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, Wes Hodkowitz. We're coming to you hear from our studios at lambeau Field and West. The Baltimore Ravens are in town. Shortly after we are done recording this episode, we will be heading to the practice field to watch the joint practice against the Ravens and the bottom line er I guess the big picture
is this. This is a team coming into Green Bay that is going to present an interesting challenge on both sides of the ball for the Packers here, because if you look at what Jordan Love and the offense will be up against, that's the defense that led the league last year in points allowed or allowed the fewest points in the league and ranked sixth. I believe it was
in yards allowed on the flip side of things. The quarterback on the other side, when the Packers' number one defense is on the field getting their work this afternoon, will be two time MVP and Raining League MVP Lamar Jackson. In some ways, you couldn't ask for a better challenge, a better tune up regardless of whether the starters play
on Saturday in the preseason game or not. For either team, This joint practice is about as intense and exciting a way to wrap up training camp as you could ask for.
Yeah, I'm sure that was part of the alchemy too, and they were figuring out exactly this training camp schedule and what they were going to do as far as joint practices and how that's going to be concerned. I mean, I go back to twenty nineteen and I know it was something we all kind of remember, was the Packers played a lot of their defensive starters against Labar and the starting offense from the Ravens in the first half, and Jackson really took it to him in that matchup.
I mean it was he was pretty flawless. I don't maybe there was like two or three incompletions. I mean, he was very efficient. And when you have somebody that is his mix of size, athleticism, speed, there's just so much to like about that. And there's a reason why he's a multiple time MVP now because of what he brings to the table in that capacity. So, yeah, that's going to change. That's going to change, you know how these guys rush him. It's going to change how you
defend him. It's going to change all these different attributes that you have to account for in the quarterback position, in addition to the fact they have a lot of really talented weapons around them too. And you look at Mark Andrews and you know the receiving corps, certainly Dereck Henry now being in that backfield.
Yeah, that's another that's a new look for a Baltimore backfield. Suddenly Derrick Henry, the old Tennessee Titan is is back there, ready to carry the rock.
Yeah, So it'll be uh, you know, it's the challenge you look for in these matchups and seeing exactly what you can get out of them. Yeah.
And on the defensive side, I was looking up some of the statistics the the Ravens bring back two of their top three pass rushers in terms of sacks from last year, justin Mattabueke if I'm pronouncing that, Correll done, and also Kyle van Noy. Those two guys combined for about twenty two sacks last season. And then in the secondary, their leading interceptor last year was Gino Stone, who is no longer with them, But you still have a cornerback
like Marlon Humphrey. You have and a safety, a guy who's really rising to become one of the more well known and more dynamic safeties in the league. And Kyle Hamilton, the Notre Dame product who they was a first first round pick. On Hamilton, I can't remember for sure now if it was, if he was a late first round pick.
He was a first rounder, I was a second Okay, Oh my god, dude, he was. He was fourteenth over.
Oh he was fourteenth overall, so he's a mid first round Okay, okay, But anyway, Kyle Hamilton a very dynamic player and a guy who's really start to get a lot more national recognition. This is gonna be an interesting test for Jordan Love for this receiving corps. You know, obviously, with the running game and Josh Jacobs, I'm sure he's gonna get work like he did in the joint practice with the Broncos where Jacob's got the ball quite a bit.
He still don't really know how to totally evaluate the running game when guys aren't tackling all the way to the ground and whatnot. But from what we've heard from
Matt Lafleur. It sounds like how this practice goes, and how Matt Lafleur feels about the work that his first units get and how they perform both offensively and defensively against the Ravens in this practice will determine whether or not the starters are going to play in Saturday afternoon's preseason finale or if they're going to sit like the Denver game. And then it all gets turned over to the second and third units for the full sixty minutes on Saturday. So that's the big TBD of the week,
so to speak. But I think this should be a fun practice to watch.
Yeah, and also from the standpoint of you know, you look at what Baltimore accomplished last year defensively, there's a reason why their coaching staff got completely pilfered in terms of, you know, head coaching opportunities, defensive coordinator opportunity. There's so much talent there on that side of the ball as well. And now as far as the team side of it goes, most of it is still on this squad. So I'm
very interested to see. You know, when you look at a guy like Kyle Hamilton, for example, I think it's it's one of those guys that when we do our draft prep every year, you see these names and you see them become stars and in all pros in this league and guys that have really been able to separate themselves. Hamilton has been one of those guys and one of the things I have the ultimate respect for, whether it's bringing in a guy like Rokwan Smith or is it
just finding guys to the draft. The Baltimore Ravens always develop defensive talent. Well, so when you're talking about a Green Bay Packers offensive line that's still trying to answer some questions here about what that starting five is going to look like, who's going to be swing tackle, who's going to be your next guy up at center. These are the type of matchups, just even in just two hour practice, that are going to be able to challenge
you schematically a little bit in that way. And then also for the Packers' safeties and maybe even Keyshawn Nixon seeing a guy like Mark Andrews lining up against you as well. When the Packers this is you know, for as much as has been made about them traveling for these joint practices for as long as I can remember, there's been opportunities for teams to come into Green Bay, and yeah, you look think back to the Houston Texas practice.
It's not always perfect. Sometimes it's a little too vanilla. Maybe nothing really happens other than you know, a player unfortunately getting injured. But I think when you've seen the practice against the New England Patriots, against the New Orleans Saints, some of these ones we've had in recent years, Robert Salain the Jets because there was that friendship factor and
that respect factor between the two head coaches. There's been some really good work done on lambeau Field and with somebody like John Harbow, one of the longest tenured, if not the longest tenured coach now in the National Football League, but him are or actually would probably Mike tom.
Think I think it's Mike Tomlin, but John Arbaugh is not far behind.
Well established coach, well established program, and the Packers are gonna get a real let miss tests there for where they're at here during this final week camp.
Yeah, when you look at the defense having to deal with Lamar Jackson, obviously you look ahead to week one, it's like, oh, Jalen Hurts of the Philadelphia Eagles, now not the same type of mobile, dualt dual threat quarterback, but a very mobile dual threat quarterback. And at least there's a little bit of preparation in that regard getting the real deal, so to speak, as opposed to just somebody running the scout team and whatnot in practice leading
up to Week one. When you talk about matchups, the interesting one and it's not necessarily like a head to head kind of thing or a one on one kind of thing. But Lamar Jackson JayR Alexander. We don't know if we will see it on Saturday in the preseason game, but these two guys Louisville products, they go back quite a way, as they've known each other for a long time, and it's it'll be under to see, you know is I would imagine we're going to get the rather vociferous
JayR Alexander on the practice field today. He's not gonna hold back with the jawing and the talking and the yelling and what not to just to see if he can get under his old Louisville teammate skin just a little bit.
Of yeah, and the love that those two guys have for each other. I always go back to that twenty eighteen draft where you know, Jaws and the Middle getting interviewed about getting selected by the Packers. It's the end of the first round and he's literally on camera as Lamar Jackson is being taken thirty second overall by the Baltimore Ravens, and JayR just completely stops everything he's doing and just celebrates. Because one, there's a natural respect there,
there's a friendship there. But I think it's also the fact that these are two guys that have had chips on their shoulders. Now, Lamar Jackson has long been considered an elite NFL talent, elite college prospect, but you go back to those questions at the NFL Scout and Combine in twenty eighteen.
I remember, I remember that interview like it was yesterday. That was That was where I learned a little something about Lamar Jackson because he kept getting asked by all these national reporters who are there about about moving to receiver and you know, are you gonna try this? Are
you going to try that? He just he got to where he was almost laughing because he just kept saying, I'm a quarterback, I'm gonna play quarterback, and that wasn't the consensus necessarily at the time, and maybe it was more of a media narrative than it was an actual NFL personnel narrative. I don't really know. I wasn't I wasn't privy to all that, but he was absolutely one hundred percent certain he was a quarterback in this league. He was not going to be moved around to play
other positions. The guys won two MVPs and done a heck of a lot. And what's left for him now, which of course is the pressure that's on his shoulders now, is to get the Ravens to a Super Bowl someday.
And from Jaiyere's standpoint, the story's well documented, the fact that you know, he was kind of an overlooked prospect coming out of Charlotte. He eventually goes to Louisville, becomes a first round plus, you know, first round draft pick. The amount of success that he had there, not only as a cornerback but as a punt returner. I mean, those those two guys were just the cornerstones of that
program and the time that they were there. And now to be on the other end of it, it's one thing I'm really hoping to hear from JayR about this on Thursday, where he took his himself and how he made himself into this and just how far those two guys have come now where you know, Lamar Jackson just isn't an MVP. He's an MVP quarterback, right and Jai Air is a two time All Pro cornerback. So you know, but you know, by the time his post practice will already be over. But it will be interesting to see
those two guys kind of joust a little bit. I'm sure there's gonna be a couple times where Lamar is gonna he's gonna test his old friend a little bit.
Oh yeah, you know, he's going to go after him at some point. I think that's I think that's inevitable. And you know that JayR is going to try to bait his old friend into into throwing something you might be able to get his hands on. So there's gonna there's gonna be a little bit of a cat and mouse game going on out there.
And that was one little interaction I had with JayR in the locker room earlier this week, because I had actually forgotten that they had played, that they both were on the field during that twenty nineteen preseason game. I'd forgotten all about that, and it was pretty interesting hearing him talk about how he had not forgotten that. Yeah. Over one of the points of that matchup, Lamar actually jumped over him on a would be tackle, which was going into the second season for both of those guys
at that point. It's special and it'll be cool to see, if you know, maybe each shire can get a little bit of retribution.
Yeah, well, I do want to get your thoughts on what we're thinking about what we're watching for in this preseason finale coming up on Saturday. But I'll take care of some sponsor business. First. 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 had cousin subs. We have something for everyone.
Look our Wisconsin cheese kurds, 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, one last preseason game to go here. It is Saturday afternoon, or I should say noon kickoff at Lambeau Field. I love afternoon preseason football. Man. That doesn't get much better than that one at Lambo.
We very rarely have gotten it at Lambo.
Yeah. Absolutely, You've got a couple of road ones looming after that. After Saturday's game at lambeau Field will be the rosters decisions. The cut down two fifty three players will take place on Tuesday. The deadline is Tuesday afternoon, and then there's actually it's less than a twenty four hour period there of the officially of the waiver wire
than before. Players who clear waivers that can then be re signed to practice squads as all the teams around the league get to their group of sixty nine, the fifty three plus the sixteen that they will take into Week one, and then everybody begins their preparations for the Week one opponents. So, with the roster decisions looming and everything that is on the line for so many of these plays on Saturday at Lambellfield, what are you watching for?
Heart? The grit, the strain that that Matt Lafleur has talked about, And obviously Matt kind of changed his tune a little bit this week as he reviewed the film from Denver. But I mean that is, ultimately the decisions will be made on Tuesday based in terms of the bubble players, based on a lot of how this stuff goes. And I wrote about an insider inbox for Thursday Morning in that you know, there's been a handful of guys Mike and my twelve years doing this now that have
made the roster based strictly on how they performed. Obviously,
you had to have a decent camp. You could just come out of completely no when, right, But you know, again, I think the best example that was James Crawford, I think in twenty eighteen, where this was a guy Mike that came in during training camp and we all were kind of like, okay, well, I think he was Charles Woodson's cousin or there was some familiar relationship there, and next thing you know, he ends up making the roster as a special teams guy.
Right.
There are those stories every year, and also like the Justin McCrae, the guys that end up playing two hundred snaps in the preseason, although that's pretty hard to do now with only three games, but back in the day, yeah, four, and then suddenly they're starting eight, nine, ten games for
you during the regular season. This is about Jordan Love and in the top skill position players and who's going to be the starting right guard and who's going to be the swing tackle, like those things all are are paramount, but this is ultimately the final audition for the guys that are trying to live their NFL dreams. Unfortunately, there every year there are guys that will play their final
NFL game this weekend on both sides. For the Green Bay Packers, trying to figure out who that that we talk so much about the fifty three, they're trying to find that seventy and who's going to ultimately be with them on the practice squad and be available with them throughout the course of the season, because as we saw last year, it can be Christian Welch coming up, it can be Corey Ballentine playing some major snaps in the second half the season after they didn't make the final cuts.
So almost in another example, guy like Bowl Melton, who did you know was that as well? I want to backtrack to what because you mentioned Matt Lafleur kind of walking back his comments a little bit about the effort and whatnot from the preseason game in Denver, because Sunday night. He was clearly frustrated with how things had transpired there. It had been such a struggle, particularly on offense, to get things going, and he did kind of call out the players a little bit for the effort and the
grid and whatnot. But then he walked that back after he saw the film. But I was reminded then from what he said when he did walk that comment back, because he said he said it really was an execution issue, and the lack of execution was rooted in mental errors across the board. You know where players were, whether you're talking about running the wrong route or just executing the wrong assignment, whatever the case might be. And that's a
reminder for me, a reminder for us. I think that when we try to make our little predictions, you know who we think is going to make the team and who's not. We don't know who's out there making mental air right like we're trying to we're trying to judge performance. We see what happens, we see the results of plays. We don't know the guys who are who are getting you know, who are getting graded by the coaches in the grade books with with mental mistakes and when you
get this far, you've had all of OTAs. Now, granted, some players have come in at different times, but for the bulk of the players, you've had all of OTAs and a mini camp, all of these public practices, plus numerous walkthroughs and jog throughs and everything else, and you get all the way to the third preseason game. Nobody's going to be perfect, but the expectation is that the mental errors are going to start going down, and if players are still out there making mental errors, they might
be able to make a splash player two. And everybody's talking about, oh, well, that guy looks like he's going to make the team. How can they leave him off the team? Well, just remember there are things that we don't necessarily know in terms of what's going on in terms of how these players are graded. So that was a reminder for me to hear him say that, Oh yeah, like not every not every guy does everything he's supposed to do on a give and play, and that's part
of how the players are evaluated. For me, two key pieces that I'm watching in this last preseason game. One is the obvious the backup quarterbacks Sean Clifford, Michael Pratt. Neither guy was happy with how the game went in Denver. Both guys, I think are very determined to bounce back to play much more like they played in the Cleveland
game as opposed to the Denver game. And there's a lot on the line for those guys, and we don't know if the Packers are going to keep three quarterbacks on the fifty three or if one of those guys is going to get exposed to waivers and whatever the decisions are there, we'll see what happens. But then the other thing is kind of what you were talking about, with somebody who can always rise up in that last
preseason game and get themselves a roster spot. It usually would happen on special teams, and the Packers are still trying to figure out exactly, you know, what is going to be the best combination of guys for special teams. Are there certain guys they can keep on special teams that they can still rely on as depth on defense?
Are there some guys that, even if you know they're quite always down the depth chart on defense, but they're good enough on special teams that Rich Bassacia needs those guys for the kickoff and punt return and coverage units and all that to be as good as the Packers need them to be to get to where they want to go. So those are the two biggest areas for me.
I know a lot of people are going to talk wide receivers and et cetera, but for me, it's about the backup quarterbacks and about the special teams units in this last game.
Yeah, and it's funny too, because, like you'll see every year, there'll be a receiver, it will be a cornerback that have a big game, and in that matters. I mean, it certainly matters trying to make a fifty three, but a lot of times it comes down to wells, who's on those first team special teams units, who's getting those reps, who's being able to have that opportunity, who's making a tackle?
You know, I was last week. I mean, no one's going to write about it, but you know, I think Zan Anderson's had a really strong in terms of a personal protector, sometimes a gunner, a guy that can get downfield. We've talked about every single one of these safeties, but you think about the special teams aspect of it, it's a different game. It's a different phase and all that stuff is ultimately, what comes down to how you construct
to fifty three. And I think Tom Silverstain asked a really salient question to Matt Lafleur on Wednesday when he was talking about, you know, now that this team's a little bit older, you don't have as many young guys anymore. Can you afford to keep maybe a couple more special teams stalwart type players that aren't going to necessarily give you a ton on defense or a defense, but are going to be able to really help you in that phase.
And I was thinking in the back of my head as Tom asked that, and Matt agreed, He's like, yeah, I mean this is you know, it all depends, but I mean that's obviously possibility. But I was thinking of the back of my head. With as many rule changes there are with the kickoffs this year, with as many different ways that this league has really stretched and pulled at special teams, you need people that are on top of it, not just for that one position, but to
be able to set the tone. I mean, there's a reason why you want to have an Eric Wilson on your football team. I saw it when I was watching some of the special teams periods on Wednesday, and also in last the preseason game and some of these other things. I mean, that's the general out there. That's the one that's telling everybody here, here's what we're doing out here.
Those type of players matter. And now seeing exactly who could emerge there and weighing, okay, the proven veterans against some of these young guys that might take a little time, but you know, who could potentially have some really long term value for you. That's the game that Brian Goodkinson and scouts have to play.
Yeah, it's it's interesting how there are always difficult decisions to be made every year. But as much as that becomes kind of a broken record every year, the context within these difficult decisions that are made is always changing, right, because of the makeup of your team, whether you're talking whether you're talking the youth versus the age, whether you're talking areas of the team that you want to improve,
areas of the team that you feel. You have these young prospects who are coming along, and you know, maybe you don't want to expose them to waivers because you want to keep them and be able to develop them, and you don't want somebody else to claim them all that kind of stuff. The context is always is always shifting and always changing based on where your team is, and this Packers team twelve months later is in a very different place than where last year's was. Where you're
making the transition at quarterback. You have a whole bunch of brand new rookies, young guys on offense that are you know, you're building this cast around your new franchise quarterback. The Packers got went a long way in that very first year to where now the context and these decisions being made for twenty twenty four, it feels very different. At least it does to me.
And we saw throughout the course of that season, Michael, how every single win, whether it was in Week one or Week eighteen, they all matter, they all count. This is all critical to the final puzzle, absolutely, and seeing who's going to help you get there. I don't know how this is going to shuffle out as far as the personnel that at this time in which we're taping this,
Mattleafleur himself might not fully know. But this is the last this is the last leapfrog here, This is the last chance, this is the last opportunity to sort of propel yourself into the regular season and you know, whether it's the reserves, whether it's the starters, figuring out if we're going to be able to be the team that everybody wants us to be. Those expectations they get set and now you have to rise to them.
Yeah. Absolutely, well, with that, we will call it a rap on this edition of Packers Unscripted. Be sure to follow all of our coverage of the joint practice with the Ravens, the preseason game with the Ravens, as training camp wraps up here. We will have it all for
you on Packers dot Com. With regard to this show, Packers Unscripted with roster cuts next week on Tuesday, we need to kind of let the dust settle with regard to that, so we will just have one show next week instead of two, and we will be waiting until the fifty three man roster has been selected and hopefully we'll know everything about the practice squad as well, and we can discuss all of that when we return to these chairs a week from now. So for Wes, I
am Mike, thank you for tuning in. Everybody. We will see you next time.