Hi, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Packers Unscripted from Packers dot Com. I am Mike Spofford, joined as always by my trusted colleague Weston Hodkoitz. We're coming to you here from our studios at lambeau Field to review the Packers thirty four to thirteen triumph over the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday at lambeau Field. It improved Green Bay to
four and two. A lot of ground to cover as far as this game is concerned, West, But I think it starts with the fact that in his third game back from the knee injury that cost him two games earlier in the season, Jordan Love is starting once again to look like the Jordan Love of late twenty twenty three.
Jordan Love look like Jordan Love on Sunday.
Yeah, and that cerebral accurate so much on his footballs. I mean, the play that just continually has been in my memory bank since Sunday is the fourth down conversion
across the middle of the Christian Walk. Yeah, and it's just there are just so few humans on planet Earth that could make that throw, and Jordan Love did it on a line and put it the only way that is six foot four, you know, uber athletic receiver could get the football, and for him to have I thought this was such an interesting stat that Tom Fanning came up with that back to back consecutive home games with four plus touchdowns at lambeau Field, the first time that's
happened since nineteen ninety five with Brett Fahr, For him to be to come out and be this dialed in both with explosive plays and also with executing deep down the field and scoring territory, I just felt like this game. You could feel it in the locker room afterwards.
I'm sure you could.
You could feel it with Jordan too talking afterwards. It just felt like the most complete game. Yes, they kind of beat up the Tennessee Titans, but in terms of just beginning, middle, and end with a few glimpse on the radar in between, I thought the Packers in all three phases and then basically every position group really showed out.
Yeah, well, you mentioned Love now back to back home games with four touchdown passes. The other one was in the loss to the Minnesota Vikings. But we saw in the comeback in the second half there where where Love was really starting to crank it up in this game, completions to nine different receivers as the Packers kind of
got the band back together. At receiver. Watson was back from his ankle injury, fortunately only missed only ended up missing the one game Romeo Dobbs back from the one game suspension, Watson not only catches the fourth and one throw over the middle, but also a forty four yard touchdown that was right on the heels of a long punt return by Keishawn Nixon, and Romeo Dobbs in his return,
catches two touchdowns. And I tell you, when Jordan Love is spreading the ball around like this, I believe he targeted ten different pass catchers correct, nine different guys who caught a pass in this game. It's it's when this Packers offense is at its best. I don't you know, there may not be there may not be the one guy we're talking about, you know, where it's like, oh, somebody had one hundred and twenty five yards or somebody has twelve catches. That problem. That's going to happen, and
it has happened this year. But when this Packers offense is at its best, that's not happening because the ball is going to so many different people.
In this game.
I thought reiterated once again the importance of both Watson and Dobbs on the field for the Packers. That's what they do in how they add that recipe. Right, Let's quickly just start back on Watson for a second. To have three catches sixty eight yards, the forty four yard touchdown passes you mentioned that came after the Keyshawn Nixon punt return. That's going up against Buddha Baker. That's them finding something that they felt that they could exploit against
the Arizona secondary. And I've watched that play as well several times over and just the amount of velocity that Aaron excuse me that Jordan loved and Aaron Rodgers, but how much velocity Jordan put on that ball and then Christian to come down with it, that is the number nine X factor when he is on the field. Defenses have to defend the Green Bay Packers differently. Turn it over to Romeo Dobbs. Packers trying to move forward, Dobs trying to move forward, what's the perfect way to do that?
Him coming up with three clutch catches at all at different intervals in all at different points in the game. The nineteen yard completion over the middle going up against Max Melton being able to extend the pocket is just there for days and days and days, and Jordan Love is able to look for him downfield.
That was a full five seconds from snap to throw. Five seconds and Love was absolutely perfectly protected to allow that nineteen yard throw over the middle of Romeo.
And then you look at the first touchdown play, Love sees something he likes over there, throws the out to rome Rome finds his way inside the pylon the way that everybody gravitated towards him, the hugs, the celebrations. You know, some people had asked an insider inbox like, well, Rome didn't show a lot of emotion. That's Romeo Dobbs, folks. Yeah, that's the way he's been the last two and a half years. It has nothing to do with what happened last week. And then him also finding the way in
the end zone late hun. It just a remarkable play from Jordan Love against a terrible look for a quarterback where you're seeing in all out blitz out of cover zero. He hoists that ball up for his receiver in one on one matchup, trusting Dobbs to make a player at least make sure the ball doesn't get picked off. Dobbs
does more than that. He spins the end zone, gets two touchdowns, his second two touchdown game of his career, and as we learned afterwards, Jyry Alexander actually told him beforehand that it was going to happen, and it manifested itself on Schame Day.
Yeah, that second Dobbs touchdown, that was a seven man pressure that the Cardinals sent. Packers only had six into block, so somebody was going to be free. But then in the back end it's four on four because football is a numbers game at the end of the day. So you know, Love knew that Dobbs would be one on one on the outside. The defender Sean Murphy Bunning, who had an interception earlier when bow Melton had slipped on that route. Murphy Bunning just he had his back turn
the whole time. He never found the football. I'm not even sure he really knew it was coming, which is a credit to Dobbs because he didn't give away the fact that he was that the ball was coming his way. A really good play there on the ground Packers rack up one hundred and seventy nine rushing yards in this game. Now, through six games, the Green Bay Packers have over one thousand rushing yards. Do you know the last time that happened? The Packers were over a thousand rushing yards in six games?
I do, because I rode that I read the notes. Okay, by all means, feel free to tell because it is impressive.
Yeah, in nineteen sixty three. Yeah, back in the Lombardi era. In nineteen sixty three was the year Paul Horning was suspended. So but anyway, that's the last time the Packers had over a thousand rushing yards through six games. But what I liked the most about this one, and it's similar to what was going on in the passing game, the Packers are showing the variety of ways in which they
want to and like to run the football. You have the one two punch in the backfield with Jacobs and Wilson, and both guys were certainly very productive in this game. But then you mix in, you mix in the end rounds, whether it's Jaden Reed or Bo Melton, and you know, stretching the defense laterally to then also be able to hit them up the middle with runs the mixture that's going on, and then to you know, ultimately pile up one hundred and seventy nine rushing yards. A lot of
those late in the game. You're just you know, you got the lead, you've got the ball, you're trying to kill the clock. The Cardinals know you're running the ball, and the Packers were able to just were able to run it and grind the clock down. This type of balanced offense. Again, it's against the Cardinals team that you know, they lost some players mid game to injuries, and you know,
things really didn't go their way. But I'd liked the way the Packers just they were balanced in this game, running and passing, and they just they stayed in control. It felt like, other than the one play where bow Melton slips and the ball ends up getting intercepted by the defender wasn't even guarding bow Melton on that play in particular. Other than that, it just felt like when the Packers offense was on the field in this game, it was in control of the game.
And as you point out there, you know Cardinals are going through some stuff right now, but the Packers beat them by twenty one points. Yeah, they controlled this game. They got out to that twenty four to nothing lead, the defense once again shut the door in the second half. That's what you want to see to bring it back to the ground game really quickly. This was a vintage
Matt Lafleur performance. It almost reminded me of the Tyler Irvin days in terms of how many different guys got involved in the run game and being able to use some of the misdirection, use some of the prestat Motion tweeted it during the game too. Yeah, Bow unfortunately had
the one slip on the slant. But I thought this game for all as much as we talked about Bow and Max Melton all last week, and rightfully so, this game really did illustrate the value of Bow Melton to this offense because he not only is the next guy up in some ways as the downfield speedy option to Christian Watson, his shiftiness in his versatility is also a compliment to Jayden Reid and being able to orbit and being able to do some of the pre snap stuff,
being able to take a hand off and make some yards out of it. That's a very useful tool to have in your toolbox, especially as you wade through the course of a season. Unfortunately, Dantavian Wis goes down with the shoulder injury. But we've seen this time and time again how there always is another receiver available, just like how Wicks was available when Watson and Dobbs were not there. So this is going to be I think another reminder to everybody that you can't defend the Green Bay Packers
one specific way, not with this many weapons. Yeah.
Absolutely well, and on the defensive side of the ball, it's also worth talking about a pretty solid game there as well. The defense got off to a really strong start. I believe on Arizona's first four possessions they had one first down.
Yep, they went three and out three three.
And out three times and the and the other was just one first down and they punted. So a really strong start there, and that helped the Packers build that twenty four to nothing lead. Kind of the you know, that forty four yard touchdown to Watson was kind of the go for the throat call, but yep, Matt Lafleur,
it's seventeen to nothing. You get the long punt return after the offsetting penalties and nullified the fumble, you get the long punt return from Nixon and it's bang, take the shot play, you know, touchdown in the end zone. Am again twenty four to nothing. The Cardinals did rally. They got a touchdown, the interception off of the slant slip then set up a field goal, and then on the other side of halftime, the Cardinals got another field goal,
so they got it to twenty four to thirteen. But I think it's worth pointing out that both after the interception at the end of the first half and on the opening drive of the third quarter, the Packers defense stood tall when it had to and didn't let either of those drives reach the end zone, right, Because if this, if this game gets to, you know, twenty four to seventeen or twenty four to twenty one as opposed to twenty four to thirteen, it looks a heck of a
lot different, correct, And I thought I thought on those on those back to back drives the end of the end of the second quarter start of the third quarter, where the Packers defense held the Cardinals to a field goal. During that stretch when when they were starting to find something moving the ball trade McBride was doing some things in the passing game with Murray over the middle. That was a key stretch in this game for the Packers to stay in control.
This is nuts to me.
I don't think I've ever seen this much symmetry in a Packers game before. In terms of just looking at the possession chart. This is for the Arizona Cardinals punt, punt, punt, punt, touchdown, field goal, field goal, fumble, fumblefo fumble.
That's how they lost the ball. Incredible.
Yeah, And if there was one thing too, this applies to both sides of the ball. For Matt Lafleur, his coordinators, his coaches to go into the meeting room this week. This was also another example of what happens when you're plus sixty yards on the penalty side of things. Packers went from minus two thirty to twenty excuse me, minus one twenty six on the season to minus sixty six
based on this game alone. It's the only game this year where the Packers have been on the favorable sides of the penalties, and.
The Cardinals had come in as one of the least if not the least penalized team in the league. Maybe kind of on the opposite end of things as far as the Packers, but this one, this one did not go their way. It started with Jordan Love drawing, drawing several offside calls with the hard count and whatnot and uh and yeah. Other than you know, a couple of instances, you know, the personal fall on JayR Alexander obviously you'd
like to have back. But other than those couple of moments, the Packers played a pretty clean game.
Which we still don't know what happened on. Yeah, we don't know exactly what happened TV copy that to pick it up.
There was no re played, no explanations, but there was a flag thrown. All we know is that it was announced is after the play was over. Oh yeah, so it was not something that occurred. It was something that occurred after the whistle.
But that's all we know.
But look at how this game ended too. I Mean, this is what's been impressive about the Jeff Halfley defense to this point, because yeah, there's gonna be moments where you give up some yards, but the constant threat of
the takeaway is so important. And for them to have Carl Brooks a force fumble and a fumble recovery, Evan Williams, who by the week continues to show why he should be in the lineup, why he is in the lineup, punches a ball out Jyry Alexander recovers it, and then you know, you finished that game with Kenny Clark diving on a ball after a botched handoff. As cool as it is to have fancy interceptions and forcing the ball
out and strip sacks, football is a hard game. Sometimes guys just drop the football and you need to pick it up. Yeah, and Kenny had the awareness to get that one there, and they were able to shut the door on this thing. The Xavier McKinney interception streak ended at five, but it was so awesome, cool, mature listening to him speak in the locker room afterwards about, Yeah, that was a lot of fun. It sucks that it's over, but the fact is is we want to win games.
We're here to win games. And he's like, if we win, I'm the happiest man on earth. And not only did they win, the defense continued this multiple game streak, now up to six with multiple takeaways, the first time they've started a season in that fashion since nineteen ninety six. And everyone else knows how that went.
Seventeen takeaways for the defense through six games. Last year, through seventeen regular season games, the Packers had eighteen takeaways. You were six games into the season and you have almost matched your takeaway total from a year ago. It goes back to the old coaching adage, which Mike McCarthy was the first one I heard it from, and he
said it quite a bit. In coaching, you get what you emphasis, and this particular defensive staff defensive approach, it's not just paying lip service to how important turnovers are. They are coached to go after the ball. They try to punch it out. I mean the punch out by Evan Williams is the perfect example. That is not just rallying to the ball to help your teammates. That is rallying to the ball, seeing that your teammates have the play under control, find the ball and go after it.
That's what these guys are being coached to do so. And then you combine that with the vision based play of the secondary led by McKinney with all of his interceptions. That's how you keep taking the football away. Now, there's probably going to be a dry spell here at some point because teams are going to teams are going to go into a game with the Green Bay Packers saying, hey, we have to protect the football costs because that's how these guys are winning games. They're winning games by taking
it away. So then the Packers will have to have their answers and have to have their counters when when teams do that. But if you get teams that focused on having to protect the football, it's probably going to take something else away from their aggression or their dynamism or whatever it is that they're trying to bring to the table that day. So my point is this defense is being coached to play this way, they emphasize it every single day, and they're getting the results on the field.
Yeah, and in those instances too, Mike, where you know Xavier McKinney, I don't think he had very many opportunities for an interception in this game. There were not many times where Kyler Murray was really testing the top of this defense, trying to make something happen big playwise with them.
And that's the other thing too, Right, Xavier McKinney gets an interception in five straight games, all of them essentially playing a center feel, a deep center field type of thing. That's giving court, that's going to give quarterbacks things to think about and whether they really want to test this guy.
And that's where for all those plays that happened in that game, the one that was the most encourage to me was the Kenny Clark fumble recovery at the end, because one, it shut the door on it. We could just all go home and have our pizza and write
our stories and gets it slate. But two, when the opportunities aren't there, when the emphasis for the opposing team is there, and if you have a team that just does protect the ball very well, when there are chances to get a takeaway when someone puts it in your lap in that moment, in that millisecond, being able to execute, and that's where I think last year the Packers came up short a lot of the times. It's just it's
not easy. They're not trying to throw you the ball, they're not trying to fumble the football.
But when those.
Opportunities are there in that millisecond of your life, you have to find a way to come up with it. This team has to this point. I think it does go back to the emphasis and more than anything, Mike, watch that game last night between Buffalo and New York. How a sack that gets changed to a roughing the passer call can change the landscape of things. How the
defense the game it's so tilted towards the offense. The one thing that the defense can that in most cases cannot be taken away from them is taking away the football, and the Greemit Packers.
Have done that.
Yeah.
Absolutely a little bit of sponsor business here. West Sirius XMNFL Radio delivers hard hitting analysis and up to the NFL news that true football fanatics need twenty four to seven, three sixty five. And at Cousin Subs we have something for everyone like car 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. A few different things to talk about as far as around the league through six weeks, but we have to start with just where things are in the NFC. North Minnesota was on its bye week. They're sitting on top of the division at five and zero. The Detroit Lions go into Dallas and put a whooping
on the Cowboys. The Lions are now four and one, although they lost arguably their best defensive player for the rest of the year to a horrific injury, and then the Packers and the Bears both sitting at four and two. So for the first time since the current divisional alignment was established back in two thousand and two, with four teams per division and eight divisions across the league, one division has every team with at least four victories through
six weeks of the season. This has never happened before. The NFC North is looking like it is loaded and this is going to be This is going to be some race for the division title because it goes it's almost without argument at this point that the NFC North is the best division in football.
I think so.
I think the proof is there with the strength of victories that they've had so far. Yeah, the Chicago Bears beat up on a very bad Jacksonville Jaguars team, But if Bears are actually going to be decent, you need to put up forty two points on that team.
You just have to.
Your quarterback needs to play with a four touchdown, one hundred and thirty passer rating against.
That type of opponent.
YEP.
The one thing I would like to know that I don't know is Yes, this is a very impressive statistic. First time twenty two years we've had a start where a division has had all four teams with four wins.
In its first six weeks.
I would be interested to see how many times in the last twenty two years a division has had all four teams and two teams have played each other.
Once the Yeah, there's only been one division game in the NFC North. It was Packers Vikings at Lambellfield, with Minnesota obviously getting that win.
That's been it.
All the rest of the division games, all the head to heads in this division have yet to be played. There is going to be one coming up this week that we'll talk about probably on our next show.
Very Big one.
Yeah.
But that being said, I think you've seen all four of these teams win in very different form and fashions. I think the Packers had to weather some early adversity with the Jordan Love situation. Peers like the train is back on the tracks right now. I think four and two we can say that. You see the Minnesota Vikings,
what they've done surprising everybody. Sam Darnell in this resurgence that he's been part of the fact that some people are even mentioning right now adding his name to the MVP race with how he's performed out of the gate, super impressive. They've signed a ton of players and it seems to be working out for them. The Detroit Lions the juggernaut, the team that everybody expected to perform well
doing what they're doing. Chicago Bears found a way past a really bad Tennessee Titans team and early in the season and now have found their stride. Look like kind of like the Packers team of last year, where they could potentially be improving throughout the course of the year based on the young structure of that team. Sure, they're all doing it different ways, man, but for the Packers,
none of that matters. For three more weeks. You have these opponents starting this week against the Houston Texans, then you have to worry about the Jacksonville Jacors. Then you have the matchup with the Lions. So the fact that we're going to get all the way to the buy here, the Packers will have two of those games, and I think, what is it Minnesota plays Detroit. I don't even know if there's another individual matchup out of than that through
the first nine weeks. The only thing that Packers can worry about right now is getting victories, and that continues this week against Easton Texans, which we'll talk about on Thursdays Packers on Script.
Yeah, one last quick thought before we go. Shortly before we turn the cameras on here, the news broke that DeVante Adams was traded to the New York Jets. The Jets losing another heartbreaker of a game for them on Monday Night Football against the Buffalo Bills. Their kicker missed a couple of you know, clank the upright on a couple of kicks, and Rogers throws interception late and and
Buffalo ends up escaping the meadowlands with a victory. But then within apparently within a couple of hours, Davante Adams was on a plane on a red eye flight from the West Coast over to Florham. Is it called Fluorham Park or whatever the wherever.
The Jets has been there.
But so DeVante Adams, Aaron Rodgers back together again. Any quick thought I thought.
Was listening to Aaron's postgame press coom friends last night, was kind of reading between the lines. Is the DeVante Adams bat signal up in the air in Gotham City was my thought, just the way he spoke about the final sequence there with Mike Williams, and it appears that he ran the wrong route supposed to be on the red line and said he was running kind of a skinny post and that was sort of the misconnection happened there.
And Williams was the guy on the back end of the interception in London where at the end of the game the Jets had a chance to beat the Minnesota Vikings and Rogers is trying to throw back shoulder and Williams doesn't read it, the ball gets picked by the Vikings and Minnesota survives to get to five and zero.
Yeah, so this is the ultimate test man. To me, this is kind of like when you check off all the boxes and now we're at the final one and can DeVante help them turn their season around? If there's anything I do know, it would not surprise me at all. For assuming the hamstring is good, it wouldn't surprise me all for Devanta Adams to play next week and have a one hundred yard game again, just based on the synergy he has with Rogers and the muscle memory.
Those two guys have built, but this is the big move now.
And it was also interesting too because I just don't know how many teams we're going to be willing to move assets to acquire at DeVante in that contract at going on thirty two years old in December. The the Jets, kind of like with the Packers trade a year and
a half ago, are doing that same thing. But I think they also saw in that game against the Bills, with the way that that division is built and without two of being available right now, it's still is pretty much up for grabs, so very much so two and four, the Bills coming back down to earth after two losses, now rebounding again but still only winning by three.
It's all still out there for everybody.
But it was exciting week of games, I thought overall. It was really I mean, you got to see Baltimore and Washington and obviously Detroit beat up on the Cowboys as you said, and great in Houston, Texas did what they're supposed to do against the Patriots. So you give me a fun matchup on Sunday.
Yeah, absolutely.
The Houston Texans are coming into lambeau Field at five and one, and we will preview that matchup on our next show, but for now we'll call it a rap on this edition of Packers unscripted'd be sure to follow all of our coverage of the team on packers dot com. For Wes, I'm Miike. Thank you for tuning in, everybody. We will see you next time.