Transcript
Speaker: Okay, this is retry two for us. Packers wish they could have a mulligan and a retry for week one. Iowa Joe and Mike, we're here to recap whatever that slop show was in Minnesota for the Packers, where once again, like has been the trend with LeFleur, things looked hunky-dory for half, three-quarters of the game, and then it all went to shit at the end of it.
Speaker: There were things along the way that helped or hurt the Packers, but overall, it's just another disappointing outcome for this team and really just makes you wonder some things aloud about the direction of this squad. But Joe, I know you did the live. Sorry, I couldn't join. Didn't get to hear of it. But what are your initial thoughts out of the gate on this one before we get into our usual format?
Speaker: Well...
Speaker: 12 for 98 for the Packers and 3 for 15 for the Vikings. Can you guess what I'm talking about?
Speaker: Betting odds, obviously. Yeah. More like that's the penalties that were called against each team.
Speaker: And... I said this during the live, and I know Vikings fans and Bears fans and any other rival team fans are going to say, oh it's just sour grapes. They can't handle losing. They can't handle losing.
Speaker: That game right there, and I said this on on Twitter and I said this on the live, I haven't seen this bad of a screw job since brett screw or since Vince McMahon screwed Bret Hart in Montreal in 97. The...
Speaker: the That refereeing job crew was horrid. And there is no way if hands or butts about it that anybody could tell me that there was no bias there at all.
Speaker: When i will fully say the hit that Kyler Murray took was not a great hit. It wasn't.
Speaker: He got hurt. I don't like seeing players get hurt. But with that said, those that's one of those tackles that there's no possible way to avoid that.
Speaker: Because Bullard went low because Kyler was still running.
Speaker: Kyler never went into a slide. He went into a dive. So he gave himself up. But he still got need nailed for an unnecessary roughness.
Speaker: Devontae Wyatt gets a hit on Carson Wentz, goes down, braces himself from falling on Carson Wentz, gets nailed for dropping the body weight on the quarterback.
Speaker: But when you go look at the hits that Jordan Love took, he was getting hit below the knees, he was getting hit in the head, and there were multiple of him getting body weight dropped on him And none of them were called.
Speaker: And the below the heat the knees hits is what the Brady rule is supposed to take into effect. But yet none of those were called. Then there's already been film cut-ups of the Phantom um oh oh illegal contacts.
Speaker: the ones the Packers got called but then the Vikings didn't get called for. There was one that super pissed me off. I think it was against, and think it was Golden.
Speaker: And they they didn't call a pass interference or a legal grab or anything like that. But you, how did his shoulder pad pop out of the jersey?
Speaker: It just didn't say, oh, I want to come out of the jersey. Can I come out of jersey now? No, it was be his jersey was getting pulled hard enough that the his shoulder pad popped out from underneath the jersey.
Speaker: So, yes. I will fully put this all on And this is how i can I can justify putting a lot of this Vikings win on on the bad ah penalties.
Speaker: Total yardage.
Speaker: 419 to 239. If I just gave you those two random yardages, who do you think, who, who, which team won? Yep.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yeah, that, that, that's how I'm feeling. Now, can I put everything on the refs? Kind of, but. Not really, because i can put some of it on the floor.
Speaker: Even though I think he called a relatively good game for the majority of the game,
Speaker: the later part... It's just that when you lose like you did, his mistakes are going to get crucified. But yeah, overall, he made what I thought were good calls. Right. so the The biggest one, ah that and we'll get into it here in a minute, but the biggest one that I know of is the... and And I don't even blame him for making this decision that wiped out the the three points and he went for it on the fourth and one.
Speaker: I get that. That's the kind of court of that coach that we want that is says, here, you're my offense, go get one yard. The play call and the decision at the line is what I can say was boneheaded.
Speaker: Because even J.J. Watt and Jim Nance both said it. Why are you making Jordan do it on his own?
Speaker: You have a play in your repertoire that has gotten you yardage after yardage. And you even got, if even if you didn't want to run it with Tucker, you have Jonu Smith who took snaps at running back last year for the Miami Dolphins.
Speaker: that could probably do it.
Speaker: Why not do your your your version of the tush push with the tight end rushing underneath the the center and getting the one yard you need?
Speaker: Okay, ye my rant for that moment is over. Just a lot of questionable things. Yeah, and that's one that if you listen to the audio of the play, Jordan cans to that action, so you can't even really blame LaFleur for that. Hang on just a second.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, this is one of those where... There's a conflagration of a bunch of incidents that happened within about a five minute period of game time that just totally flipped the game.
Speaker: A lot of people are going to point to the um taking the points off the board. That's going to be one of those old head versus new head debate kind of things.
Speaker: um friend of the show Jacob Westendorf pointed it out where like hey so much of this fan base wanted LeFleur to be more aggressive you can't get mad when he does it and it doesn't work out and stuff and you see a lot of people fall onto the like taking points off the board never feels good blah blah blah all that kind of stuff but I'm like Okay, best case scenario, the game is tied after that drive-in. Are you really feeling any better?
Speaker: You know what i mean? like Like, to play the like, what if game, the what if... No, honestly, I'm probably more pissed that it's a tie game at that point. then like, oh, well, you know, like, I don't think any of our attitudes will be like, well, at least it's time. We got re we got ramrodded by the refs four times on that drive.
Speaker: The three first downs that shouldn't have been plus the uncalled false start on the two point conversion. It's like, are you really feeling better if it's a tie game or a two point game instead of being, you know, still 22 or 25 to 17 or whatever it is? No, you're not. So it did yeah, like,
Speaker: Let's just get into our usual format. We're going to get stuck here doing this thing and we'll get there when we get to moldy, but... Mmm, fresh cheese.
Speaker: I got some of them. I don't know if I have them all. Got it. You want to go first? I got a few, actually, ironically. Um... Well, like I said, there are some good ones, but I'm going to take a low-hanging fruit.
Speaker: And I'm going to take a minute on him. Actually, there's two of them I could take a minute on, but I'm mainly going to go with Lucas Van Ness. um He was a man on fire today.
Speaker: ah i thought he looked really good. This isn't just my Hawkeye bias coming out on it. I thought he looked really good. one sack one tackle for loss he was in on another place he was he was run defense looks solid he was getting some press i i won't know until probably tomorrow to see how many pressures he had um but i thought he looked really good ah I'm going to cheat because this is probably going to be one that you're going to do, but I'm going to say the pass rush unit as a whole, because that was the biggest question mark a lot of people had. But if you remember right, I got to pat myself on the back that I was one of the ones that said I wasn't too concerned because there was enough pieces that could rotate in and out that could generate enough pressure
Speaker: to be disruptive enough. Uh,
Speaker: Until Micah comes back. And then when Micah comes back, this this defense should be a dominant dominant pass rush defense. So yeah, one of my freshes, I definitely got to go with with Lucas Van Ness.
Speaker: No, and like his literal only negative play on the day is going to be the offsides that led to the touch, you know, that helped kind of um vault Minnesota's first touchdown play.
Speaker: Like I said, on those, i don't understand when you jump that far offsides, why you try and get back on. It's like, just start running at the quarterback or reach out and touch someone. Just draw, just, just surrender the five yards because, know,
Speaker: The chances of you actually getting back onside and the offense not doing something about it are so infinitesimally low at this point of how all offenses operate. just Just bite the bullet. You've already screwed up by jumping that far offside.
Speaker: Just bite the bullet, go force reaction or go just run at the quarterback and force the refs to blow it dead because, you know, it's unabated to the quarterback, all that kind of stuff. Like, that's literally the one negative play.
Speaker: I know Vikings fans will have comments about his uncalled face mask, blah, blah, blah. Those happen over the course of a game. The stuff that we're going to cover later on is stuff that's just like inexcusably bad. But yeah, I'm so happy for Lucas because he might be the guy who had the most pressure on him. You know, the quarterback is always under pressure. That's just the nature of the job and yada, yada, yada.
Speaker: But in terms of like guys who needed this season to go well I think Lucas is at the top of that list like and and that's with and that's without a doubt so I'm really really happy for Lucas Mine is just going to be the guys returning from injury.
Speaker: Tucker had a really good day. um you know Would have liked him to be a little more efficient, but um you know three catches on six targets for 65 yards, had a couple 20-plus yarders in there.
Speaker: And then the pressure numbers aren't going to look good for him, but that's because I've never liked how PFF grades pressure counts and stuff like that. But The fact that Bakubo LA played the whole... Started and played the whole game looked for the most part like himself.
Speaker: Even got a couple carries in there that were not supposed to be. But good on him for being aware and like not just letting the ball just be like, hey, like I am glad that he picked up and ran with the ball just to be safe kind of thing. So like good awareness, good athleticism, honestly, on a couple of those plays.
Speaker: But, um... Just really, you need those two guys back and everything seems really dour right now, but having those guys come back and look as good as they did, Wyatt to a lesser extent, you know, just seeing the guys who ended last season on with season ending injuries, seeing them come back this year, it was really good to to have those guys back in the fold.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, i you could throw Jordan Morgan in there too because I thought him and zachu ah Zach Bakubuele really... i don't think the offensive line problems were the bookends.
Speaker: No. like And like I said, like you look at the PFF pressure totals and I think they tell a very false narrative because it's like, I forget how many pressures they gave the O-line, but they gave nine of them. They split nine of them to Morgan and Bakuboele. But that's more a function of the interior was getting smoked so bad that Jordan you didn't have somewhere to step up.
Speaker: And the edges were basically, they weren't running the arc to the quarterback. They were running straight lines to the quarterback for all intents and purposes. um And i thought, you know even in one of those plays where Jordan got beat, he had He had that moment where he stuck with it and like reblocked his guy to give Love time to step outside to make a throw. and That was the one where he threw it back across the middle to Kraft for a first down and stuff. like I just want to see that they're gamers and like I can live with that for now and like for Morgan to get his first real start at his home position and it's in not a good environment against not the ideal defensive coordinator option like I can live with that as a building block for Morgan to go off of.
Speaker: Yeah, and like I said, ah they definitely were not the problem. i know Jordan had ah Jordan Morgan had the one false start attributed to him. But outside of that, I mean, you really didn't hear their name called. And usually we always say that if you're an offensive lineman and your name's not being spoke about, and no news is usually good news.
Speaker: And so I thought they both did really well. And then especially Bako Buwele coming back from the injury he did and the uncertainty that we had on whether or not he was even going start and all that good stuff. So, you know, I'm really happy for that. My other low hanging fruit, and I'm just going to throw this out here and you've given me props for this before, but Jonathan Ford, I thought he looked tremendous out there. he was getting pressure. He was getting through the line. His, you could even give him the the, and I know true North kind of mentioned that it was kind of BS thing, even even being a Packer fan, that they took away Aaron Jones' long run saying that he was down by contact. Well, it was ah Jonathan Ford's arm that caused the down by contact. So he was a real fighter. of What is this? This is year five for him in the league? Or is this year four?
Speaker: Year five. I think he's a 21 draft picker. Yeah, so, you know, for him to come this far and, you know, being an original seventh-round pick for the Packers, being...
Speaker: Mike's doing the math. Yeah, you're five. 22 draft pick. Okay. okay So from being him, ah being an original seventh round pick for the Packers, being cut, riding the practice squad for a while, bouncing to um Chicago for a bit, and then to come back home and and just, you know, earn a starting spot on the ah ah ah defensive line.
Speaker: you know I really got to give it to him. His stop a stat line according to ESPN right now is four total tackles. and ah they took They only gave him half a sack. They gave the other one half other half of it to Keyshawn, but I think if anything, he deserves at least three quarters of that sack because the majority of it was on him. But you know I'm really happy for him. I'm glad he's starting to really take that step into what the Packers need. and that's ah Because if you remember right, that was a big question on what what was going to be going into the season was who was going to be the primary nose tackle. And and he's really stepped up and become that guy.
Speaker: Yup, he's absolutely earned that role. It took took me a second to recognize who 96 was. Because I was like, alright I was like 64. But yeah, I was like, okay, that's four. So um it took a second, but really happy for him. Like you said, he's earned everything he's got in on um this squad.
Speaker: And then um my other low hanging fruit was um the, just the you saw the, you saw the vision for the passing game coalesce in this game.
Speaker: um Watson had a hell of a first half. Overall, a really good game. Golden had a solid game. He's going really want that one drop back, that third down pass play over the middle. But teaching tape, he's going to learn from it. But, I mean, you generate, like, so five or six plays of 30 or more passing, your you know, receiving yards on the day.
Speaker: it's Like you said, it's just one of those that it's, like, it's just inexplicable how... how you lose that kind of game, but them's the deals. But really good to see the passing game. You know, in adverse circumstances, this stadium, Flores' defense, um the O-line struggles, and they just carved up that secondary when when it mattered in the game. So just unfortunate for the outcome to be what it was in this one.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, the stats are a little bit weird. And I kind of said this during my live that they have Matthew Golden six receptions on 12 targets. And i you know I think that's kind of even a little bit bad faith because there were several of them that weren't. I understand what they consider a target that if any ball thrown in his general vicinity is going to be considered a target. But there were some that just...
Speaker: there was no way in heck that there was going to be a ah play made on them. But, you know, six catches, 95 yards, he was just five yards short of being a hundred yarder. And that would have been his first hundred yard. I think this is what a career high for him having the 95. So the, this, you know, was a really good game for him. Christian did some great things, six receptions on eight targets. So there was really nothing more he could do.
Speaker: ah You throw in basically all the receiving threats. You know, Janu had a decent game. Tucker, Matthew, Christian. You know, those guys really led the team in it. or i mean, really showed out for the team. And, and yeah, so.
Speaker: um
Speaker: There's some other ones that you can make cases for. But then, because I know there's one that I know you're going to want to talk about that. Just the general eye test would say, you know, if you just look at the stat lines, the box scores, you can say, oh, well, he had a hell of a game. But I know you're going to talk about how maybe he didn't have such a good game ah compared to what the box score says. But yeah,
Speaker: yeah I think that's really. We got to give it up for Jordan. It was a good game. Like, yeah. Well, no, that's not the one I was thinking of. no, no, but I'm just saying we do have to give Jordan his flowers. He wore this defense all day.
Speaker: And the stat line is both reflective of how well he played, but also kind of mean to him because the fact that he ends up at 50% completion percentage is a raw deal on his end because half the time he was just having to get the ball out so he wouldn't take sacks.
Speaker: His interception is one of those where as a Packer fan, you're just kind of like, oh, great. It gives the haters reasons to hate on him. It took two frigging deflections for that interception to happen. Like...
Speaker: That it got deflected at the line of scrimmage and it and it had Harrison Smith had to dig it out of the ground like a volleyball liberal And there had to be someone behind him to make the interception so like even the interception was kind of like I mean it happened you can't deny it happened but it's not the like he handed it to someone like a lot of people are gonna make it out to be and Like he was the offense today. And yeah, it's just unfortunate that I forget where I saw but someone said like he had 387 passing yards and only two touchdowns. That says everything you need to know about this game and how certain areas of the field were approached and all that kind of stuff. So I totally agree with that.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Yeah. The only thing I got to say, there was a couple of things that he did that I just, I wish he wouldn't have. And that was the, I understand what he was doing, but it could have done even more harm than what good. And that was when late in the game, when he was getting sacked, instead of just hanging onto the ball, he was throwing the ball up.
Speaker: And that's one of them that they credited Zach Bacoboile with a fumble recovery. and And then there was the other one that oh he was kind of doing the same thing and it popped out and that's where the Vikings got the ball.
Speaker: I don't know what was it on like the five yard line or whatever it was. Um, so those two moments I, I wish he wouldn't have done, but overall there's not too much more you can complain about Jordan because of the situation he was in.
Speaker: Yep. So, um, and, and Hey, give it up to the rookie. I know he missed the PAT, but he came back. He would have, he would have made, all right mean, he did make all his field goals started off with a 59 yarder.
Speaker: um Yeah, obviously you don't want to miss the PAT, but overall really good. And hey, the PAT was the second kick of the day and he made three more after it. So good job, rookie.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, I forgot about that. No, the one and I don't know where you're going to put him at, but I was going to say Edren Cooper. If you go by the stat lines, he had a very productive day, and he had a lot of great splash plays. But I know you mentioned it on Twitter, and you'll probably mention it here about some of the things that maybe take him out of being... It was still a B-plus day. It wasn't the S-rank or A-plus that a lot of people are going to make it out to be. And that's just part of, like, you're definitely better for having Edge. I ah don't say this to be, like...
Speaker: oh no, I'm poo-pooing him or anything. But it is one of those like, okay, if this is going to be one of the linchpins of your defense, he has to hit at a higher average. And he should have had two more TFLs. um He's not a good spy. Like, I know he wasn't spying on the play, but Kyler juked the jock off of him on that second drive play where he went right around him like he wasn't there. Um...
Speaker: But most of the other, you know, he had the one play where he closes in coverage he closes from depth in coverage and brings, I think, Mason down after, like, a one-yard catch or something like that to force a punt.
Speaker: Like, there was just, it was from that tackle for loss to that tackle on third down where it was like, okay, like, he's missed, like, two or three plays. That kind of thing. Like, are we going to have?
Speaker: Uh-oh. Great that you're almost having one of these, but yeah. um Overall, like I said, overall it was like a B plus-y game for um for Cooper.
Speaker: Things to improve on, but um could have been better kind of game. Right, so that's about all I got. Are there any other ones that you want to throw in there? If we think of any of them, I'll just say overall, like you said, you touched on it. The defensive front was mostly good for this game. Like, there were some mental mistakes, you know, like the um the off-sides penalties and those kind of things. But otherwise, I thought the front played a pretty solid game today. All right, well, I'm going to jump in the next one.
Speaker: What's this deal, shit?
Speaker: Um, so I'm going to put the running game into this. i because I don't fully blame the guys that they used in the running game.
Speaker: um now the reason why I'm going to put it in stale is because of two main reasons. One, the interior offensive line was just not doing anything this game.
Speaker: um Whoever decided to start Donovan Jennings needs to be slapped. ah He is... i i I don't get it.
Speaker: Donovan Jennings didn't start any games in the right in the preseason. He played mainly the backup, and now he's starting the first week of the regular season.
Speaker: When you've had both Jacob Monk and Jager Burton starting, I don't understand that that situation.
Speaker: um so That's for the next segment. Right. But the reason I bring that is because it it hindered the run game a lot. When they could get to the outside, they had a little bit more success. But when they were trying to run up the middle, there was like little to nothing that they could do.
Speaker: With that being said, there are three oh ah running backs on the roster at the moment. Why did they only rotate in to... understand Caleb Johnson just got into the building, but there should be no reason why he couldn't have got a carry or two, especially considering how the running backs were looking.
Speaker: um
Speaker: chris john ah Chris Johnson Chris Brooks I he had a couple of ok runs but was nothing special and you know Marshawn gotta give him as much as I can he came out of the game healthy he
Speaker: he did what he could with what he was given but that was about it
Speaker: there was nothing major that he could do.
Speaker: And part of it is because of that offensive line.
Speaker: Yep. My stale... One of them is going to be, Jaden Reed, need you to catch the ball, man. um That drop, I know it was behind him, but that... like Watt pointed it out. He...
Speaker: team 25 yards is a long way to go, but maybe you're at worst trying another smack-fueled goal from range kind of thing. And that totally let the air out of the—you know, that was after Melton's big kick return and all that kind of stuff, and you get nothing out of it.
Speaker: And that sucked. And, you know, he ends up with, what, three catches for 20 yards on seven targets. This has always been my thing with Reid, where it's like when everyone was saying he's wide receiver one— Your wide receiver one can't be a guy who just takes advantages of who takes advantage of other people drawing coverage.
Speaker: Like, I know that sounds really harsh, but that's always been Reid's thing is that he's not the primary Reid on a play. he's He's always the second or third look after you've drawn coverage to other primary Tucker, Watson, Golden in this offense kind of thing. So, like...
Speaker: when you do get your opportunities, you cannot drop them, especially the easy ones, because that is what absolutely killed them in 2024 down the stretches. He was just dropping easy throws left and right.
Speaker: um And yeah, like just kind of to, um to build off of that. It's like, just don't mess up easy plays. Like, like I said, it kind of pointed out with golden on the one play.
Speaker: um But yeah, like, youre especially in this environment against Flores, you cannot afford to have negative plays because you dropped plays that were there to be made kind thing. I know Golden's one was much more difficult.
Speaker: Reed's one was behind him, but it's like, that's why you're getting paid, you know, in Reed's case, $17 million. dollars Golden's case, that's why you're a first round pick. You're expected to make those plays. Yeah. And that's, that,
Speaker: You know, and Reid's also been in the league league a little bit longer, so there's no excuses for him on that. I figured that was going to be one of of the stales, if not a little bit moldy on that one because it seemed to be consistent topic with him.
Speaker: um Okay, I'm going to do it. And some people aren't going to be happy with it. Keyshawn Nixon.
Speaker: I will put him in the stale. Yes, he had a good couple of plays. There's no taking that away from him. But he's still not a number one cornerback. And you saw it in certain areas where he just wasn't... Minnesota was still happy to line up Justin Jefferson on the right side of the field.
Speaker: Right. And so...
Speaker: And now... maybe you can answer it and maybe maybe not but i know nansen watt said carrington was out there but i don't see any stats for him was he actually out there was because Cissé left the game in like the middle of the third quarter with cramps and I don't think he came back afterward and so Valentine was out there for Aaron Jones go ahead touchdown basically from that at least that point on so he was the one response I don't want to say he was responsible for the Jones touchdown but he was the one who couldn't hem the fullback back in and there and um on Jefferson's touchdown after the um
Speaker: after the the love interception that was um Valentine who was trying to chase him on the over route and couldn't, you know, bring him down. I know people are having fun at his expense, but that's a rough angle to make a tackle from the matter who the DB is.
Speaker: And like, I'm not gonna put that in the same bin of like, he still can't tackle. You know what i mean? Like, it's not great that he couldn't make the play, but a lot of DBs are gonna struggle to make that play, especially on a Justin Jefferson.
Speaker: And who is the guy there that should have been there to support him? Oh, yeah. Nixon. So like like, you know what I mean? Like, well, the only reason I brought up Carrington was because those two guys, if that's who you're going to roll with, if she says not on the field, it's going to be a lot of issues because neither one of them are going to tackle. And then somebody's going to say, well, Joe, he did have a couple of tackles, but where were the tackles?
Speaker: They weren't in the, in coverage. They were when he was brought in as a, as a pass rusher. And even then, it was one of them was on a running back that was probably his size.
Speaker: And so, yeah, I'm still not sold on it. Yes, he had an okay game, but this is not a – he's not an all-pro. He's not a pro bowler.
Speaker: ah He's not a CB1. They've got to go out and do something. Yep. No problems there.
Speaker: But I'm out of so i'm out of um stinky. I think we're into moldy at this point. Okay. I'm going to put this one in stale. Oh, stale. Not sticky.
Speaker: But it's probably going to end up in moldy depending on how the rest of the season goes. And I know people are getting tired of hearing me talk about it.
Speaker: Sky Moore being on the 53-man roster.
Speaker: we want And this one should have probably been put into the fresh. Bo Melton had 124 kick return yards.
Speaker: That right there tells me you don't need Sky Moore on this kick return. Caleb Johnson had two returns for 52 yards.
Speaker: That right there tells me you don't need Sky Moore. Sky Moore for punts had a long of 12. That's no better than we've had in the past.
Speaker: So I will continue to put this into stale, and it's probably going to continue into moldy depending on how things go on the rest of the season. And then even though the game is done at that point, but like, Love tries to throw that last ditch throw on fourth down, and Sky's just a nothing factor on it because he's...
Speaker: you know, our height out there trying to run into the end zone kind of thing. And like love because, you know, he's having to fade and put it off his back foot because of the pressure and all. It's like, it's just totally not competitive. If you look at it, I don't think he even knew it was a possibility. It was going to be coming his way. Cause he didn't even turn for it.
Speaker: Yep. So like all the talk about secret weapon, it's like, he doesn't need to see the field on offense. Yeah. Like, his best contribution on offense is, like, they faked the whirlybird to him, and I think that was Lloyd's best run of the day.
Speaker: So, okay, bravo. I guess you get a contributing, you know, you get a helmet sticker for contributing. I got nothing else. You get a half a star. Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, yeah, we'll hit the next one. It's a moldy cheese. ah Where you want to go with it? All right, so my one-game moldy guy today, Evan Williams, had a nightmare game today.
Speaker: Was just... So first off, you know, like you gave props to Nixon. He was the one guy who ran down Aaron Jones, you know, on the play that probably should have counted for him kind of thing.
Speaker: Evan Williams, touch him down! He's right there! like it's It's the most elementary of elementary plays. Assume nothing, take nothing for granted. have no idea what you're doing on that play. Stands there, looks at him, doesn't touch him down.
Speaker: His penalty, it's a little more borderline than think a lot of people are giving him. But when you're having a rough game already, like you can't have that kind of penalty.
Speaker: And then the big kick return that led to Minnesota's second touchdown, Williams gets jumped by a blocker and then a couple other guys get out of but Williams was playing with fire on coverage all game.
Speaker: I don't and I don't think this is an a chord thing where if you watch the coverage unit Williams was trying to like shoot over a coverage lane on every one of the kickoffs.
Speaker: And I just don't like it because I understand it if he's the backside guy, but he was so like they're kicking to from how if you're looking, you know, from behind Green Bay to where they're kicking to Minnesota, they're kicking to the right.
Speaker: Williams is the guy on the outside to the right there. You have Sorrell outside of him being the anchor to the sideline because you want to hem the guy back inside. But Williams like so that he did it all three times. He like sort of slowed up the returner on the first one. The second one he got.
Speaker: juked or he was totally out of the play and that was the one if the guy didn't have to jump over a small pile he might so have run for a longer return than he did on the second one and then on the third one he gets decked and yeah so like you know evan williams is one of those guys that's like oh that's supposed to be one of the tent poles of like the best safety room in the league blah blah blah that kind of stuff just a Crap day at the office for Williams. So it's a one game moldy for me and it absolutely cannot become a trend for him. Like they cannot afford for Williams to continuously have bad games for this defense.
Speaker: You could probably throw Xavier in there because I don't think he had a really good game today either. I don't think it was horrid, but I don't think it was... Just not much impact on the game.
Speaker: so like The Hawkinson touchdown is not his fault. That's more they found Zaire Franklin in coverage and you know um McKinney is playing it you know outside in because they're trying to shade coverage to help with you know Jefferson and Addison.
Speaker: um but yeah like you said i don i don't i wouldn't say moldy but it's one of those it it can't be a trend that he has no impact like on the game and stuff um but yeah just not a great game from the safety rope like they needed them to have a positive impact on the game mostly because of was because because of williams you didn't today so i've got two that i can think of off the top of my head One I've already ranted on a lot, so the other one I'm going to go with, I am, I'm going to put Brian Gutekunst in there for right now.
Speaker: There were two major holes that we knew of going into this season, and he barely addressed them. One was going to be cornerback. Now, they did draft Cissé with the second-round pick, and for all intents and purposes,
Speaker: cise had was was good i mean he had his moments but he's gonna have his rookie you know rough starts and all that stuff but outside of that they brought in saint juice but i i think saint juice saw very little a time out ah on defense um and then it was just the status quo of carrington and and queshawn so there was no real movement there number two interior offensive line and guess what else struggled to today interior interior offensive line now you could probably throw the floor into this because it's a decision that's where i was going with my next one so you can stay on gutekunst on this side of it
Speaker: Okay, well, I was just going to say you could throw him into it a little bit because of the decision-making of why is Donovan Jennings out there starting. Oh, I'm going to talk about that next, so yeah. um When you have Jagger Burton and and at at least give Jacob Monk the chance to get out there and play it over Jennings ah because at least Monk showed something in the preseason compared to what Jennings has been showing.
Speaker: um so
Speaker: I really got to put him in this moment I hate to because he has done good things for this football team. He has brought in some, you know, he's he's he's got a core group of guys that have, you know, that that's going to but make this team good.
Speaker: but then there's gonna be spots that you just, what what are you even doing? Why are you not? And this isn't, oh, well, they need to go get Kevin Zeitler out of of ah retirement. or I know you were having it back and forth with Wendell Ferreira about Mekhi Becton and that, but that's those are spots that needed to be taken care of in the off season.
Speaker: Not try to bring somebody in off the ah junk pile when you need to in the middle of the season. And same thing goes with cornerback.
Speaker: I don't know what they can do to bring somebody in But yeah, I don't know if they're going to survive the season with Cissé and everyone else.
Speaker: Yeah, like you said, Gurkhan's isn't without, he's not without reproach in this regard. But LeFleur, once again, and you saw different people say it, once Jennings was announced by like the beat reporters that he was taking the snaps with the starters,
Speaker: Like, Bukowski has said it multiple times. Anytime you give this coaching staff the opportunity to mess up this O-line allotment, they are going to mess it up. You just have to count on that at this point.
Speaker: This just, it so felt like one another in a long line of trying to big brain the position. And, you know, some people were trying to say like, well, you know, other teams wanted Jennings, you know, they were calling about him, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: You alluded to it already. He took no snaps with the starters in preseason. Were Monk and Burton perfect? No, of course not, because Monk has never started before and Burton's a rookie.
Speaker: But they both were making mistakes or having their mo their issues with opposing starting D-lines. Jennings was having a nondescriptive disappointing preseason against the 2s and 3s opposing D-lines.
Speaker: And I said it before the game where... If they lose, it's going to be a, well, you know, it was in the pride. LaFleur basically said like, hey, we had reps behind the scenes, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: And if they won, it was going to be one of those, hey, we had a feeling. We're very proud of Jennings, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff. And Like, the the thing that makes that infuriates me on this and makes me shake my head is this just smells so badly of a, we don't want the rookie's first start to be in a hostile environment.
Speaker: Well, okay, now you're shit up the creek at home or in a different weird environment in New York next week, but... Like, that's the thing is, Jennings is basically a rookie, too, because he spent, yeah, sure, he's been with the team for two seasons, but he hasn't been off the practice, you know, he's barely been active or off the practice squad for most of the time he's been here.
Speaker: And, like...
Speaker: i I feel like none of the things that you think that like, oh, he's more veteran, he has a start in Minnesota, none of that looked like it frigging mattered today.
Speaker: Like, it just the fact that he's 20 pounds heavier than Burton or Monk, that didn't seem to matter. He had a false start and or a holding penalty. Like, it was just...
Speaker: It's just another in the long line of like, we like Lucas Patrick over John Runyon, or we like Royce Newman over John Runyon, or like, so I heard someone say it.
Speaker: think it was Nick Schmitz, where it's like, I would love to have boring and average right now at the guard spot. And like, it just...
Speaker: It is one of those where you're just kind of like, dang it, like you guys should have just kept Runyon after 2023. You guys tried to paint, you know put lipstick on the pig kind of thing and stuff, and it just totally blew up in your face. and all The Banks situation gets dumber and dumber. That is where Groot...
Speaker: And like, I don't even know where to throw the blame on it. Like, I put the blame on Goot goot for paying him so much. And I understand you got pay to get guys to come in for agency.
Speaker: But based on how he drafts and based on the guys they scout and stuff, Banks does not fit the the mold of a guy that front office brings in. That is a LaFleur find. And...
Speaker: bad insider trading from your one of your friends and like LaFleur needs to stop having friends in the NFL because all he does is lose to him or get bad insider knowledge on free agents and stuff um but who was starting at right guard It was Monk. It was Monk starting at right guard. Oh, okay.
Speaker: And like, yes, Monk has the really bad image on the first strip, you know, the the the strip fumble right after Minnesota takes the lead where he's sliding left and he doesn't block the guy.
Speaker: And I don't... This is one of those that I'm like... and In the words of Mike Wall, not how I do it, not how I necessarily teach it, but he understands that like, hey, we're sliding left and that guy is outside of him to his right. So like, robotically, it's quote unquote, the right thing to be looking left and expecting work.
Speaker: But he needs to be quicker to understand like,
Speaker: And like maybe that's a miscommunication between him and Bakuboele where he's expecting Zach to be moving left as well and stuff because Zach picks up Van Ginkle on the end of the line. But that's one of those where like I thought Monk was fine until he wasn't.
Speaker: And that's the thing is like this O-line situation, the game they were playing and the problem for the Packers is when you have these many issues on the O-line is you have a narrow band of where you can win the game.
Speaker: And once the game slips out side of that narrow band, you can't you can't put water back in the bottle at that point. And they hit that point when they lost the lead. And then when you know and then yeah everyone's going to be like, oh, how did they score so many points? It's like, well, when you get the ball inside your five-yard line three times in a row, well, fuck, of course you're supposed to score successive touchdowns with no with no hesitation and stuff. So...
Speaker: um it Like, the Monk part, like I'm sure he's not going to grade very well, but I thought he was fine, like i said, until the game was like, you know, totally you have to pass the ball situation. Well, not just that, but you could tell there towards the end, Flores is like, well, they're just letting us get away with whatever, so we're going to rush eight. We're just going rush eight.
Speaker: Yeah. And like the the one, the play where, um the play, the first play where Zach thought he ran for a first down, that was almost a carbon copy of the Drake Dabney clip that Vikings fans have been circulating where Mark Redman never gets out of his stance. And then, you know, I think that's one where they might charge the pressure to Bakubo LA because PFF is stupid like that. But it's Bakubo, like, trying to recover for Redmond before Jordan gets plowed. And then, like I said, he luckily had the wherewithal to pick the ball up and all that kind of stuff. But, um like, it is, again, just the Jennings. Like, the the Jennings situation is, again, it's a systematic failure of this coaching staff of...
Speaker: And it goes back to LeFleur panic um pat when he panic elevated Stenevich from run game coordinator, offensive line coach to offensive coordinator.
Speaker: And look, I love Stenevich. He's a Michigan Wolverine. He's an all Big Ten former all two time all Big Ten left tackle at Michigan. And I say this, I love the guy, but LaFleur, you have to call the bluff and just say, okay, you're going to hire my O-line coach as your coordinator?
Speaker: Cool. And at the time that he was being interviewed, this is when, um... Oh, shucks. they This is when the Bears had a defensive coach as their head coach. It's like, that's your offensive coordinator hire?
Speaker: Like, cool. Like, go do it. Like, you call that bluff and you live with it kind of thing. Because, like, literally, he was only allowed to interview because we were in the playoffs and you have to be elevating the guy to interview while the the team is in the playoffs. And you just got to call a bluff at that point. You can't you can't panic elevate someone. Because...
Speaker: Now you take Stenevich out of his best role, which is O-line and run game coordinator, and you put, as you joked for three years, the plant into the the ah offensive line coach position.
Speaker: And who has legitimately gotten better over that period? Elton, you know, partly for age, but Elton fell off under... Buttkiss' watch.
Speaker: um you know Say whatever you want. Walker deteriorated over his time with Buttkiss at the helm. um Like, Yosh went from like a, oh, this guy might get us like a fourth round pick in comp pick to, oh, like, did we get anything for him in compensatory pick?
Speaker: Like, it's just been a degradation of play at the offensive line. And... LeFleur panic elevating Stenevich to offensive coordinator has had this trickle-down effect that's just cascaded across this this offense.
Speaker: And thank God Jordan got out of this game healthy because... He was getting rocked back there. And of course, it's right before he got stuffed on the fourth down, but Jordan proved again that the one-word description for him is unflappable.
Speaker: Like, the dude doesn't, he like, his heart rate doesn't look like it gets up. Yeah, he's gonna do some silly body. He's gonna throw off his back foot, but, like, he had so many plays where he was making those, the the he was making chicken salad out of chicken shit.
Speaker: because of what was given to him by the O-line. Like, Golden's big play, he stepped up and around two guys on the right side to fit that ball into Golden.
Speaker: So, like, it's just one of those where... And, like, to get back to the LeFleur part of it all, once they said Jennings was starting, it's like, why didn't he play with the starters all preseason? You knew Banks was compromised.
Speaker: And like i said, I defended the move to restructure Banks because my whole thought process was you cannot go into this season with four brand new start, like not four brand new, but you cannot go into the season with question marks at four positions on the O-line.
Speaker: Unfortunately, Banks has been one of those question marks. But the thinking was, is he was help he was healthier than he was at any point during the season, at the end of the season. He was playing well. Like, that's the thing that everyone is shitting on right now. He was playing well at the end of last season.
Speaker: And that's why I was able to justify like, okay, it's not ideal, but hey, you've got your starting left guard and your starting center who you were able to create some movement in the run game with.
Speaker: And you know you're hoping that Bakuboele is back to the player he was. You're hoping Morgan is just better than Walker was down the stretch. And I think he is. And like I said, Bakuboele was in the fresh because he played the whole game, looked pretty good.
Speaker: And then it was, okay, then you just have to figure out right guard. But the Banks thing has blown up in their faces. The moment, the moment he showed up with knee tendinitis that didn't allow him to play.
Speaker: continuous snaps at left guard, you needed to pick a a a surrogate left guard. And the problem I have with Jennings, and like I said, I talked myself into because like, okay, you wanted the more veteran guy, even though they have the same number of meaningful starts or snaps and starts at the position. I don't care that Jennings started the de facto fourth preseason game last year in week 18. Like that just doesn't matter.
Speaker: And like, it just, again, it makes you wonder, what the fuck was preseason for? Like, like I said, Bertin is a rookie, he's not perfect, but Jennings is not better than him. Like, he's just not.
Speaker: You would have been better off throwing Belton in at left guard. And like I said, I think the the the the big concern I have is that they fully expected Banks to start today.
Speaker: When he couldn't go, instead of just saying, Burton, you're starting, they were like, no burton's the top backup at all three positions we can start jennings we'll be able to get away with it because if monk can't hang we're gonna put burton at right guard and that just like having that mentality is such a like it's such a it's such a half ass in half ass out mentality to have and Yeah, it just further goes into all the stuff you and I were ranting about at the end of the season where the floor, you're getting to, I don't know what you do here territory.
Speaker: Yes, like a lot of the game plan offensively was great. The pass, whatever, what you know, like I know he had a hand in creating the offensive line problems, but a lot of the stuff they were trying to do to move the ball when the game, you know, like I said, when they were in when they were in the middle of the roadway, the two meter wide roadway they had to work with, it was working because LeFleur does come up with good pass protection plans and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: Once the game got away from them, it just... it went up like ah It went up like a bunch of smoke, just like the Denver game last year. And you just left yourself no margin for error.
Speaker: And... Like, with Buttkiss, what is any of these returning guys better at than they were the year before? Like... The only...
Speaker: Like I said, the two golden marks are Bakuboele looks healthy and pretty good, and Morgan looks comfortable at left tackle. You know, you need more data to like say like they're good kind of thing, but like it just the operation between those two guys looks fine. And Ryan, there were some off-target snaps and stuff, but overall, I thought he was fine today.
Speaker: But like outside of that, who has gotten better at what on this O-line? And that falls directly on coaching. And then that's a byproduct of LeFleur moving Stenevich out of the room because he panicked.
Speaker: And then just not having the wherewithal to, we need to do something about this room. Like, of all the guys you can bring in right now, they should he should be calling Stoutland right now and being like, hey, are you sure you're done? like And if Buttkiss has a problem with it, okay, cool.
Speaker: Bye. Yeah. yeah Yeah. I mean... that's about where I'm at. ah I'm not going to add any more because that was a pretty good rant on that.
Speaker: ah So I'm just going to say, and I ranted on this earlier, but the refereeing, I just, I can't get over that. that hey It's definitely a moldy.
Speaker: ah This would be like a seven-year-old mold growing on this block. ah And I think it all really started when Hockley looked at Jordan and goes, you've been warned once and called a fucking penalty on ah abrupt movement.
Speaker: And even Nansen are like, what are you talking about abrupt movement? And it was nothing any different than any other quarterback ever does in in those situations.
Speaker: But they called abrupt movement on him.
Speaker: And then from that point on, it I mean, like I said, the the hit on Kyler was earlier than that. But that's one of those that it's going to go whatever way you're going to go because of just what the outcome of what happened there.
Speaker: But once Hockley did that in and the tone that he did, you knew there was something there. You knew. Yeah. And from that point on, that was just, that was the end of it. And they did not let up and they were not calling stuff on that was happening to Jordan, but they were calling it when it would happen to Carson Wentz.
Speaker: The fact that The three Vikings penalties were two blatant false starts, and then they miss one on the two-point conversion, and then it's the the offsides that LeFleur takes the points off the board. Those are the three Vikings penalties.
Speaker: and it's just like And you know viking you got Vikings fans pointing out the two face masks that went uncalled, yada yada. They scored a touchdown right after the Justin Jefferson one, so it's a moot point in my book.
Speaker: You know, you can get whatever you're— You're getting half the distance to the goal and a first down, and you score a touchdown anyway, so whatever. And then the other one, I think they kicked the field goal after the luke the uncalled Lucas one or whatever.
Speaker: But it's like, okay, Jordan got left looking like a Rock'em Sock a robot a handful of times in this game. Late high hits on the quarterback are supposed to be called every time. Like you said, there were a couple low ones that went on the Tom Brady rule went left uncovered by by this ref crew. And then the shit cherry on the pie is you call two chicken shit illegal contact defensive holding penalties that extend that lead taking touchdown drive by the Vikings when you let
Speaker: Three penalties go on the throw from Love to Golden in the end zone where he's illegally contacted, he's held, and then because the ball's in the air when Metellus is holding him, that's PI. i so like, you you had three opportunities to throw a flag on that play, and you didn't.
Speaker: And, like... Well, like I said, the one one of those that wasn't called on Golden, his shoulder pad just magically popped out from underneath the jersey. Right, and that's that all that one play, and that was in the end zone. Well, that's what i mean. it just How does that magically just pop out? Right.
Speaker: And it's just funny because, like, the one that Bullard got called for illegal contact, the contact starts before the five-yard marker, and the receiver does nothing to get away from him. He's just...
Speaker: he, Bullard is, Bullard has a right to his spot on the field, and the the receiver does nothing to deviate course, that's not Bullard's fault. And also, you shouldn't be throwing that flag when the quarterback gets dumped before that contact even happens.
Speaker: Like, what are we even doing here? And then the, um, the one where McKinney gets called for that negates the the Evan Williams interception,
Speaker: He gets dump trucked by Hawkinson. Like, and McKinney even throws his hands out as he's getting dump trucked to try and be like, hey, this is OPI.
Speaker: And the refs are like, no, that's holding. yes light Like we said, at the end of the day, this goes back to not scoring a touchdown on your earlier red zone opportunities, turning the bow-melting 59-yard kick return into zero points.
Speaker: You know, those all factor in. you're within You're within one score because you didn't handle your business earlier in the game. But also, it doesn't excuse blatant piss-shit referee work and stuff. And what's really, really bad for the Packers is there were there this game and the outcome of the saints uh lions game which directly affect the packers were horribly horribly affected by refereeing because in the lion saints game you had the inexplicable where golf gets hit and is he's throwing the ball and the ball goes backwards
Speaker: and the Saints recover it for a touchdown, but the NFL said he didn't mean to throw it backwards, so it's an incomplete pass, which is one of the most chicken little what the shit is that calls, and like,
Speaker: and And then you have Pereira defending that call and all that kind of stuff. And it's like, at that point, just cut the feet and get rid of the broadcast specialist because there's no point in having someone defend that kind of play call or penalty call or refereeing call.
Speaker: and then you knew the mcclellan roughing the passer penalty is bad because territory immediately is like yeah this one's not this one's not roughing the passer and again it gets into there's no point in having this guy in the booth if new york's not gonna call and ref assist and take back a flag kind of thing like It does no good for the broadcast to have that guy because they almost never disagree with the call on the field because the brotherhood. The fucking referees i have a stronger brotherhood than the NFL players do. But the thing is, is even if they disagree, it doesn't do anything. yeah Even if they agree, it doesn't do anything. right just It's their opinion.
Speaker: Yep. So it's pointless. It's totally pointless. There's no reason to have that guy in the booth. Like, you're better off having just the former player give their thoughts on it.
Speaker: Like, this game needs to be sent right to New York, right to Goodell's office, and say what happened with this refereeing crew.
Speaker: Yup. And Musketa tweeted joke, I think jokingly, but half seriously about like in three years, this game is going to be a Tim Donahy equivalent because it is the whole, like even Vikings people were like, we don't understand why the line for this game moved the way it did from March till now. And it's just so weird or the, not the money line, the spread, the spread moved, but the money line stayed with the Packers.
Speaker: And it's one of those where it's like,
Speaker: what is happening here? like and And then you have a drive like that and it just makes you side-eye the whole operation. But above it all, Nick Collins came out and tweeted it after the game, like, you can't leave it in the hands of the referees because they're going to fuck it up every time.
Speaker: And, like... Yeah, but here's the thing that I'm going to say the to disagree with that. I understand what he means, you don't leave it in the hands of the refs. But... There's nothing you can do about it if they're going to call every single little thing against you, even if it doesn't if it's not supposed to be called.
Speaker: Because how do you play the game? You might as well just walk your 11 guys off the field and say, okay, score your touchdown.
Speaker: Because there's nothing else you and that's basically what they had to do. Okay, score your touchdown. There's nothing more we can do. we can't put hands on you we can't go through you we can't do this we can't do anything and you know this isn't too i mean if i had to put it the refereeing in that those final two quarters is probably 75 of the reason why they lost that game just the other 25 is because they just the offense just did not do their job well enough to get the points that they needed
Speaker: And part of it is because you couldn't get any momentum on offense because you're getting either called for bullshit or not getting stuff called that should have been, especially it like we say all the time, if you're not gonna call or you're gonna call all stuff,
Speaker: across the game, then fine, those are the rules of engagement. But when you have a 12 to 3 split and the only three penalties you call are procedural pre-snap penalties on one team and the other team gets called for the gamut of ticky-tack stuff, like you said, something's wrong. Something is moldy and, like, foul. Well, I want you to do me one favor to look into.
Speaker: I want to know about the 12th man one. because they claim the reason why they didn't call the penalty on the vikings for the 12 men was because the packers subbed out and it didn't they didn't give the vikings a chance to sub one in because they clearly had 12 men on the field when the ball was was snapped so that that's your research for this week And, like, Hockley, just like his dad tries to verbose and make, a like, ah a dissertation out of it to make himself look smart and shit like that. But, like, and the the thing... I don't want to watch this game, but the thing I do want to look at is... there's So there's two too many guys on defense penalties.
Speaker: Because it's like having 12 guys on the field at the snap. That's the one everyone's used to. But if... Minnesota lines up to play defense with 12 guys.
Speaker: That is a penalty on the spot. You cannot line up in a defense with 12 guys. And the the thing that Hockley is saying is that because Green Bay huddled up, entered a full huddle, as opposed to just trying to run tempo at the line is why Minnesota wasn't neat, wasn't expected to be given time to um to to substitute a guy. That's the explanation of it, is that because Green Bay goes into the huddle, sends a guy in, sends a guy off, because you break the huddle with a certain 11, Minnesota has had time to adjust and redo. But like I said,
Speaker: They seemed to have eleven guys in more than 11 guys in formation at one point, and that's why the guy is running through the Green Bay formation to try and get off the field. And I'm never certain the coaches get that timeout in time because like it just never seems to play out in real time. But yeah like we don't want to let this episode go too long or anything. You got anything else that's super pressing on your mind, or you want to just leave it for our next opponent preview episode?
Speaker: No, i mean, i just want to say that I do appreciate everybody that showed up at the the live and commented and and all that stuff. ah We did have one Viking fan come in and say, you know,
Speaker: i don't know i mean you guys did get hosed but you know what are what else do you say about it and and all that stuff and so you know i do appreciate shit everybody who come in i'm hoping to find somebody and i'm not going to force mike into it because he's he's got kids damn it um But I will find somebody to ride along with on the lives, so it's not just me rambling for 45 minutes and whatever. But um yeah, thanks for everybody that tuned in and make sure you're following so you never miss when we we go live.
Speaker: Yep. And we we're put a bow on this one. The Packers dropped to a disappointing o and one Unfortunately, it's a movie we've seen before from this team. And like, you don't want to be overdramatic, but these are the kind of things where when you have higher retention on guys in the locker room, you do start to get that, are we just cursed? Is this who we are?
Speaker: And you cannot let that snowball one loss into a whole season of just listlessness. And so the Packers have to, they have to get this win.
Speaker: And I know everyone's gonna say, oh, it's the Jets, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff. you've got to get this win and get to 500 again. Like, you've got to get this win next week. We'll cover that in our, you know, we'll we'll bring that up in our pre opponent preview show.
Speaker: um For Iowa Joe, I'm Mike. Go Pack Goal and Aloha.
