Hi, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Packers Unscripted from Packers dot Com. I am Mike Spoffor, joined as always by my trust and colleague Wes Hodkowitz. We're coming to you here from our studios at lambeau Field to review Wes. Yet another walk off victory for green Bay, this one thirty to twenty seven over the Jacksonville Jaguars on the road.
A fourth straight win for green Bay six and two record now, as I said, second straight walkoff victory, and man, just whatever it takes at the end, the Packers are finding a way here.
Survive in advance that you have to learn from it, you have to improve from it. And as Tucker Craft said after the game, there's certain things that have happened in this first half of the season that they have to very much get corrected if they're going to be a championship team. If this is gonna be a team that is going to make some noise in January and potentially into February. But all that being said, Mike, you have
to win these football games. And I was reminded on Sunday night and watching some of these games unfold, and we'll talk about it later in the show. But obviously what happened with Washington. You saw the game between Dallas and San Francisco and the high stakes of that matchup with both of those teams and the slow starts they've been off to. You have to win games in this league. You have to find ways through your errors, through your mistakes,
you have to continue to keep stacking things. And that's what the Packers have done during this four game win streak. They were able to sweep the AFC SOL in this non conference action. They were able to build some momentum
here through the first half of the season. And if you're going to take the situation that the Packers found themselves in Week nine last year in compared to this year, being able to come out on the winning side of this thing, I think shows the maturity of this football team in the fact that it can go so many different ways, whether it was the takeovers that turning those takeovers into points, overcoming the loss of Jordan Love, but Willis going back in there, Josh Jacob's rushing for one
hundred and twenty seven yards. Everybody pulled together in this one, and as you said, it eventually came down to the first time ever in NFL history, According to Elias, a kicker in his first two games with the team, as time expires, making a game wining field goal. Yeah, I mean, it just doesn't get any bigger than that.
Yeah, this one was a lot shorter in that regard, a chip shot for Brandon McManus to win the game. But of course it starts with Malik Willis doing it yet again. He comes in for Jordan Love. Love injures is groin on the first possession of the game for the Packers. It was a third down. He's trying to scramble to his right a little bit and throw back across the field to Josh Jacobs and he strains the groin muscle. He stays in for the rest of the
first half. The Packers score thirteen points, and Love is in there. On the opening series of the second half, he's almost at two hundred yards pass I mean, but he's he's gutting it out, not clearly, not one hundred percent. The mobility is not there. And on that opening essentially the opening third down of the second half for the Packers, it's like, that's it. Love can't do it anymore. Malik Willis has to go in and this is where what I think was a remarkable turning point in this game.
And I know it came down to the last possession and all that, and we'll certainly get into that. But Malik Willis comes into the game. He obviously this is very different from his previous two games in relief in place of Jordan Love, because those other two times he had had the whole week of practice, they designed the whole game plan with him playing quarterback in mind, all that kind of stuff. This is emergency duty off the bench. Willis has to adjust, the coaching staff has to adjust.
Everything's going on. And on that opening third down, the first play he replaces Love, the Packers don't get the first down and they punt the ball. So the next time Malik Willis gets the football for his first full possession, the Packers are trailing. Jacksonville went down long ninety plus yard drive for a touchdown, took a seventeen to thirteen lead. And this is the first time Malik Willis has been
the Packers quarterback playing with a deficit. Both of the wins back in weeks two and three, Packers were never behind in those games. And what did he do with using Josh Jacobs pounding away, he scrambles once for himself, hits a crucial third down conversion to don Tavian Wicks, and then Josh Jacobs busts the long touchdown run and Malik Willis is in the game and the Packers aren't
trailing again. Boom, They're right back out in front. I thought that drive in the third quarter showed an incredible amount of just poison, moxie and whatever you want to say about Malik Willis to be thrown into that situation, to be losing, to be on the road, and he put the Packers right back in front. And yes, Jacksonville ended up tying the game later, but the Packers never trailed again.
A few things I want to touch on here, first and foremost, before Malik Willis even threw a pass, before even scrambled, before even went under center, I thought it was really apropos in the postgame locker room, how Josh Jacobs Tuckercraft had both talked about this, the sense of calm with the offense when Willis is entering the game. As you said, there was a lot of adversity that hit.
The tide had turned at the end of the second quarter two, Jacksonville started with four straight possessions where they went three and out or had the interception as well. In there, I think, yeah, but four straight possessions without a first down, without a first down, Yeah, and here they are. They start to get some momentum, and now you're asking your backup quarterback for some magic. I even tweeted it. I was like, they're asking Malik Willis for
a little bit more magic here. And then what happens immediately after that? He scrambles for twenty yards. They get the thirty eight yard touchdown run by Josh Jacobs. But before any of that happened, Tucker Kraft saying to those guys in the huddle, Hey, we've been here before. We've been in this situation before where we don't have Jordan Love. This guy made it right, but we also need to step up collectively to help him do his job. And
I felt like that's what this offense did. It was more efficient, it ran on time, and really, with the exception of just that one slant route they weren't able to complete with Romeo Dobbs, I thought pretty much did everything blueprint for what you want to accomplish. But what I like the most about Malik Willis man in winning time. The guy gets it done. They go out there again.
Another adverse situation that the Jacksonville Jiggers go whatever it was, ninety some yards, get down the field, they score, they
tie the game. There's less than two minutes left, and Packers are thinking, all right, we'll run here with Jacobs, drain a little bit of clock off, make sure that's in your favor so you don't go three and out and give them too much time with two timeouts left, and then they dial up the play for Jayden Reid and one a brilliant play call for Matt LeFlore, a brilliant job by the Packers' coaching staff and the players for executing and building towards that moment, but just an
incredibly important play for Malik Heath or Balik Willis. Excuse me to hit Reid on that play. He didn't have to make a tight window throw, but you had to get it there. He had to allow him to go up make a field goal. And listening to Brandon McManus talking to locker room afterwards about how you know you're preparing for whatever the situation might be. Maybe fifty maybe forty, you're not sure. And then here you are with a
twenty four yard field goal to win a football game. Michael, this football team behind Malik Willis once again picked each other up.
Yeah they did. They did pick each other up. And the explanation of how the play to Jayden Reid came about is pretty fascinating because and I've got the breakdown of the plays both first out and second down on that final drive. It's in my what you might have missed. If you want to look at the clips. I'll try
to blame it as best I can here. Essentially earlier in the game, the Packers had run a play action bootleg and Jason Vrabel, the team's passing game coordinator, one of a longtime offensive assistant for Matt Lafleur, he had noticed something where he thought that Jaden Reid, coming from essentially an inline position on the right side of the offensive formation, leaking through the traffic and out to the left.
He thought that that would be open off of the what they what they call a key pass or a bootleg pass. So that play wasn't actually in the game plan for this week, but based on Vrabel's suggestion, they talked about it on the sideline, et cetera, et cetera. They so they put it in and they had it ready well. On that final possession, then the Packers get the ball, a buck forty eight on the clock. They got two timeouts. The game is tied, and Lafleur says, okay.
He calls a running play to Josh Jacobs, but it has what's known as a can or an audible to the pass play to Jaden Reed. He calls it on first down, and they're looking for the safeties to be in a certain alignment in the secondary for Jacksonville, for Read's route to be open on first out. It's not there. They don't get the look they want. They just run the standard hand off to Jacobs. They get four yards, same personnel, same formation, same play call, with the same
can call to the pass to Read. The Jacksonville safeties Savage and Cisco. They end up playing second down differently. Cisco comes down to help and run support where the run to Jacob's had just gone on first down. When Cisco comes down, Willis puts his hands up to his ears. That's the can call. We're going to the alternate play. The other guys on the team also put their hands
up to their ears. Everybody's on the same page. Everything looks exactly the same, except it's a play action fake and a bootleg and instead of blocking Jaden, Reid leaks out and he's wide open. I mean, everything that went into getting to that moment with the game on the line. It's fascinating, but it's an example. It's also an example of the complex level at which the game is played in the NFL. This is the kind of stuff that goes on all the time. We just don't necessarily hear
about it. We don't get all the explanations. And there are things that happen like this where it goes wrong and it doesn't work and all that kind of stuff. But the Packers pulled this off with a guy, a quarterback who'd come off the bench in an emergency situation and suddenly the game is on the line, on the road, and the last thing you want to do is give the ball back to Trevor Lawrence because he's scored ten
points on his last two possessions. It was a It was a remarkable finish and and they're they're just there's so many people who deserve credit for it, and ultimately Malik Willis to execute the way he did and to put that ball on the money for Jaden Reid not only so we could catch it, but so that he could get all the extra yards after the catch and get well into field goal range. Just an incredible finish and a great win for Green Bay.
I couldn't summon up any better mic and for the packers of me. Again, it's it's like eleven different chess games gonna go on simultaneously out there when you're trying to figure out how all these things are going to fit together. But what I like the most about that play too is, you know, Jaden Reid he had he had a couple of tough moments in this game, you know, a couple passes where he had his hands on him
he wasn't able to bring him in. But it's a sixty minute game, and it's why you have to have a short memory. And Josh Jacobs even said when I asked him about it in the locker room, you know, watching the play from where he was standing, he thought Jayden Reid was gone, just because the way he is,
the way he plays, and how quick he is. There's just very few guys in the league that can catch him, and for Green Bay then to be at what it whatever was the fifteen yard line, they start running it again. Chris Brooks, the reserve running back on this roster who is getting more playing time in this game. The Jagors try to let him get in the end zone because they're out of timeouts now. The only way they have to potentially win this game is to let the Packers
score and then try to tie it again. Yeah, or potentially go for two. If they would get the touchdown and Brooks has the presence of mind to go down, it ends up being a twenty four yard field goal and an easier field goal than if they were kicking an extra point, and McManus and the operation was smooth and write what it needed to be. I keep saying this, Mike. I tweeted it the moment when I was waiting for you to finish up with the game recap. I remember
tweeting this in the press box. I said, there's so many moves that happened, and so much that goes down during the offseason program and free agency and the draft and everything. The Packers signing Brandon McManus in trading for Malik Willis and potentially how many wins that has already saved or produced for the Packers, depending how you look at it. Yeah, for the total cost of a seventh
round pick next year. Again, Brian Goudicuins wants no flowers and there is an other trophy that he is more enamored with than any type of individual accolade that could be thrown his way. But I'll tell you what, man, having the pulse on your football team and having that type of communication with your coaching staff and understanding how the team needs to continue to get better as the
season wears on. The Willis and McManus acquisitions, I just you cannot stress just how critical those have been for literally ten cents on the dollar for what they paid.
Yeah, and Brian Gudiicuns would be the first one to say that finding guys like Malik Willis when you need to make a change at backup quarterback and Brandon McManus when you need to make a change at kicker. This is the pro personnel side, yes, right, scouting department, and and there's a there's a team of them, a bunch of great guys. And Gutakuns always wants to give them credit. This is an example of why these guys are watching
everything at all times. They have they they're watching film, they have scouting reports, they are paying attention to what is going on everywhere around the league in terms of who is available, who might become available, and because you have to make these decisions fairly quickly when the need arises. And UH again, that's just that, that's a that's a
piece of what goes on behind the scenes. That it's yes, it's Brian Gutukunz who makes the final decision, but he's getting a lot of input and a lot of research and and a lot of the scouting is being done by the other guys on his team. And to make that collective decision for uh, for what to do.
A lot of GMS in that room too. You you you made me write that story in the off season for the ear.
There's a lot of guys that I think well and and and Ted Thompson had the same had the same group of guys who did go on to become GMS elsewhere. And Brian Gudakountz now has that team of guys that they're going to be you know, as they say, running
their own show pretty soon. You know, in the in the Ted Thompson area, you had John Schneider and Reggie McKenzie and John Dorsey, those guys, and now it's you know, John, Eric Sullivant, John wi Jakowski, Mill Hendrickson, you know Williams, you know Richie Williams.
Uh.
All these guys are there. They're going to get a chance someday to to be in charge of their own shop. So it uh, it speaks to uh to what the Packers have here, sort of behind the curtains, so to speak. We do need to get to where things are on the injury front. Matt Lafleur did not really have an update on quarterback Jordan Love on Monday, but the way he talked about things, uh, Jordan Love has not necessarily been ruled out for Sunday against the Lions. It's a
it's a wait and see kind of thing. They're gonna see where Love is at the end of the week and they'll make a decision there. But just the fact that that's even part of the conversation is obviously tremendous news for the Packers. Other guys who exited this game, Josh Jacobs went out right at the end, which is why Chris Brooks was in the game, and then he sort of took the dive inside the five yard line
to keep the clock running. Jayi Alexander got hurt on the game tying touchdown pass to Evan Ingram and Evan Williams, the rookie safety. He had left the game in the first half with a hamstring injury. Not a lot of updates necessarily to pass along, although I'll say this, Josh Jacobs wanted to go back into the game and they just they held him out and said, you know, no, we Brooks will take these last couple of handoffs as we kill the clock. That's what we're going to do here.
So by all accounts, hopefully Jacobs is okay. Not really sure on Alexander or Williams. I know there are some media reports out there and whatnot. Lafleur didn't say anything specifically about their chances other than obviously the Packers would be in a tough spot defensively if they're missing one or both of those guys with the high powered, high
flying Detroit Lions coming in. But it's going to be a week where we're going to be watching the injury report and seeing where things go here for Green Bay.
It's funny how every coach to some extent, has their own phrases or little statements. I remember Mike McCarthy back in the day was always, you know, so and so is going to be stressed to play this week. Yeah, you know, he didn't want to go into all the things, but sometimes you use that stress to play. And one of the things I've noticed with Matt Lafleur, when when things are good, he doesn't want to go into everything.
He doesn't want to talk about it. He mentioned he still needed to talk to the training staff, but he said Jordan Love was in good spirits on Monday, and if you go back and look at some of the track record, Matt has said that type of stuff. I'm not guaranteed anybody's playing on Sunday, but I will say for what I thought that could have potentially been when he left the game, I remember telling you, and I
relayed that too, that it was a groin injury. You even double checked with me on that, just because we're thinking knee, we're thinking calf, we're thinking something else. Groin injuries can be pretty severe too. You always worry about the core muscle issues and the sports hernias, but the fact that it wasn't knee related, I think first and foremost was a sigh relief that there were no setbacks with that. But again, we'll see where the week goes
on everything. But the fact is, man, you're seeing some of these things happen in the league right now. Where the Detroit game, you know, Aiden Hutchinson's sitting there with his leg up there, everyone giving him a big ovation, but he's out of the cards for them the rest of the season. We saw what happened with Christian Darisol last week for the Minnesota Vikings. And it is a league in a sport that takes its toll on a football team. So for the Green Bay Packers at the
very least, we'll see again how things go. But with Jai Air, with Evan Williams or Jordan Love probably all top ten top players for this team. The fact that we're not worrying about the worst case scenario there, I think. I hate to keep using that Dodger bullet analogy, but you do feel somewhat better that it's not anything more significant.
Yeah, absolutely, well, you mentioned it earlier a few other things that we do need to get to as far as reviewing this game. Josh Jacobs twenty five carries one hundred and twenty seven yards two touchdowns, including that thirty eight yarder, which I thought was one of the one of the most remarkable touchdown runs I've seen in quite a while. The blocking initially at the point of attack was obviously really good, but then he makes the one
guy miss in the hole with incredible footwork. Then he breaks another tackle as a guy is trying to grab him by the shoulders, and then he's off to the races with getting a nice downfield block from Watson. The more I watched Josh Jacobs, I haven't seen I haven't seen a running back. And this is no knock on Ryan Grant or Eddie Lacy or Aaron Jones or Jamal
Williams or any of these guys. But I have not seen a running back in Green Bay with the combination of the vision and the footwork that Josh Jacobs has, because Jacobs is not how shall I say, Aaron Jones always look like a slippery running back. Like the way he ran. He was hard, he was hard to tackle. He had he had a quickness, and a slipperiness to him.
Josh Jacobs doesn't quite have that. But what he does with his feet to make guys miss and to get tacklers off balance and then to accelerate to get the yardage that he can, he's a He's just he's a different type of runner. But man, he is fun to
watch that he is. He is more talented than I ever knew previously, whether it was you know, at Alabama with the Raiders seeing him in person, and now seeing him every game for the Green Bay Packers, I couldn't be more impressed with what he brings to the table.
Here's the way I work through these situations now, because I don't want to make it about comparables, because anytime we see something nice about somebody makes sound like it was something a detriment to the others.
Exactly, And that's not what I'm doing here either.
What I'm doing and what my strategy is now is let's pretend that Josh Jacobs is the only running back the Green Bay Packers have ever had. No Paul Horning, no Jim Taylor, no Aaron you know, Jones, Amon Green, this is the only guy. So here we are. You're watching him play the first thing I thought, and again he had to work through some stuff, he said. He was telling the coaches, hey, trust me, trust me. Because the first happened that he had thirty six rushing yards.
He had ninety six in the second half. He was seeing the holes, he was seeing what he was looking for. Even when he was going down, he felt like the big play was still there. And even on the big play, the thirty eight yard touchdown, he broke a couple of rules to make that happen. Yeah, because he wanted to be able to exercise that and be able to try to find, you know, a touchdown. But here's the thing about Josh Jacobs, and this is what I've this is
why I figured out he's a first round pick. He went to Alabama, he as all these things that go for him. The guy's a professional football player. The way he approaches this game, it's like watching a sign test work in figuring out what he wants to do and what certain traits he wants to utilize on any given play.
You know, whether it's diagnosing what's happening at the line of scrimmage in one cutting, whether it's him with kind of that jump cut that he does, or sometimes the guy can just go north and south on you and push you forward for seven yards. That has happened plenty of times this season too. Yea, and he does it again. We'll see how everything looks this week on the injury report front. But he does it while being an incredibly
durable force at that position. And when you look at Brian Goodekoin's tract record for wanting to sign free agents,
durability is a big part of that. So while he was an All Pro, and while he was a rushing champion, while he had all these things going for him with the Raiders, the fact that he did all this while being a workhorse belcow back and being able to still improve throughout that workload, I think it just shows you the type of athlete Green Bay Packers were bringing into their program independent of anybody else who's ever carried the football for him this twenty twenty four football team, Josh
Jacobs is the right answer.
Yeah. I want to talk about the defense a little bit too here because this was this was just it was a strange, weird day. I thought. On defense, we mentioned earlier the first four times the Jaguars had the ball, they didn't get a single first downright, Packers defense was
on top of it. They were flying high. It was looking like a continuation and a building off of what we had seen against Arizona, against Houston and getting to this point and then all of a sudden, it wasn't just that the Jaguars started moving the ball it started. It was that they started taking chunks of the field. The number of explosive plays, the twenty plus yard pass plays.
They got a few of them at the end of the first halt when the Jaguars got ten points before halftime on their last two possessions, and then we saw it again at the end of the game late in the fourth quarter where they got ten points again and honestly, Wes might have had two touchdowns, It might have had fourteen points there if not for the third down shotgun snap.
That was a bad snap that bounces off Trevor Lawrence's leg and they just have to fall on it, right over it and then they have to kick the field goal. So they didn't even get the opportunity to convert on third down there near the red zone because because of the bad snap. But it was just it was this up and down like jekylin high day. You know, two massive takeaways. Xavier McKinney gets his sixth interception, still leading
the NFL in that category. Edgrin Cooper makes a great play getting the strip sack backed by the goal line. Devonte Wyatt, you know, somebody called it like a musical chairs type of gam like he bumped the Jaguars lineman out of the way to recover. It sets up an easy touchdown Malik Willis to Tucker Craft. So though you know, two takeaways, that's that gave the Packers fourteen points, set
up fourteen points on the day. There's a lot of good things the Packers defense did, but there are a lot of things that, you know, you're kind of scratching your head going, you know, what is with suddenly giving up eight pass pigs of twenty plus yards in the same game when all these other good things were also happening. It was just it's strange. It's hard to get a handle on exactly what was going on out excuse me.
Ten explosive plays for the Packers or that they allowed in this game, including some of the rushing stuff. Here's what stood out to me the most. So you look at this as like a verdict right with the jury, who was giving what type of evidence and who was
ultimately going to be the winner. From the Packers' perspective, it was the fact that they did come out on ahead on the turnover margin, the fact that they turned those turnovers into fourteen points whereas the Jacksonville Jaguars immediately gave it back, and the fact that Green Bay was able to be a little bit more efficient in some of the situational stuff, not necessarily red zone and goal to go, but some of the other aspects of this game.
The Jaguars went zero for eight to start this game on third down and really struggled to get into their operation, but they overcame that with some of those explosive plays late in the matchup. Despite losing Christian Kirk to a broken collar bone and then also you know Thomas leaving, Brian Thomas Junior leaving with the chest injury. Trevor Lawrence was exceptional down the stretch, but the Green Bay Packers just gave him too many holes and too many openings
with which to work. And as Matt Lafleur said, I mean, there's a lot of things you can diagnose for what went wrong there in the second half of green Bay. But the amount of times that green Bay was in cover two in trying to get them to play in front of them, trying to hit the check downs dictating the terms of the game. But then they're missing tackles and those things are turning into explosive plays. It wasn't good enough. So that's the lesson the Packers have to learn.
Fortunately for them, they did have the comeback with the takeaways. They were very pragmatic about how they utilize those. Edgrin Cooper with thirty four snaps, has eight tackles, a huge pass deflection on a trail route on the play in which Kirk got hurt and then also punches the ball out for the old only sack of the game ends up becoming a strip sack that leads to seven points. Very opportunistic game for green Bay. But what's what's coming
on the horizon now against the Detroit Lions. I mean, you also have to be very much cautious here about how you proceed.
Yeah, and with you know, a lot of fans are asking, well, you know, where was where was the pass rush and everything that you know that the Packers had shown against Arizona against Houston leading up to this, with with the quarterbacks not being comfortable and all that, sometimes the other team just does a better job. I mean, it's it's not like it's not like the Packers weren't dialing up some of the same stuff that they do with the
pass rush. We saw Minnesota, Minnesota for the for the entire first half of that game at Lambellfield, they just handled everything that green Bay's defense was thrown at him. I thought Jackson Jacksonville's offensive line they handled green Bay's
pass rush much like much like Minnesota did. Unlike Arizona and Houston that had a hard time with the stunts and you know, and and that's you know, those guys breaking through on on on, you know, the the games and stunts up front, and that's how those quarterbacks got uncomfortable. Sometimes that's gonna happen. But then also what happened in this game is the couple of times that Jeff Halfley did dial up a blitz. It's like, Okay, the foreman
rush isn't getting there. You got to pick your spots and send a fifth guy, maybe send a sixth guy. Lawrence Burned, I mean, you know, he saw he saw it coming. He got the ball out, you know, to somebody who was in open space, you know, the vacated space where the blitzer comes from. Lawrence was on top of that. So just suddenly saying, okay, we're not getting
any pressure. We got to keep dialing up blitz is that wasn't going to be the answer because because Trevor Lawrence had made the Packers pay a couple of times, so they got into a tough spot defensively there where the foreman rush wasn't getting home, but but Lawrence was taking care of him against the blitz and it just it just becomes a matter of survival at that point, and and it's tough. Fortunately, when the Jaguars did get things going there in the fourth quarter, then ultimately they
didn't get the ball back. The game didn't go to overtime. The Packers were able to kill the entire clock and getting those last points, they didn't get the ball back, and sometimes that's sometimes that's what it takes to win in this league.
And why did it happen because of the way green Bay started the game, and it's why it's a four quarter, sixty minute football game. And the hole that the Jacksonville Jaguars found themselves in. Even though it wasn't huge by any means, it's what enabled Green Bay to make a few plays there in the second half that ultimately tipped the scales in their favor.
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the league weeks week eight. Excuse me, I was about to say week six for some reason. I don't know why. This is why I was going to say six, because including the Packers game, there were six games wes in which there was a score in the final minute the final sixty seconds of regulation where the lead changed hands.
Six games in the league in one week, which is actually tied for the most in the league in one week of games since the league Mercher in nineteen seventy was that the Ackers loll in that the Packers game
was involved in that. And then, of course, as you had alluded to earlier, Washington defeating the Chicago Bears on the hail Mary in the Nation's Capital, and we were all we were all watching that on our little TV screens on the flight, on the flight coming back, and that was quite the Uh, it was quite the reaction from everyone on the plane. It was probably about fifteen to twenty seconds later than everybody else's re action around
the country because of the delay of the satellite fever. Yeah, for the live of the quote unquote live TV broadcast. But but man, Jade and Daniels. Strange game in Washington, with the Commanders kicking a bunch of field goals, they couldn't punch in any touchdowns. They kick a whole bunch of field goals. The Bears can't do anything until late in the third quarter. Then the Bears finally get on
the board, they blow another chance to score. Then they do get the go ahead points in the final in the final minute, but they left just enough time for Jade and Daniels to try a hail Mary. And we you know, we don't need to get into everything with Tyreek Stevenson. But the bottom line is the Bears botched it. The Bears botched it on the hail mary. They didn't knock the ball down, they tipped it. And not only did they tip it, they had nobody guarding the tip man.
Noah Brown is standing all alone in the back of the end zund and a successful hail mary. That'll go down as as one of the plays of the year and felt.
Yeah, and if you if you're your defensive coach at any level of football, that that goes down as teaching tape for how not to defend a hail mary. I mean, it's just it's true. I mean under fash. The other thing about that was you weren't even in the end zone, like I could see it, like the like the uh Randall Cobb went against the Giants many years ago in the playoff game. Randall was at the back of the end.
Yeah, it was the very ball came out.
So yeah, Noah Brown was one of the only people actually standing in the end zone when he caught that passage.
Which is all the more reason why you can't have somebody standing there all by himself and from what I've heard and what I've read, it sounded like Tyreek Stevenson who was kind of off in his own little world for a while there. He's the guy who's supposed to be boxing out the tip man, or at least to be there in case the ball is tips so that there isn't an uncontested catch of the tip. That's exactly what happened, and uh and Washington wins a game.
Instead, he ended up being the stocked into to his malone. I mean, it just it's terrible the way that worked out. I feel terrible for the young man because from all accounts it sounds like it's a good dude, but it just made a huge mental air on that game. Without perseverating on everything that Bears did wrong, though, I do want to say something about Jayden Daniels because I said this to a good friend of mine, Scott Vencey, on the way home that night after I was driving home
from the airport. I am already ready to put Jade and Daniels in the elite category for quarterbacks. I don't want to talk about rookies. I don't want to talk about young player. I'm talking about legitimate, elite quarterbacks. And this is why I'm willing to say this. He proved in this game, and he's done at intervals of the season, but he definitely proved in this game. I can put this entire team on my back and win a football game.
And Mike, there are so few guys in this league, regardless of position, but definitely quarterbacks that can do that where it's like I am going to will you to a win, a w a little tally in that win margin. And Daniels is that guy. So even when things aren't going right, he has so much arm talent and the fact that he was able to pull that off after basically trying to execute the Aaron Rodgers scramble drill and then having to roll it back. Yeah, it's just can't
say enough about him in Washington. For as much as we talked about the Green Bay Packers being the outpost of the NFL in the early nineties, late eighties, early nineties, that's what the Washington Commanders have been here for the last six seven eight years. Really.
Yeah, and yeah, they've been out in the wilderness.
There's a lot of hype on them right now and rightfully.
So yeah, absolutely, Well, quickly the NFC North as things stand right now, the Detroit Lions coming off a blowout win over the Titans. We can talk about that more on our next show. They are six and one on top of the division, the Packers right behind at six and two. The Minnesota Vikings lost two games in a span of five days. They are five and two, yep. And the Chicago Bears, with the Hail Mary defeat in DC,
they are four and three. So lambeau Field this Sunday and we'll get into it all in our next show. But the top two teams in the NFC North going ahead to head for the first of two times this season. Six and one versus six and two. This is what you put yourself in these positions for, is to have these opportunities. And the Packers are a team kind of piecing it together, and there's all these questions about the injury report and everything else. And the Lions are a
team that is just rolling right now. They are a freight train coming down the tracks. I'm going to be a heck of a week and a heck of a matchup on Sunday.
I'll save all my comments on the Lions for Thursday's show because we'll need something to talk about. Yeah, but their win was incredibly impressive. Certainly the Los Angeles Rams doing the Packers a favor, some controversy a little bit at the end of the game, but the Rams still did have control that thing late to be able to now send the Vikings to a second straight loss. But why is this so important? Because the Green Bit Packers are six and two, but they're two and two in
conference right now. Tampa Bay Buccaneers are on the outside looking into the playoff picture. They're four and four. They're four and two in the NFC. Those are the type of things you got to keep an eye on as you look towards tiebreakers and other things here down the stretch. But the Green Bit Packers did exactly what you and I have been saying for the last month. Mike. You have to take care of business. You couldn't work try about any more of these NFC North opponents until they're
finally here. Well, guess what, man, This Sunday, Lambeufield, the Detroit Lions are coming to town. Yeah, and we'll see who's all out there, and it'll probably be a take the entire week to see who's available. But a massive, massive opportunity the green Bait Packers have ever earned by being able to reel off these four straight victories.
Yep. And we will get into it on our next show in a couple of days, but for now, we'll call it a rap on this edition of Packers n Scripting. Be sure to follow all of our coverage of the team on Packers dot com for Wesiam Mike. Oh wait, hold on, oh, we got to talk about the draft. Hold on, mark your calendars, folks. Yep, I almost forgot you'd lose your job. I would mark your calendars. The twenty twenty five NFL Draft is coming to Green Bay.
Be among the thousands of football fans cheering on their team's picks by joining us April twenty four through April twenty six, twenty twenty five. Visit green Bay dot com slash Draft twenty five for more information.
We should just start doing that. During the intro, I'm Mike alongside my partner in crime, Wes Hodkowitz. We are here from our Packers studios to let you know that the twenty twenty five NFL Draft is coming to Green Bay, and then we can start the show.
Thank you for tuning. In everybody. We will see you next time.