with. And if you can stand up to a hunter or excuse me, a two hundred and twenty pound running back in the hole with that frame, boy, I think you really got a chance because it all so is going to be what helps you on the coverage aspect of it as well. Yeah.
Absolutely, Well, we saw the Packers continue to try to figure some things out on the offensive line, working different guys at tackle. We saw again Sean Ryan, Jacob Munk, guys like that working at the at the interior spots. It wasn't a good performance by the Packers offensive line. And and I'm no expert by any means I haven't gone over all the film, you know, frame by frame
or play by play or anything like that. But I'm sure with what happened out there, especially against Denver's starting defense, that the Packers have have some film to evaluate to sort things out here in terms of and there's still
a week to go there. You know, nothing has been one hundred percent set in stone yet, but I have to believe that they they got some pretty good evaluation as to the players that that on the offensive line in terms of those backups and how they want to how they want to arrange that room for the start of the regular season, the direction that they're going to go.
They mix it up. In this game, we saw Travis Glover, the rookie sixth round pick out of Georgia State. He ended up going in with the number twos at right tackle. He traditionally has been working as a number three right tackle. That allowed Kadeem Telford then to go over to the left side after Andrey Diller had started at left tackle. Later on in the game, Caleb Jones comes in, so they were working and matching the guys a little bit. Glover ended up with forty eight the offensive snaps eighty
one percent of the total. The fifty nine total Jacob Munk but was working between two different spots forty two snaps seventy one percent of the total. Telford had thirty nine snaps in this game. That's what you want to do. I mean, the Packers still have a lot of figuring out to do, and the fact that Sean Ryan started
at center as they've kind of tried to do. Even though he is right now I think in that right guard role because of the injury to Jordan Morgan, they still are looking at him as potentially the movable chess piece there as well in this offensive line. Everybody had something to learn from this. Everybody had something they could take away from it. They did get the running game going a little bit better in the second half. You saw the one explosive play they had with Emmanuel Wilson.
Again another reminder that if you just give Wilson a little bit of wiggle room there, the guy is going to be able to create with it. I know, I saw Manuel's tweet. I know he wasn't happy with his performance. I know the pressure that was there with him going back to Denver. But again, this is a guy that continues. I feel like to be the Belkow for this team in this preseason and did the best with what he could. As far as this old line goes, I think it
is going. It's going to go right down to the wire and trying to figure out exactly who that swing tackle is going to be. Who's going to be your eight to nine on the offensive line. You know, Jacob Munk obviously the fifth round pick, has an inside track on that. You know. You know, Jordan Morgan, hopefully they get him back in here. He could see a preseason
action this week. We'll wait and see if that is something that comes to fruition, right, But there's so many guys Michael probably outside of Elton, Josh Myers and Zach tom that could really use the work still, So it'll be interesting to see how they allocate those reps because that has been a rotation that has continued through out the spring, in the summer and it continues to fluctuate.
Yeah, this was a reminder in some ways too for me just how just how thin the margins can be in some respects, and people are gonna say thin the margins twenty seven to two, Like, what are you talking about? Well, take a look at the Packers opening series. You have a backup offensive unit against a starting defense the first third down of the game, and Adam Stenovitch says, let's take a shot right single coverage on the outside with
Malik Heath. And that was a heck of a ball by Sean Clifford, and Heath made a heck of an effort to try to haul it in, just couldn't quite get it on the dive inside the ten yard line, or at least in the red zone down there, Malie Heath comes up with that catch, We're having a completely different conversation about where the Packers are, right. I mean, that play was darn close to being a big one
of backup guys against a starting defensive unit. So I just wanted to point that out because I thought in this receiver competition, because we had talked about bow Melton, Grand Dubo's and whatnot, I thought Malie Heath showed up in this game. He made I believe it was three receptions. He had other targets his way. That big one early in the ballgame would have been huge to come down with, but it was that close. And when I talk about
the Packers getting knocked on their heels. Well, the Packers were that close to throwing the first punch in this game with their backup players. So something to keep in mind here going forward.
Yeah, and if I may, I mean, that's a great point you raise because I wrote this an insight or inbox. It goes back to twenty twelve for me with Graham Harrell and the second and third team offense back then, which was kind of struggling at points during that training camp Kansas City. At that point they decided, Hey, I think it was when Todd Haley was still the head coach that last preseason game against Green Bay, We're going
to run our starters for the first half. So Graham Harrell in the backup offensive line they had to go up against that. Harrow was almost perfect in the first half, and that's what solidified himself. Right, It's the opportunity, it's what presented to you. Everybody understands that's how goes. And I talked to Tyler Davis about this after the game, and, you know, kind of lamenting how everything went. He said, Listen, all of our second team guys, most of these guys
have played in NFL games. Most of these guys have seen this type of competition before. We have to be able to reach that challenge. And now, however it shuffles out this week. Matt Lefuer said afterwards, he isn't exactly sure at the time in which we're taping this how he's going to allocate this last preseason game. Who's going to be a bit available, who won't be, But whoever's out there, this is it. This is your last shot.
Yeah, Well, a little bit of sponsor business here. West 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 had 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 in a bowl. Cousin subs fifty plus years of better. All right, before we go,
I'll just throw this out. You throw this out at you A little bit open ended, whether it involves the Ravens and the joint practice in the game or not. The Packers had there are two open practices left for the fans for training camp Tuesday afternoon and then also on Thursday, the joint practice against Baltimore. What's going to
be the news this week, what are the storylines? What what are the things to watch here during this final week of training camp and into the preseason finale on Saturday afternoon.
I'm very curious to see if the they shift the gears there with Zach Tom and Tucker Craft. Tucker told us right at the beginning of training camp he was not expecting to participate in this joint practice. He didn't in the team periods he was in Denver. You're saying in Denver, yes, yeah, yes, not this week. Uh, he didn't want He wasn't expected playing the preseason games. This was kind of maybe the time where you start to turn the engine up a little.
Bit, kind of targeting, targeting the tail end here back training camp.
Speaking, you know, in trying to to see if you can get where you need to get to Zach Tom in the same fashion, Jordan Morgan to bring it all around to you. I'm curious to see if we can finally start to see this first team offense maybe come together jell a little bit more in terms of what the pieces are going to be. We know what the backfield's going to look like, we know what the top four at receiver is going to look like, and to some extent, we know how the tight ends are going
to be. But what is that offensive line going to see? How is that those Dominos finally going to just settle? What's that going to be? And offensively, can we start to feel where this unit is going to go? They were so hot at the end of last season, and this is a new team, a new year, a new challenge, and there has been eight months of film that teams have been studying on Jordan Love now trying to have
their counter to what he's doing. We're not going to get all those answers this week, but in terms of the Green Bay Packers trying to have everything settle in for what this team's going to look like in Brazil, I think this next week is going to be really pivotal to that.
Yeah, I think I think a lot of eyes all week long, both in the regular practices, the joint practice, the preseason game. A lot of eyes are going to be on the backup quarterbacks here, Sean Clifford and Michael Pratt, and we've seen the talent of both of these young men on the practice field. We saw it in you know, the game in Cleveland. We saw it in preseason games last year with Clifford when he was a rookie. So
the Packers know what they have. I think this this week becomes, you know, maybe maybe in terms of the spotlight, you know, with with those guys. This week becomes about how do they respond to what happened in Denver. Neither guy is happy with how things went. I'm sure they have a lot of regrets about how they played, and it's not fun watching film of that when when you see opportunities out there as a quarterback to make plays
and they weren't made. Whether they were whether they were your fault, whether there's somebody else's a combination thereof doesn't matter. When you're the quarterback, you feel that those plays have
to be made. And so I think I in terms of that whole rebound bounce back idea, I think Sean Clifford and Michael Pratt are they are are guys to watch really really closely this week because the Packers need to decide who is going to be Jordan Love's backup and are they going to keep three cores on the fifty three man roster or are they just going to go with two. There are a lot of decisions to be made here in the next seven to eight days.
Being in the locker room listening to Sean talk on Sunday night, he could not get in the film room fast enough. Yeah, he even told the reporters He's like, I want to be critiqued. I want to be held to the highest standard. That was not good. He's never been skunked before. Offensively, He's never been in a game where he just his offense has not produced any points at any level. So that's something that's sticking in his crawl a little bit. And I'm very interested to see.
Every single time Sean Clifford has been knocked down, sometimes in the same exact game, sometimes in back to back series, he has bounced back. What is the response from him this week. I'm sure he's going to come and highly motivated. And a guy like Michael Pratt, who has put together really nice practices, has shown in NFL caliber arm YEP
like Clifford, has played a lot of football. What his final statement is going to be this week is going to be critical because that ties into this receiving battle. It ties into what happens on the offensive line. There's so many domino effects that go with the quarterback, so many guys. You think about Malik Heath last year, well, Malik Heath's case for a roster spot was somewhat booyed by what Sean Clifford was doing in those games. So
that's going to be really critical. And defensively, this joint practice will be very interesting once we get to it, because it's going to be a Lamar Jackson. It's going to be a very untraditional, unconventional offense compared to what Green Bay usually sees in the NFC North And how Jeff Haffley's system is going to be tested by that. How the defensive fronts responsibilities and roles, how that's going to be tested in this I think we're going to learn a lot and it'll be fun to actually have
this thing back in green Bay. By the time we got done in Denver, Michael, I felt like I'd been there for a month, So like, I'm excited to be in green Bay.
We spent Yeah, we spent a long time in Denver to do that. In August the other the other one, and yes, there are backup positions roster spots to get sorted out. But the other high profile competition of course going on to which there has not been an answer delivered yet, is that kicker and unform. Because the offense was struggling throughout the Denver game, there's only one opportunity to put points on the board offensively, Greg Joseph missed a forty seven yard field goal, but that's all we
got to see. And even in the joint practice on Friday, there were just a few reps you know, from each of the kickers or it wasn't the level of the kicking competition that we've seen throughout practices. So that's another thing I think gets you know, gets a pretty big spotlight here in this final week is what are the Packers going to do at kicker?
Packers had one field goal opportunity in there and they called number two's number to go out there to do it. This has been a back and forth battle. There's been times where I felt like Joseph had the lead and there's been times where Carlson's pulled himself back out front. Obviously, Alex Hale is still on the roster as well. The
kicker they signed a couple weeks ago. So the Packers are in a position right now where they've seen how critical it is to have that position locked down and to feel confident in who your guy is going to be. Much like a lot of these battles, it's been going on since April. I mean, it just has been a continuous daily grind. Who's going to be the one that responds to that? These practices probably are going to be very,
very interesting to watch. You got one more week here to make your statement, and also who gets the opportunities in that game against Baltimore. This is the position battle that I think everybody has had at the top of their list, honestly because of how things ended last season, because of the question having you know, Mason Crosby for sixteen years, and just even during Mason's downspots, there never was a thing where it was like, Okay, well he's
competing against the Greg Joseph. It never came to that. They'd never had a fifth or six year guy in here going up against him. It's always was Mason against you know, an undrafted guy or somebody that could be a potential long term person, developmental prospect. Yeah, now it is a real legitimate competition between guys that have kicked in the National Football League. And again we're entering that final turn and the horses are still pretty close.
Yeah exactly. The answer has not been delivered, but with that, we'll call it a rap on this edition of Packers Unscripted. On our next show, will Ye, we will look ahead even more to that joint practice with the Ravens the preseason finale against the Ravens. So continue to follow all of our coverage of Packers' training camp. We will 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.