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OPE Season 3 Episode 31 The Lions Take the Cheese
19 Plays1 day ago
Aloha and welcome to another episode of OPE! On this Episode, Iowa Joe is flying solo as he delivers his fresh, stale and moldy takes from the Packers week 14 loss to the Detroit Lions!
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction to the Packers Episode
00:00:19
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Ohana Packers edition podcast. The podcast where one dude talks everything green and golden green Bay Packers. I am Iowa Joe. And yes, there is only one of us this week. Mike is in the midst of traveling. So I am going to be the one bringing to you the week.
Packers' Struggles in NFC North
00:00:43
Speaker
What week was this?
00:00:45
Speaker
who cares? This week's game against the Detroit Lions, week 14's game against the Detroit Lions, and the last second field goal lost to the Detroit Lions. For some reason, Green Bay has really struggled with the NFC North this year. They barely pulled out a win against the Bears. They've lost to the Vikings. They lost to the Lions twice.
00:01:13
Speaker
It's really not something that we as Packer fans are used to. Yes, this game ended with the last second field goal by the Lions. So it was a tight game, but there was a lot of issues with this game. So let's go ahead and get
Josh Jacobs' Standout Performance
00:01:40
Speaker
into it. So.
00:01:42
Speaker
We will start with fresh cheese. So what was fresh for this week? And with it being a loss, of course, there's not a ton of things that you can consider fresh, but there were some bright spots. Uh, let me look at my notes here. So obviously Josh Jacobs, again, having three rushing touchdowns.
00:02:07
Speaker
being that bell cow of a running back that the Packers have wanted for a long time. And like I keep saying, it's nothing against Aaron Jones or anything like that. But Aaron just couldn't handle the workload that a Josh Jacobs can. and And yeah, the rushing stats weren't quite there. He only had 66 yards.
00:02:33
Speaker
but you tack in the three touchdowns that were hard fought touchdowns. And, you know, that definitely is a fresh for this week. And it's, I really, Jordan's had his ups and downs and, and injury wise and a little bit play wise. You got to fully figure that Josh Jacobs is the only thing that's really keeping this offense humming.
00:03:01
Speaker
ah ah So I, I, until something different happens, I would have to say that you should expect a Josh Jacobs love fest from this, you know, for the rest of the season, and just because he's what's keeping this offense, you know, churning out points and going. like And again, that's nothing against Jordan. Jordan love was, you know, 12 or 20 for 206 with a touchdown.
00:03:28
Speaker
Uh, you know, he, he's been relatively clean, but with Jacobs out there, it gives him a real weapon in that rushing offense that they don't have to put all the pressure on Jordan Love to be out there and make a play.
Tucker Kraft's Contribution
00:03:47
Speaker
So for my next fresh, I am going to basically just say Tucker craft is a beast.
00:03:55
Speaker
He was dealing with all the trash talk coming from Kirby Joseph. He was, you know, had to be on the lookout because Joseph is a notorious Titan killer. You know, he's the one that caused Tyler Higbee to be out with the torn ACL. There was another Titan that I can't think of off the top of my head that he took out with the torn ACL because he hits them low.
00:04:25
Speaker
And there were some hits during this game that they weren't low, but they, they could, they felt malicious and Tucker took them with stride, even, even pulling a Josh Jacobs and motioning to a couple of the lions defenders to bring a, you know, bring more and move let's.
00:04:50
Speaker
talk about the kip up. He took a vicious hit and kicked up and back on his feet. He is athletic as athletic could be. There's not many people that can do something like that, especially in full pads. so stat wise, he did have five reception or five targets on three or four with three receptions, 41 yards and a touchdown.
00:05:19
Speaker
And the touchdown was a well-thrown ball fit in a tight window by Jordan Love. ah ah So like I said, you know, this often seems to be humming a lot with their playmakers. I know the big thing, and we'll, we'll probably talk about it a little bit later is all these other playmakers are starting to come about that they're not targeting Jaden Reed much. Like in this game, he only had one target.
00:05:47
Speaker
But you know, that's really a good problem to have is you have all these playmakers you can go to. You don't have to rely on just one person. So yes, they will bring Jayden Reed back into the fold. Yes, they are. It's not like he was only playing a handful of snaps. He did play a good chunk of snaps. I think he was at 50% snaps for this game, but.
00:06:13
Speaker
When you've got all these targets and only one football, you can only get so much, so many people, tar so many people, the, the stats that they want. So back to Tucker craft again, 41 receiving yards with the touchdown. He had along a 21, the hits he was taking the, uh, you know, the athletic feet of the Kip up.
00:06:43
Speaker
Do you, he's probably the best tight end the Packers have had in a long time. I can even put him above Jim Michael Finley and say that we haven't had this type of tight end since even before Finley was with the Packers. It's really a brush breath, breath of fresh air, man. I can't even talk. Where's Mike when I need him.
00:07:12
Speaker
It's going to make for an interesting time when when and if Musgraves makes it back this year. Because now that Tucker is the focal point of the tight end group, you know, what's Musgrave going to do? Because he can't do as much as Tucker can when it comes to blocking and stuff like that and taking the hits. He is that seam stretcher of a tight end.
00:07:41
Speaker
And it'll be interesting, but it's like again, it's a good problem to have. So let's go ahead and go back to the love thing. I have wrote down here. Love had a clean game again, 206 yards, one to touchdown, no interceptions. He only took one sack. And, you know, that was a de Zadarius Smith sack. And we'll talk about Darius a little bit later, but he continues to put forth these clean games.
00:08:09
Speaker
Yes, you do wish your stats were up a little bit. The completion rating wasn't quite, you know, eight. He was 12 of 20. So, you know, that's still decent, but you wish it was a little bit better. But let's face it, this whole The Detroit Lions time of possession was 36 minutes and six seconds and Green Bay's time of possession was 23 minutes and 54 seconds. So there was a big gap when it comes to time of possession. And when you have that gap, you don't have the stats to bat to coincide with that gap. So I've talked about love.
00:08:57
Speaker
And my final fresh that I see that I have wrote down is oh Christian Watson.
Christian Watson's Key Role
00:09:08
Speaker
Now he will be coming back in in the later part of the segments, but Christian Watson really stepped up. He's been stepping up with Romeo out for receptions on seven targets for 114 yards with a long of 59.
00:09:26
Speaker
Like I said, we will talk about the other mishap with him later on, but you know, the one thing I want to focus in on him was he's looking more confident and more, it looks like he's putting more strength for his yards after catch. He's taking on hits. He's, he's being physical. He's.
00:09:58
Speaker
Really taking that step again, like I said, with Romeo out, he's really taking that step up and being that number one receiver. Yes, that does hurt guys like Wix and Reed and Heath and Melton and other guys that are looking for, for targets. But, you know, with the kind of athletic ability that Christian Watson has the potential for, it's a good thing to see him get going.
00:10:27
Speaker
The one area that I, or the one thing that I would like to focus in on is get a little bit more comfortable with the deep throws for Jordan to Christian. He had the one deep one for 59 yards, I believe it was. If Jordan could have led him a little bit longer or a little bit further, that would have been a touchdown all day. But you could see that Jordan took a little bit off of it.
00:10:58
Speaker
And Christian had to slow down to catch it. And by slowing down, it allowed the defenders to catch up with him. Otherwise he had the defenders beat. He was open. If love put it out there just a little bit further, not too far, but just a touch bit. Christian been in for the touchdown and we could have been looking at a completely different game, but hindsight is 2020. You know, nobody can always make the earn not.
00:11:28
Speaker
There's no such thing as, how do I want to put this? Nobody can make a perfect throw every time.
00:11:38
Speaker
It's judgment calls on, okay, do I put this much on it? Do I take this much off? Do I do this? Do I do that? It was a great throw. You just wish it had a little bit more on it. ah So yes, Christian Watson stepping up, hell of a game.
00:11:54
Speaker
Again, this offense is really starting to push forward. There are moments where you're like, okay, what the hell's going on, Matt? And with with the play calling, but for the most part, I'd say about 985 to 90% of the time, it's a clean game. It's a good game for the offense.
00:12:18
Speaker
i I'm not so much worried about it and things will be looking up because you'll be getting Romeo back. You'll be getting Musgraves back at some point. Add in Marshawn Lloyd in there a little bit if if he comes back this year. There's all these targets out there the and these playmakers for this offense. It's going to be a hell of an offense going forward.
00:12:45
Speaker
and You know, they'll be coming back at the right time because it looks like three teams are going to be coming out of the NFC North for the playoffs. And the Packers looked to be one of them, which they'll end up probably coming through the wildcard beings that they did drop this game. And now I've dropped to like one in was a one in three in the division. So yeah, it's going to be a long shot for him.
00:13:13
Speaker
And unless something happens where the lions and the Vikings just completely tank for the rest of the season, which I don't even think that helps them too much. But yeah, you're looking at wildcard. These weapons will be coming back. This offense will get even more potent. So again, having all these guys is a blessing more than it is a curse. And I look to see more play calls coming from Matt LeFlore.
00:13:43
Speaker
And I kind of called it. I said in a preview show that, all right, Matt, you need to start pulling stuff out of playbook. Now the play didn't work. They did run a flea flicker and the play ended up not working. That's the kind of things that I would like to see more of now that we're in the final stretch of the season, open up that playbook, start calling more.
00:14:07
Speaker
exotic plays, hell get Malik Willis involved if you have to, and just, you know, run a wildcat style play once in a while, or, you know, uh, the, uh, Oh, what was the Eagles play? The Philly special, you know, run something like that with a Malik. You've got all the potential in the world with this ah offense, get started with it, get going with it.
00:14:37
Speaker
You're going to need it right now. So with that said, let's move on to our next, uh, topic or session section of the show stale.
Watson's Critical Fumble
00:14:52
Speaker
What's this stale shit? So it's really hard to differentiate what's stale and what's a moldy because.
00:15:03
Speaker
There was just so much going on. and We'll go with the Watson fumble. we'll We'll go ahead and just put that in the stale just because what he did the rest of the game kind of made up for the fumble.
00:15:18
Speaker
Christian gets the ball over the middle running down the field. He tries to make the play. He gets in not really up in the air, but he kind of. Does an old lay move around one of the defenders and the ball comes too high. He gets hit. Ball comes out. Lions recover, go down to score some points. Not an ideal situation. You hope this it's a teaching point for Christian and say, okay, next time ball security. We know you're trying to make the play. We appreciate you trying to make the play.
00:15:56
Speaker
but you've got to keep a hold of that ball because turnovers count. This is the type of game where any small thing is going to hurt you and it did end up hurting them. The Lions went down and immediately scored. I think they only got a field goal out of it, but still that made it 10 nothing. Right off the the bat and I'm opening things that I don't need to be open in. so yeah, they went,
00:16:26
Speaker
They'd already scored a touchdown off the full first drive. The fumble recovery caused them to go down and score a field goal, which put it at 10 nothing. Now the Packers did come back and managed to put up seven after that drive and that, but that's, you know, the fumble caused you to go down 10 points. So yes, while it's not a horrible situation, Watson made up for it later.
00:16:53
Speaker
you have to be smarter in those situations. You have to keep hold of the ball, keep your hands on the ball, make sure you got a grip on it, and don't go in the air. Yes, we've seen some miraculous things like the reverse leap by Saquon and Tucker's Leaped and stuff like that, but the situation you were in Didn't call for you to go in the air and and it ended up hurting the team in a way. So Yes, that is definitely a stale trying to think what else I can put in the stale. Let's go with the offensive line While they finally did start holding up and stopped allowing of it the first couple of drives
00:17:48
Speaker
It seemed like Jordan was under constant pressure. And like Mike and I talked about in the preview game, these guys were without the majority of their starting offensive line and pass rush. So for you to make them look like they're all pros.
00:18:13
Speaker
It didn't help the cause any. So while yes, you did finally settle down that first part of the game. Yeah, you were making scrubs look like look like all pros. So I do have to give it to Rashid Walker. He did pull out the Reggie oh one arm move, which is weird to see an offensive lineman do.
00:18:40
Speaker
when it, when it's more of a defensive pass rushing move, but I think it was a linebacker was coming in and he just hooked him and tossed him. Great move, funny. Uh, so, but I'm putting the offensive line play in the stale just because that start of the game and for the first couple of drives and even a little bit towards the end of the game.
00:19:08
Speaker
You were making that pass rush look amazing when it should have been. Not a big deal.
00:19:17
Speaker
Let's see. Let's go down the third down defense for another stale. The, the lions were seven to 15 for third down and that was really a killer. It, you know, obviously it led to extended drives.
00:19:36
Speaker
It allowed for longer time of possession. And of course it allowed the them to go down to score more points. So while the defense has made some steps forward, it seems like they regressed a little bit from that Miami game. And that's not really what you want to see. We'll talk on, or I'll talk on it a little bit more here in a minute when I moved to my moldy. But for right now, the third down,
00:20:05
Speaker
defense was stale. So the rest of these things, I think I'm going to put into the moldy. So we're going to go ahead and just jump in to that.
Defensive Challenges Against the Lions
00:20:17
Speaker
That's a moldy cheese. That's a moldy cheese. So I just got done talking about the third down defense. Let's go ahead and talk about the fourth down defense as moldy.
00:20:33
Speaker
Four out of five are four for five in fourth down conversions for the Detroit Lions. Yes, they did put them in. They weren't like long distance for downs, but you still wish your defense would hold up a little bit better. And what makes it moldy is the combination of the third and fourth down defense. Again, it extends drives. It allows them to drive down the field for more points. And.
00:21:04
Speaker
the defense as a whole just really struggled this game covering the middle of the field. And that's where the lions were hitting. Most other conversions was right down the middle. I know people are going to say, Oh, we'll play this way that well, here's a stat. And while Quay didn't have the, like the most perfect game when it came to coverage, he still had a lot better than the other two guys that are out on the field. So.
00:21:33
Speaker
per pro football reference. These are the completion ratings when throwing at these targets. Quaywalkers, 75%. He was targeted four times, allowed three catches for four big yards.
00:21:47
Speaker
Okay, like I said, not great, but what is 75? Probably C average, about an a straight C, not a C plus, C minus or anything, but a straight C.
00:22:01
Speaker
Wilson targeted three times allowed two completions for sixty six point seven percent the completion rating Little bit better than quays still not the greatest but a little bit better Isaiah McDuffie targeted ten times come nine completions ninety percent for 56 yards That's your weak point Isaiah McDuffie is not a coverage backer He is a downhill backer. He's a rush backer. He's a tackling machine, but he is not a coverage backer. Yes, I know. Edger and Cooper is hurt, but they have a guy. That they drafted in this year's draft that is not named Edger and Cooper that probably should start seeing the field a little bit more.
00:22:56
Speaker
And I'm trying to look real quick at snap counts for defense.
00:23:02
Speaker
and And he didn't play a single snap. I don't even know if he was active. So let's look at. I would assume he's he was active. But you know what assumptions do.
00:23:20
Speaker
Of course, that one doesn't tell me. So. Nope, he was active. The only, the inactive the packers had were Jair, Corey, Valentine, Romeo, Dobbs, Edger, Vern, Jacob, Monk. So Tyrant Hopper was active for the game, was suited up for the game and didn't play a single snap. It's set for on special teams.
00:23:49
Speaker
something's got to give. Yeah, Wilson had a little bit better coverage, but it looked like he was getting lost on a lot of things. McDuffie was out of position a lot of the time. Way was at least, at least was decent enough in coverage that he was sticking to the tight ends that he was covering, which it's Sam Laporta. And of course, you know,
00:24:18
Speaker
Sam Laporte is a solid tight end. You're not always going to keep him shut down, but you know, Quay was at least there to make the play on the ball when he could be. Same can't be said about McDuffie. So while I like Isaiah McDuffie, you can't have a man passing downs. They need to start incorporating Tyron Hopper a little bit more fine, you know,
00:24:48
Speaker
bring in somebody, there's got to be somebody out there that can start taking a little bit of snaps in coverage at the line backing position. It's definitely not Isaiah McDuffie. And I know they're in a bind because Cooper's hurt again, but you got to do something that middle of the field was a disgrace add on that.
00:25:15
Speaker
the screen defense. It seemed like the Lions were throwing a ton of screens and it was just eating up chunks of yards. And that goes with the whole middle of the defense type thing. it allows it the On the screens, it looked like the defensive line and the linebackers were selling out. So there was nobody there to cover the screens. And of course that allowed them to start oh
00:25:44
Speaker
gouging out yards Jamir Gibbs 30 yards David Montgomery 33 yards receiving it It just it made for a long game There's There's no way they should have been giving up that many yards on that many screen passes to those guys but again, I had to put that on linebackers and You know a little bit on the the defensive line They were selling out half the time on these screen passes Half the or the majority of the defensive line was already in the backfield The ball was out. There was nobody to catch up to them I know that sounds weird. I'm rambling because I'm just trying to make it hit 30 minutes, but The screen defense definitely was lacking
00:26:43
Speaker
The final thing that I'm going to say about this game as moldy, as a moldy take, and it seems like we had to do this one every
Controversial Refereeing Decisions
00:26:53
Speaker
week. And I seem to make up some kind of excuse for why, why I'm putting it there, but everybody in the world is saying it. These refs were horrid. There were too many calls that were, uh,
00:27:09
Speaker
and It wasn't even the calls that they were making that were bad. It was the calls that they weren't making that were bad. And then when they would make the call, it was like, okay, why not? Why didn't you call this earlier?
00:27:22
Speaker
On, I think when I was watching, I tried to watch some of the highlights again, just to kind of refresh my memory. And there was a, one of golf scrambles for close to first down.
00:27:37
Speaker
Van Ness was getting into the backfield and the lineman grabbed him by the collar and yanked him back. Well, he had already passed by him. As far as I know, that's the sin that's the essence of of holding.
00:27:57
Speaker
Okay, we didn't get that one. the One of, there's two major or technically three major controversial calls or no calls. The first one I'm going to mention is the course of the Christian Watson offensive pass interference. I know it sounds biased as a Packer fan that we say that we didn't like that call, but I think anybody who likes, who watches the game of football, say that was a BS call just because
00:28:32
Speaker
What was Christian supposed to do in that situation? He was running his route. He tried to get skinny to avoid the contact. Kirby Joseph ran right into him. They called the pass interference. It wasn't an intentional screen. It's not like he went out there and set the block, you know, set the pit or not a screen. They call it a pick play. It's not like he went out there and set the pick purposely.
00:29:02
Speaker
He was trying to run his route and honestly ah at on one cam camera angle, it looked like Joseph threw his shoulder into him to draw the penalty. I don't know if that's the case. It just looked like it in one can wrangle that that's what he did.
00:29:18
Speaker
The next controversial one is the, well, I guess technically you could split it up in two because there were a couple of no call. roughing the passers one specifically on Zadari Smith. And I said, I was going to get back to this Zadari issue. You need to get over whatever your issue is with the Packers. Half the players on this team weren't even there when you were on the team. So get over it. you I don't know the situation full situation. I don't think anybody ever will ever know the full situation. You didn't get your C.
00:29:55
Speaker
From my understanding of it, the Packer players always vote on the C. They don't just hand them out. So something the players did.
00:30:03
Speaker
Did not make you a captain that season. You were angry. I get it. You quote unquote got your revenge. You got one sag and only two other tackles would be whatever. That doesn't mean you need to take off. Jordan loves head. And that's basically what you did.
00:30:23
Speaker
You would potentially throw your hands into his helmet.
00:30:27
Speaker
And whether the refs wanted to call it or not, that should have been a penalty. You dove towards him, hands spread out, punching him basically in the face. That's the quintessential roughing the passer. Next one.
00:30:48
Speaker
Obviously is the Amman Ross ain't brown going against McKinney same thing punched him in the face have been hands to the face at least The final one is the potential no call on The offensive pass interference from Amman Ross ain't brown on that final drive It
00:31:14
Speaker
Do I think it was a penalty? Yeah, it probably could have been. But my big problem with that is Kishon should have continued playing through it instead of throwing his arms up in the air and expecting a call on it. He should have continued to play through it, which he kind of did after that. But by that time, I was a little too late. If he would have stuck on the guy and continued through it, who knows what that play would have ended up. But he threw up his hands, he slowed down, whatever.
00:31:43
Speaker
ah ah So I know it sounds like a broken record and sour grapes and all that stuff, but yes, those penalties were bad and, or those no calls were bad. And I know there was a couple others that I'm probably missing. I know there were a couple different, uh, should have been roughing the pastors that weren't called. There were holds that should have been called. There was other things, but some of those you can say, okay, well, you know,
00:32:13
Speaker
whatever they, it was spur or not spur the moment, but you know, it was not visible at that time and we're hindsight and everything, but a lot of them were, there were guys standing right there. There was ref standing right there that should have made those calls. They should have been made. So I'm going to wrap this one up because I don't have too much more to talk about.
00:32:38
Speaker
Uh, and when you don't have anybody to riff back and forth with, then, you know, it kind of sucks.
Conclusion and Listener Thanks
00:32:45
Speaker
But, you know, thank you for listening this week. Thank you for joining us. Please make sure to like and subscribe, subscribe wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Be sure to go over or reviews, good, bad, indifferent, whatever, you know, drop us some comments, let us know how we're doing, what you like, what you don't like.
00:33:08
Speaker
You know, whatever you want to put on there. Hi, you know, whatever that works for me to thumb up, thumb down, whatever, and wherever the podcast platform you use is also, please sure to be sure to go over to our website, Ohana Packers.org for our latest articles, past episodes, and of course our merch shop.
00:33:36
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:34:20
Speaker
I will be back with you this week for our preview of the week 15 against the Seahawks,
00:34:28
Speaker
which is the Sunday night game, I believe. So I will be back. I don't think Mike Wilson would probably just be me again, trying to ramble through, through things. As Mike would say, go pack go and a low hop.