#822 Packers Unscripted: Playoff prep

A walk off field goal wins it for the Bears. No other way to say it other than a disappointing defeat and a disappointing way for green Bay to be entering the postseason.

Bears seasons with eleven straight losses. Yes, it was to potentially make a run at that sixth seed, but let's be honest, Michael, it's the competition of these guys, the drive that these guys have. They wanted to go into the playoffs with that feeling of victory, with that momentum on their side. As Jordan Love said afterwards, they don't have that now. But who cares? The big key to this game? For me, the part that was the hardest for me to leave the building with on Sunday night

was the fact that you did lose Christian Watson. It was a fact that Jordan Love did get nicked up. You don't want to see anyone get injured at any time, but obviously a regular season finale with very little on the line that always hurts the most, and unfortunately for Christian toughed it out. He went out there. Romeo Dobbs catches a bug, Christian tries to go out there and then ultimately ends up with the with the acl tear.

That being said, the Packers have to march on. They have to continue this trek through the postseason and try to learn from what they can from that lost to Chicago.

down with an illness. It sounds like he is doing better here as as the Packers begin their preparations for Philadelphia. Jordan Love banged his elbow on the ground. Sounded like kind of a funny bone nerve type of issue. He left the game. Sounded like if it was absolutely necessar there, he could have gone back in. The Packers played the high side of caution there and kept Love out, although he was getting ready to go in because late in the game, Malik Willis ended up kind of banging his thumb.

I believe it was on the long pass to Malik Heath down the field that set up the touchdown in the fourth quarter. So there was some question as to whether Willis was going to be able to finish the game. It sounds like both of those guys are going to be okay with regard to those injuries and getting ready for the game in Philadelphia. But as Matt Lafuer said, it's also can't necessarily guarantee anything that the reps won't be limited in some respect. You know, It's one of

those wait and see things until Wednesday's practice. Elsewhere, on the health front, safety Zane Anderson as of now, still remains in the concussion protocol, Linebacker Kuway Walker safety Evan Williams, both of whom have missed some time with injuries. Those

guys have not yet returned to practice. There is some optimism that they might be available for the wild card game in Philadelphia, but again Matt LeFleur was saying, it's it's wait and see as far as Wednesday's practice, Thursday's practice. Can they get back out there? How do they look? Hopefully come Wednesday Thursday, when the team is back on the practice field, maybe there'll finally be some good news in the health department coming Green Bay's way.

NFL scouting combine. So because of that, Zavier McKinney is now lined up next to everybody on the active roster at the safety position. But I think you and I both know Mike and obviously there's the Russ factor. But with what the Packers have to work with, the end of last week we found out that jyr alexand not going to probably be back this season. He went on injured reserve. I think you and I pretty much can

stand in agreement at this point in time. When you look at a Nickel subpackage, the Packers preferred lineup now would be Evan Williams on the back end with Xavier McKinney. Kyshawn Nixon tip your cap to him has basically become CB number one now. Carrington Valentine has stepped up on the other perimeter spot and it's Javon Bullard ben in the nickel, which was where Keyshawn started the season. You wrote about it last week. We'll wait and see if

they can actually get that group together. But defensively, it appears that Green Bay is getting closer to having that full unit together. And the thing that was the most funny to me. As disappointing as this loss was, and obviously they wanted to win it, but you do have to consider Jordan Love didn't re enter the game. Josh Jacobs had six or seven carries, six carries, Gorda's ninth touchdown. It was it eight games or nine touchdowns in a row.

still with this team. I know it sucks to be on a two game losing streak entering the playoffs, but like you and I both did our Insider Inbox column, then man a life like people are acting like the sky is falling. Like I'm not saying this was a preseason game by any means. The Packers, up until the last thirty seconds of that game between Washington and Dallas, still had a lot to play for with the sixth seed.

But you know, the comment I made an Insider Inbox on Thursday was the Packers shocked the football world last year? Why can't they do it again? You and I will get into previewing Philadelphia in a little bit, But for Green Bay, what I felt in that locker room, what I heard from Xavier mckinne, and it sounds like McKinney and Rashaun Gary both had some pretty strong words afterwards trying to kind of rally the troops a little bit

going into the playoffs. I feel like this team has leadership where it needs it, it has experience where it's needed, and it still has a lot of youth. And I think sometimes like last year, as much as they wrote a hot streak in I also think when they got to Dallas it was not even knowing what they were supposed to know. Yet they played free. They played like they were, you know, had a poker chip that just

allowed them to sit down at any table. Yeah, and we'll see again now if they can do that against the Eagles.

whatever phrase you want to use. But the Packers of you know, they were in a good spot. I thought, you know, the win on Thanksgiving night over Miami, followed by a really hard, fought, tough, you know, down to the wire loss to the Detroit Lions, the best team in the NFC, on the road on a Thursday night

with you know, a crazy Detroit crowd. Then you go on the road to Seattle, the team playing for everything, trying to win a division title and get into the playoffs, and the Packers quite frankly dominate the game, other than a couple of mistakes that got Seattle back into it, but the Packers finish it off and get the win. I thought the Packers were headed for that strong finish to the regular season. The New Orleans game, you know, thirty four or nothing. What can you do? The Saints

weren't even like a real team that night. But then these last two games against the two division opponents, Minnesota and Chicago, the Packers didn't play well. And I even questioned whether the comeback against Minnesota in the last nine minutes of the fourth quarter if that might have actually in some ways done more harm than good, because the Packers came very close to pulling out a miracle comeback

against Minnesota. But then it becomes too easy to forget that for fifty out of the sixty minutes, you didn't play well against a team that against one of your biggest division rivals and a team that you're trying to beat, and a game that was really important as a playoff tune up. So all of that big picture says that the Packers have a lot to flush and to move on and to just say hey, all right, let's you know,

it's it's go time now. And the way they have played the last couple of weeks is not going to cut it. And the fact that they lost to a team that had lost ten in a row, that had lost eleven in a row in the Packers Bears All Time series was you know, maybe the final straw to say, this isn't this isn't going to get it done, This isn't going to cut it in the postseason, and now it's time to get ready for a darn good Philadelphia team.

seven to beat in number two. And we're leading the number one seed well into the fourth quarter at San Francisco with a chance to get to the NFC Title Game. And I go back to last year. Green Bay finished this regular season eleven and six. Do you know who was eleven and six last year, entering the playoffs, the eventual Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, the Kansas Kansas City Chiefs team that went four and four after its bye week. I understand they won back to back going

into the playoffs, but they lost to Green Bay. They lost to the Las Vegas Raiders. It isn't always about heyn how many games in a row can you win before you make a run. I'll be honest with you too. I think as much as the Minnesota Vikings would have loved to have had that number one seed, in love to have won the North, if they enter the playoffs on a ten game winning streak or whatever, that's a

tough thing to keep winning that entire time. It's like, what kind of lessons can you learn to be able to better you and put you in the best situation possible. Entering the new season, Green Bay has had in back to back weeks a real look in the mirror moment. Minnesota didn't do enough to get the job done. You lost on their field, yep, last week against Chicago. Yes, you're missing some guys, Yes, some guys were down shifting

a little bit. You still did not like the way you played well, what are you going to do about it? This is your shot. As I put an insider inbox, the lessons are over, the classes are done, You've gone through the entire course at this point, this is the final test. Can you pass it? Can you take everything you've learned in these first eighteen weeks of the regular season and now channel that towards a championship? And that's what Green Bay is going to find out on Sunday afternoon in Philadelphia.

sixty five. And at Cousin Subs, we have something for everyone like our Wisconsin cheese curds, mac and cheese, golden fries, and creamy shakes, all paired with your favorite sub or sub and a bowl Cousin Subs fifty plus years of better. All right. The Philadelphia Eagles Saquon Barkley two thousand and five rushing yards sat out Week eighteen to rest up for the playoffs rather than go for the one hundred and one yards he would have needed to break Eric

Dickerson's single season rushing record in the NFL. I totally understand what the Eagles and coach Siriani and Barkley did there. But Barkley's had a season for the ages. We'll see how things go with regard to Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts. He's been in the concussion protocol. The expectation, I think is that he will be cleared in time to play in this game, but nothing official has been announced in

that regard yet. That offense, which also includes obviously receivers like AJ Brown DeVante Smith, is backed up by a defense that finished first in the league in yards allowed and second in the league in points allowed. This is a complete football team. They can run it, they can

throw it, they can shut you down on defense. This is a this is a huge test and and this is an Eagles team quite frankly, other than a guy like Barkley who was the you know, the free agent signing and whatnot, but this is an Eagles team that that ended its last season on an absolutely terrible note. They were in great position, went into a huge slump at the end of the season, they were one and

done in the playoffs. They're back where they believe they should have been last year, and and they're just fine with all the attention being on Minnesota and Detroit and everything that was going on there for the number one seed. The Eagles are. The Eagles are waiting to make their run.

offensive lines in football? I mean, how many teams Mike could lose? Jason Kelsey and Cam Jurgens ends up going in at center has a Pro Bowl season, right. Makai Beckton, who we watched him in the practices here with the Jets a number of years ago, did not work out for him. First round pick as a tackle in New York doesn't come together. He goes to Philadelphia. He's been their starting right guard all year. Lane Johnson's been doing

this longer than anybody. Jordan Malata, I mean, like so many Landon Dickerson, you have this ready made offensive line and you pair one of the best running backs of his generation behind it. They do so many things well. Devonte Smith, I mean, aj Brown was the steal of the century a number of years ago for them. Dallas Goddard now is back that. They are just so complete

offensively and defensively, you can't say enough. I mean, Jalen Carter's one of the most exciting interior defensive tackles in the league. Everybody knows what Quinnon Mitchell has done this year. Cooper dejen that Zach Brawn signs there on a modest contract ends up having a Pro Bowl season. The dangers are everywhere with this Philadelphia Eagles team. Now that being said, I actually think green Bay does match up okay with them. Green Bay's rushing offense is at strength. The one area

where Philadelphia isn't completely dominant is it's rushing defense. I think they're a very respectable tenth. They have the number one rank pass defense in the National Football League. Which started with the performance that they put together against Jordan Love in this offense in Brazil. Yeah. So as Vic Fang, you I thought, really proved this season. Whatever the narrative was coming out of Miami last year, this guy still very much has it him Dom Caper's. The principles that

they put together were their defense. This thing has been as ready made to be able to be as functional and as adaptable as any scheme that we've seen in the last thirty thirty five years, and really that was the missing piece for Philadelphia this season.

mentioned Week one in Brazil. It feels like a lifetime ago, and in NFL terms, in a lot of ways, it is a lifetime again because because teams are so different in January than they are in September. Is there anything big picture, little picture that you think the Packers take out of that game that becomes applicable to Sunday at Lincoln financially finish drives.

how do you perform on third downs? We're seeing more and more how you handle fourth downs in the National Football League is becoming critical, and Green Bay in that game did not do a good enough job on once it punched the ball inside the twenty. It's the hardest area of the field to score in, but you gotta find ways to get six or seven points out of it. And I feel like green Bay playing on that surface, having to go down there make the travel that they did.

Both teams had to do it, but that is a very difficult way to start a season. But I thought at the same time, it taught them some very important lessons that sort of carried through the games where green Bay has been dominant this year. The games in which they've been successful is when they are limiting the penalties. It's when they are getting off to fast starts, it's when they are converting on those those third down situations

and red zone opportunities. All those things have to happen against Philadelphia because if you don't, I mean this offense, the way that they're structured, they are going to put up points. How do you counter that.

get a touchdown in that game. That's astounding. And yes, the final score is thirty one to nine, and it goes in the books as a blowout for the Detroit Lions, but the Vikings had ample opportunity to be right there and even take the lead at certain times in that game. But when you can't finish drives, especially against good teams, it becomes very difficult to make up for those opportunities, right.

a four quarter game. Because when I think back to we're watching that game at Arena Corinthians, we had talked all week long about, Okay, the Packers need to contain Saquon Barkley in this debut that he's making for the Philadelphia Eagles, and we had seen a couple years prior how Jalen Hurts and you know, as a running threat at quarterback can hurt the Packers with his legs and

you need to contain the quarterback and whatever. And quite frankly, for three quarters in Brazil, the Packers did a pretty good job on Saquon Barkley, and they did a pretty good job not letting Jalen Hurts beat them with his legs. But then look at what happened in the fourth quarter.

Barkley got out, Hurts got out the long whatever was seventeen eighteen play drive when it's a two point game, but they put together a seventeen eighteen play drive that kills like the back half of the fourth quarter and left the Packers without a realistic chance. Yeah, playing the playing a full four quarters is what it's going to take. And that was shown to Green Bay against this team right away in Week one.

the Packers are defending him. That's what Saquon does. He will hit you with jabs until he finally finds that opening to hit you with the knockout blow, to get you right across and hit you with that shot that you don't see coming. That's what Green Bay has to curb against in this thing. And you're not asking me for keys the victory right now. But the Packers, somehow, some way have to be the better running football team. They have to be better in the trenches than Philadelphia

because Jalen hurts. You know, hopefully everything's good with him physically, psychologically, everything that comes along with having a concussion and missing as much time as he did. But that being said, he's been on the ice here for a little bit. He's been on the sideline a little bit. You wouldn't anticipate he's gonna come back and be his prime peak self. You don't want to give him the rushing attack that

allows him to get comfortable in those ways. Saquon Barkley has been a very difficult puzzle for the National Football League to solve this but this season. But if the Packers are to continue playing if they are going to find their way in Detroit for the divisional round, that is the number one thing on the checklist that must be taken care of.

the Packers have had in over twenty years. You have to go back to two thousand and three when a mon Green had the eighteen hundred plus yards for the last time the Packers had a rushing offense this good. And when is the last time we talked about Probably you go back to two thousand and nine, Dom Caper's first season here, twenty nine and ten, those first two years when the Packers were very much a stop the run defense, and there have been a lot of a

lot of troubles in that area since then. This is the first time I can remember in my time here, and this is my nineteenth season with Packers dot Com where we're talking about the Packers going into the postseason as a run the ball, stop the run ball team. I think the Packers have done an exemplary job against the run in the back half of the season. You look at the running backs that they have shut down.

Really the only what I would consider the only poor performance against the run in the back half of the season was maybe that first game in Chicago when when the combination of Swift and Williams and that kind of, you know, jolted the Packers run defense into shape in a lot of ways. Because since then, I think they've done a really good job and we've seen the consistency with the rushing offense, obviously led by Jacobs, but the Packers ran the ball pretty darn well without Jacobs in

this last game with Chris Brooks and Emmanuel Wilson. It's a this is a different type of Green Bay football team that is entering the playoffs here, and it's just interesting to me that they are a run the ball, stop the run team in a playoff matchup where the other team has the number one running back in the league. It's sort of like you can't make it up, right.

There's there's a little bit of a little bit of Hollywood to this in a sense, and I think it makes for a great matchup Sunday afternoon early evening in Philly.

In Michael, the amount of buy in that is involved with that, getting guys like Kenny Clark, Rashawn Gary, who I think everybody agrees had his bettest run stopping season in his career. No question, everybody wants to rush the passer. Everybody wants to get sacks, and the Packers got plenty of those this season, But like Philadelphia, they did it as sort of an a la carte, everybody contributing to it. Philadelphia's leading sackers, Josh Swat, I think he had eight

sacks this season. Packers it was seven and a half with Rashawn Yeah, but they understood the bigger picture. That's how you get to be a top ten defense. That's how you get to be a top five defense, which Green Bay did. They were a few yards away from being a top three defense this season. So you need to take what you've done well and you need to

build off of that. And I think being able to have linebackers as well with Eddrin Cooper getting involved in this thing, seeing what he has brought to the table as a run defender and being able to shoot gaps and get that guys down for TFLs. TJ. Slayton, I thought came alive in the second half of the season kind of trading into the backfield. That has been a catalyst to what Green Bay has accomplished. So yeah, this is, you know, the immovable object in the unstoppable force here

kind of coming together and seeing who prevails. But there's a reason why they put this game at three point thirty in that spotlight and that slot on Sunday afternoon. This is a matchup that I think everybody wants to see and it's going to take all sixty minutes are to prevail.

a force against the run down the stretch here. And I think you know, there's not a lot in terms of how Barkley ran the ball against the Packers back in Week one in Brazil that necessarily is going to apply to this game, because this is a different Packers run defense now that they've got four months of games under Jeff Haffley and his scheme and the way they

want to do it. That being said, you're not gonna be able to win this game just by stopping the run, just by stopping Saquon Barkley, because the Philadelphia Eagles are much more complete than that. But the Packers are. The Packers are in a position to where as you said at the beginning of this, they can shock the football world because of how they're built, because they are run the ball, stop the run football team. And I'll take that into the postseason anytime.

You know, obviously was the number two back running you know, producer to Saquon Barkley this year with a few more yards than Kenneth Gainwell, and protected the ball much better. That's why they got to where they got to this year and why they were able to be more consistent areas that they weren't last season. But ultimately, you know, with DeVante Smith, the threat that he provides, it's not like this offense is a is an overall jugger, not

that you cannot find ways to stop. And I think that's the lesson and sort of the message that has to get preached this week with Jeff Haffleys. We got the guys we need to contend with any offense in the National Football League and realistically, if you want to make a run, much like the Packers did in twenty ten, this is the type of opponent in the Philadelphia Eagles, that you're going to have to find a way to beat. And I will say this one last time, Michael. I

understand the Packers lost six games. I understand five of those that came against the division. I understand they had two shots against Dallas and excuse me, Detroit and Minnesota,

and they didn't take advantage of it. Right, But if you're going to set the table and change the narrative and get things going in your direction, improving that this truly is a new season, coming back and closing the gap against Philadelphia after they beat you in Brazil in the opener, I think there is no better tone setter for Green Bay than that.

preview Packers and Eagles. It is set for the link at three point thirty pm Central Time on Sunday for Wes I Am Mike. Thank you for tuning in everybody. We will see you next time.