マイク・ウォール氏とパッカーズのチョークトーク!!!

マイク・ウォール氏とパッカーズのチョークトーク!!!

[Music] What is up everybody? Happy Tuesday. Welcome in to another new episode of the Packaday podcast. I’m your host Andy Herman. You can follow me on Twitter, andyherman NFL. You can find the podcast at Packadayodcast. Thank you so much for joining me today making Packaday part of your daily routine. We are here for you 365 days a year on YouTube as well as over on the audio channel as well. We have a lot more content on the audio channel. So, if you’re not checking that out, make sure to do so. And if you’re just on the audio side, make sure to check out YouTube because we’ve got some bonus stuff over there as well. So, make sure you’re checking out both. Wherever you’re following, make sure to like, subscribe, comment, give those five star reviews. We appreciate that a ton. And if this is your first time here, thanks so much for checking us out. We really appreciate that. Hope you enjoy the show. Just know that we do have new episodes for you 365 days a year. So again, make sure to get those notifications and subscribe wherever you are following along. We are kicking off the Packers by week. It’s not a traditional week when it comes to media uh and uh availabilities, press conferences, things like that. Nobody spoke on Monday. No Matt Laflur know anything. Matt Lafleur will speak with the media on Tuesday, so we’ll hopefully get some updates from him on anything we can find out from an injury standpoint. We’ll see if we find out anything. Uh, and then as far as some, you know, kind of interesting injuries go as we get through this bye-week and start heading into next week, there are a handful of players that are eligible to return from injury that will be really interesting to see if any of them come back. Are any of them ready to play? Are there any that just kind of ramp up and open up their practice windows? But Marshon Lloyd, Jacob Monk, Colin Oliver, Christian Watson, and John Williams are all eligible to return. Of those five, the least likely and the one that I don’t expect to return at all is John Williams. I basically expect that to last the season just kind of on the updates that we’ve heard from John Williams so far. It feels like this is going to be a true red shirt season for him. But Watson, Oliver, Monk, and Lloyd, none of them would surprise me if they’re eligible to come back or if they’re capable of coming back at this point, I should say. And Watson seems likely that he’s at least going to open the practice window. But the other three very interesting and Marshall Lloyd, Jacob Monk, and Colin Oliver. We have got no experience with Colin Oliver so far. Player that there was a lot of excitement about coming out as a fifth round pick. Marshian Lloyd of course I I think he would likely be ready at this point, but we’ve heard no updates from Marshon Lloyd. and Jacob Monk you like not a insignificant player at this point with all the injuries along the offensive line and with Elton Jenkins sort of being a noteworthy struggle at center so far like that’s not nothing either. So it is going to be very interesting to see which of these players are eligible to return and maybe we get some updates from Matt Laflur here on Tuesday as well. One other note about Tuesday membersonly Q&A coming up at 100 p.m. Central time. If you’re a pack of a podcast YouTube member, make sure to check that out over at 1 pm central time. I do open it to everyone once the show is done. So, even if you’re not a member, you’re able to check out the Q&A after, but if you want to check it out live and ask all the questions as well, make sure you check out those memberships over on YouTube. 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All right, we are now joined once again by the one and only Mike Wall. You can find him on social media, Mikewall68, of course over on Process to Perform on YouTube and right here on the Packad podcast a bunch as well, which we are super excited about. Mike, we’ve got a ton to dig into with Packers Cowboys and just how this team has performed over the first quarter of the season. But before we get there, how you doing, my friend? Andy, doing well. That was a uh that was quite the game last weekend and we got a lot to talk about. For sure. We do. Uh I want to start with this idea of a killer instinct. We talked a little bit about on the live show. Green Bay had the opportunity in overtime. They’re down by three. they decide to kick off to uh start overtime. They give the ball to Dallas. The Dallas goes down and scores three. Part of the advantage of doing that is knowing the exact situation that you are in. And knowing that, hey, we score a touchdown. We win the game. And they have the ball first and 10 on the 25 yd line. There’s plenty of time left. There’s actually a minute and I believe it was 53 seconds left. Minute 53 seconds left. First and 10 on the 25 yardd line with a timeout. And obviously after that things get a little crazy. They do not get any real opportunity to score in the end zone. They almost blow it at the end and it felt like maybe they took their foot off the gas a little bit. Maybe it’s lack of killer instinct. Maybe it’s just poor preparation and poor situational awareness. I’ll let you take it in whatever direction that you want. What went wrong and what does Green Bay need to do better? That’s a great question. It’s, you know, it starts with, we talked a little bit about, we touched on in in the live show is that I I still don’t know if you if you kind of look at the stats last week. I think we ran for like four 4.7 yards per carry, but if you look at like Josh Jacobs in particular, you take away the the 19 yard and I think he had like a 17 yarder for the touchdown. Um, he’s under he’s almost at two yards a carry again and you’re just you’re not looking at really like can. So, there’s a difference between like if you’re an offensive lineman and you go out of the game and you’re like, “Oh, my my back averaged five yards a carry. We must have had a good game.” And then you’re like, “Oh, he had one carry for 95 yards and then 20 carries for like 50 yards.” Like, oh, it really isn’t that good, right? So, um the consistency of being able to move the sticks on the ground, particularly as you get down in the red zone because now think about the safeties are compressed because of the space. that they can fill. And the one thing the Dallas Cowboy, the Dallas Cowboys I thought did well on tables, their safeties do fill, much like the Green Bay Packers do, by the way. But when you don’t have that consistency in the ability to move the ball and may maybe most importantly not have contact with the running back in the backfield, which we did on a number of occasions last weekend, then again that play sheet becomes a little bit blurry. And so now you’re looking at the bubble screens or or the kind of those those those quick screens that we call them that you’re you’re just running the lineman out and trying to get a quick block for the for the wide receiver, the tunnel screens. Um you’re looking at that kind of stuff maybe, hey, can we pick up a situation where I’m get I want I get to maybe I’m on the 25, but I really want to get to the 16 because that’s where I have my favorite plays on on my play sheet. So you’re So as Mapor is looking at this, he’s kind of looking at like I I like it here. I really like it there. How do I get from here to there? Or I’m feeling like I don’t necessarily have the consistency that I’m looking for that I I don’t really trust the process necessarily of because I think before that for the last quarter they’d had two good runs and the rest of them are kind of going sideways. There’s just not a lot of action going on in the run game. So when you become this kind of passonly team and you’ve had a little bit of problem with the snapshot like we’ve talked about before again all of this stuff I think come becomes a little fuzzy. You know having said all that you coach the players you prep the players you got to trust the players and you want to put especially Jordan Love and Romeo Dobs and some of the guys that are proving to show up over and over and over again. You want to put them in situations to be great, not to be a tie, right? So, I I think the the one thing just from a mentality standpoint, we could talk about the the kind of the nuances of what you want to call where and you know, all these different things that I just touched on, but like fundamentally, do you want your your Jordan Loves, your Romeo Dove, your Josh Jacobs, do you want them to get that opportunity to to be great, to be elite, to make the play that’s going to be on the on Sports Center highlight or the or the the Monday Night Football, Sunday Night Football Highlight for years to come? do you want that opportunity or not? And I I think sometimes coaches lose sight of that a little bit because they’re worried with all the analytics and oh this this d I’m worried about this player or this situation. It’s like man give your great players opportunities to make you know make plays and just see what happens. I’ll let George pick on the other side of the football, right? Yeah. I I’m right there with you. It felt like the offense was rolling. They had, you know, 37 points up until that point. They moved the ball easily down the field against this defense again. They had just gone touchdown, touchdown, touchdown, field goal in their last four drives. And the only reason that was a field goal again is because the time ran out. And now they were, you know, positioned again to go get a game-winning touchdown. It just felt like there was too much fear, and trepidation of like, well, what if Dallas gets the ball back and not enough of how can we go out and win this game right here and right now? Get to three and one, get to the by-week and and kind of go from there. And I I it just feels like there was a part early in 2023 for those first half of the the games where you could tell they were kind of handcuffing Jordan a little bit and and maybe maybe handcuffing Strong, maybe just protecting him a little bit, not you know, wanting him to do too much or putting him in positions to make mistakes. Then there was a point midway through that season kind of after the trade deadline, things weren’t going great where like you know what, go out, go play, sling it, let’s see what you got. and he responded well. And it just feels like the next part of that evolution is to say, “All right, you’re the guy. Go win the game for us. We’re we’re I’m almost going to get out of the way. You You go do your thing. Go be special. Go win us the game.” So, there’s a couple plays last night. He obviously has the ability to make some checks. I don’t know if he’s actually switching plays completely at the line of scrimmage, but he certainly has the ability to make some checks. And obviously, they have some RPO things. We saw a couple last night. Some that did work and some that didn’t work. And you know, part of the part of the issue is always if you get a couple of those in the game that don’t work, there’s a chance you go back to the sideline and the coach is like, guess what? Now we’re running what I want to run. You know, I mean that that can still happen. Jordan is a good football player. He’s not at Brett Aaron level yet where he’s like, we’re going to run what I want to run. Like those convers those conversations aren’t happening yet. I at least I wouldn’t guess. Right. So because of that and maybe some of the inconsistency of success on the decisions that are being made, um again, it’s we’re it’s it’s like we’re browbeating somebody who just scored 40 points. But when that stuff does happen, the dynamics might change. They might they might put uh uh um some restrictions on kind of the the freedom that you have maybe at the line of scrimmage or you But I always think generally as a you know, I think Matt Laflur is a top five play caller. I think when you look at the totality of the offense and the situations he puts people in, that’s like last night, right? The second or third play of the game, they bust coverage on the on the left side and I think it’s Golden that makes the long catch, but they’re both they’re they’re effectively just running the same route. It’s like somebody’s So, the reason I bring that up is like somebody’s clearly wrong. I mean, the Dallas Cowboys were really wrong, but somebody over there, two people aren’t supposed to end up in the same spot 40 yards downfield. So, we’re making mistakes. And so it’s it might not be it’s first of all it’s probably not Jordan because we talked about this last week. They’re run, you know, Wixner was running the wrong route last week early in the game in the first 11 plays. So there are things going on behind the scenes and this happens in every in every locker room and every meeting room where whether it’s a receiver running the wrong route, whether just on the wrong page, tight end, running back, it’s not usually the quarterback, but there’s usually some combination of things happening where you’re like this this part of the play sheet I don’t like right now because I don’t think you’re going to run it the right way. And that could he could be directing that comment to anybody, but the reality is they just stopped running those plays. Yeah. Yeah, it’s it’s unfortunate because it felt like they were in a great position to go out and win that game at the end and then just kind of the the all the the air went out of the balloon and everything got deflated and again we talked about it yesterday lucky that that 1 second stayed on the clock so that they were able to at least tie it at the end but definitely felt like there was some some missed opportunity to go get the win in that situation. I do want to talk to you about the overall overtime decision because I think this is a really interesting conversation. The logic, of course, is give the other team the ball first and then we get to know exactly what we need in order to counter whatever that they did. And I understand that. I don’t necessarily dislike it. Um, you also end up in a scenario where if you kick off and you pin them deep and you get a three and out, now you get the ball back, you’re pretty darn close to field goal range and you can go and win the game right there and then. Um, but I also think that there’s these interesting scenarios. one, this is probably more rare, but if Dallas all of a sudden goes on like an eight, let’s say eight and a half minute drive, right? And whether it’s a field goal or a touchdown, say it’s a touchdown, eight and a half minute drive, you now only have a minute and a half to to counter that touchdown drive, which could be an issue. I think that’s a lesser of the two. But the other one is, let’s say there was two or three more minutes still on the clock and Dallas goes down and they kick their field goal and Green Bay goes down and kick their field goal and now Dallas has the ball and its next score wins. And so, you know, maybe it doesn’t get to that point. Maybe again with the the time restraints that that third, you know, drive is is less likely. But it does feel like that there is some possible opportunity for that to go sour by kicking off first. I don’t know. I honestly I I’m torn on how I feel about it, but I almost think you should take the ball first. I’m just curious your thoughts on it. I think you always take the ball second. You want It’s It’s just like college football. It’s the same because now they’ve changed the rule that no matter what you’re going to get the possession, you always want to know what you’re playing with because you can play with four downs. If you want if you want me to get into the weeds a little bit, the the the the history of this whole overtime thing is, as you can imagine, completely a function of how much money the NFL can make by keeping eyeballs on the screen. Sure. And this used to this used to be a big health and safety issue. So they originally didn’t want to have overtime because, you know, everyone’s like, why are we putting these players for this amount more minutes when you here’s where everybody gets injured at the end of has end of games, right? When people are tired. why are we going to put him out longer and give him a chance to be injured? Then they said, “All right, well, we’ll reduce it from 15 to 10 minutes.” And they said, “Okay.” And they they bring in this um this rule that if you score a field goal, it’s no big deal. It’s not first person to score anymore. Because they wanted both teams to have the football because they wanted the commercial breaks, right? But then they said, “But if you score a touchdown, then the game’s over.” It’s like, “Okay, great.” And then they had the Pat Mahomes, was it Pat Mahomes Josh Allen deal a couple years ago, and they’re like, “All right, that’s the playoffs.” And I think there was another game that maybe happened during the regular season and they were like, “Okay, you know what? Health and safety be damned. Like we we heard you. We don’t care. Now we just we’ll keep it at 10 minutes, though. How’s that sound, guys?” And so they’ve created this like I think for every player in the National Football League, if you’re going to make us play a quarter, then for God’s sakes, just we’ll play the quarter. Let’s just play the quarter out and see what happens at the end of the quarter. Like this isn’t like a golden, you know, golden gold deal in soccer or something. just play the damn quarter out and see what happens at the end of the because now it’s actually a football game again. Yeah. And make it a make it the right amount of time and it just like everything else and we’ll just kind of deal with the extra five minutes. But you’re right, it it feels it feels awkward and compressed and now you can, you know, kind of deliver these scenarios where you are left with either not too much time on your first drive or potentially not enough drive on your second. Yeah, there is uh there’s a lot of game theory that’s going to, you know, kind of continue with that with it being a shorter 10-minute period. Do you take the ball? Do you kick? It’s it’s really interesting. I’m interested to see how teams kind of handle this moving forward, but I think it’s a fun conversation nonetheless. I I can see both sides for sure. And, you know, it ultimately I don’t think costs Green Bay less. I mean, maybe maybe if they get the ball first, maybe they do go down and and score the touchdown right away, but then Dallas is going for it on four downs, too. It’s it’s a it’s a tough conversation one way or the other. just go in the game in regulation would be the really nice way to have things happen. Let let’s let’s go to the defensive side of the ball. We we talked again a little bit about this on the live, but this was something, you know, that this defense it felt like was going to be, you know, a situation where they give up 40 points to Dallas with no CD Lamb and missing. It was two offensive linemen going into the game. They lost another during the course of the game. So, it’s three offensive linemen that they’re ultimately missing, but they put up 40. We talked about it. Dak was freaking awesome in this game, but anything that the defense did differently or just didn’t do as well in this one that kind of stood out to you? Um, you know, it’s funny. You kind of watch the game and listen, they still have three first round draft picks on their on their offensive line. Like, they have guys that can move humans and and they’re not perfect by any means and I think some of those guys struggle at different points during the game, but that usually means that you can double team players, especially when you got kind of undersized people in in the middle, which we do. Um, and listen, George, like George Pickkins, like I see like as young re talking about really really young receivers in the league. I kind of look at like George Pickkins and Malik Neighbors. They’re kind of in a like those guys are a little bit No, I know we just got hurt, but they’re a little bit of a different class than everybody else in that they’re almost like jump ball guys. Like it doesn’t really matter. They’re people are people are afraid. They’re not Randy Moss, but they are people get afraid of guarding them like like we used to see with Randy Mars when everybody’s like, “Oh my god, this is going to be a problem, right?” Because they’re they just have everything from an athlete standpoint. They can out athlete you. Um and and George Pickins is just one of those guys in the league that that can out athlete everybody else. And I think he had eight eight for 134 last night. I mean, the guy was unconscious. And you know, some of those plays he’s he’s guarded very well. Some of those plays he’s giving he’s being given his respect. And I think that’s that’s always frustrating when you’re looking at from a fans perspective. But the other side of it is, you know, we want to keep people in front, rally to the ball. And the the difference, I think, between every other game that we’ve seen this year and this game was that the chips were very well timed with Micah Parsons in company. We didn’t see a lot like they blocked Rashad Evans. They didn’t just like give him two free sacks by not blocking him at all. You know, just kind of like some little like they just do the due diligence on the on the front. um Dak played out of his mind. And when you don’t get a great pass rush and you’re playing relatively, you know, um forgiving defense on the back end and just going to rally tackle like we rally tackled great, but we talked about it earlier. You have a quarterback that can actually do a 10, 12, 15 play drive and Dak Prescott and the Green Bay Packers knew that coming in. He’s been he’s been that kind of regular season quarterback for years and he just did a phenomenal job I thought of executing the game plan. I did too. I thought he was A++ in that game. It was one of the better games I’ve seen him play. You know, regular season Dak is really good, especially if he gets in a rhythm. He got in a rhythm and he was just he was an assassin all day long. And and sometimes, as much as it sucks, sometimes you just have to tip your cap to the other team, too, if you’re playing a really good brand of football. And Dak played an unbelievable brand of football in this one. One unit that did not play an unbelievable brand of football was the Packer special teams. Um it’s it’s not a huge issue because it’s only been going on for about three decades, Mike. So, it’s not, you know, it’s just one of these things that it’s going to, I’m sure, get corrected any day now. But, uh, in this game, obviously, let me start by saying, you see the the block kick a week ago, it’s a catastrophic moment in the game, and it it really loses you the game in that moment. I would love to assume uh that you spend a bunch of time, effort, and energy on the course of uh the week in correcting said issue and then in the second, you know, your opportunity to to make a kick, you have another catastrophic mistake. Player comes through, I think untouched, and blocks the kick. It gets a very favorable bounce right to Maris Bell where he’s not getting caught in that scenario. And it’s a three-point swing, which again, we don’t know how that would have changed the course of the game from there on out, but uh certainly three lost points there was was a huge issue for Green Bay in a game that was as close and razor thin as it was in the margins. How does that happen one week right after the other? Well, we’ve talked about it for years, unfortunately, on this show. I I don’t know how that’s addressed specifically. Is it addressed with kind of a tirade from the head coach in the special teams room? Hey, this isn’t going to happen anymore. The asters are going to get fired. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And then they’re still given like five minutes in practice to deal with it, right? Or they do or is like a pre-practice walkthrough or they don’t have any full speed reps because their sports science guys have shown that like we don’t want to run that much after, you know, seven on seven or whatever. like there’s so many things that go into like how you how you decide how your time is going to be split up um during during the course of the week of preparation and I just don’t I think it’s clear that I think it’s clear that preparation is severely lacking in specific spots across the National Football League, not just with the Green Bay Packers, but even like I was when I was in Germany for the last year in practice, you know, one day I just after about like four weeks I go, you know, if we just practice special teams because we had a couple American guys that could run the football. I go, we would we would score an extra like 10 points a game because nobody’s practicing this stuff, right? Everyone just goes, “Hey, this is how this new rule and then hey, we got a couple ideas and you know, we’re going to show how, you know, smart the coordinators are and then you look back and you go, well, why are there so many mistakes being made, you know, and we’re going to feature the kickers and this and that?” I just I just don’t think that it gets the level we talked about it before. It doesn’t get the level of respect that it’s probably needs. And it’s honestly, Andy, it is a complete function of those players don’t make the kind of eye watering money that the other players do. It is not as coveted a position. It is not, you know, you don’t you don’t play your whole you don’t work your whole life to be the gunner on special teams. should do it to be the middle linebacker or the safety or running back or whatever, right? So, even if that’s how you make there’s been guys, you know, you think about uh who’s the guy from God, the Patriots guy that’s been there forever. Yeah, Slater, I think, right? Slim Matthew Slater. Yeah. I mean, the guy has made a Hall of Fame career out of being a special teamer, right? But there’s those guys are so rare. That’s why we all that’s why they’re they’re they’re so special. But it’s just not it’s not the dream, I think, as you’re growing up and going through the process to be a career special teams guy. And I and I don’t know if the coaches treat it the same way or not, quite frankly. But, you know, it’s like there’s only like Darren Rzy should be a head coach by now. He should he should been a head coach by now, but he’s a special teams guy. Yeah. You know, there’s only one special teams guy in the National Football League that’s a head coach and he happens to be one of the top I don’t know what, five coaches in the league. like, you know, it’s it’s it’s uh it’s a conundrum. It’s a conundrum wrapped in a mystery, wrapped in uh to say the least, and it it certainly has not changed in Green Bay for for some period of time, and it continues to be an issue. I’ve talked about this in the past. I can only imagine, and I’m sure you can speak to this far better than I ever could, Mike, but you know, all these players are, you know, alpha god mode in their high school, not just in football, but in basketball, in baseball, in anything that they possibly put their mind to. They’re the king of the school, the the letter jack, all of it. You can you can only imagine. And then they go to college and it’s for the most part the exact same thing there. And they’re put on a pedestal and they’re the star and they’re everything at that specific college. And then you get to the NFL and you’re be you’re being told like, “Yep, we want you to be the the personal punt protector.” It’s like, “What? What are you talking about? I’ve been I’ve been the star my entire life and now you want me to be the the punt protect. You want me to do I’m sorry. You want me to do what on teams?” Like, “No, I’m a I’m a linebacker. I’m a corner. I’m a safety. I’m a whatever. I’m a receiver. I’m not I’m not a special teams guy.” And I can only imagine having to go from, you know, that mentality. And if you don’t get to the NFL probably without having that mentality of I’m the guy, I’m this dude. I’m gonna be the star. And then you get here and you’re asked to do just this, you know, role and it it’s got to just be such a dynamic change. Hey friends, I am so incredibly excited to announce that I’m going to be partnering with my favorite fantasy sports app, Sleeper, all season long here on Packad. 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Download the number one sports app today and experience it for yourself. And oh yeah, use promo code packade and you get 100% deposit match up to $100 on your very first deposit. Terms and conditions apply. See Sleepier’s terms of use for details. Currently operational in over 25 states. Check out Sleeper today. Well, we talked about it last show when the Ravens were kind of famous within the league for playing their starters on special teams because it was very very rare. I don’t even know if they still do it um or at the at the level that they used to. But the reality is even in the National Football League, the difference between your good player like your starter and your second team or third team guy that’s on special teams, athletically, you know, sporting IQ, ability to focus, like head space, all those things are like that bandwidth decently sized, right? So, you’re effectively going out there and you’re saying, “Okay, I’m going to put all my ones over here and they’re going to play each other.” Right? And then you go over here and you go, “All right, now I’m going to let some of my twos come in and they’re going to play this role that I don’t really think is that important. Otherwise, I put my ones in, but it’s important enough to practice a couple times.” And then your twos make mistakes and you go, “Huh, I wonder why that happened.” Yeah. It’s kind of you think about it like that. It’s like, oh well, yeah, of course this happens because they’re your twos. Otherwise, they if they were your ones, they’d be playing every rep and they probably wouldn’t have all these problems. You get what you emphasize and uh that’s yeah, got to figure out a better way to do it. And um yeah, right now it’s not not good enough to say the least. Offense played much better in this game, 40 points. Part of that I’m sure is Dallas’s defense. Uh part of that um you know, I think is is you know, Jordan Love had a good game and things some things like that. Uh we still saw some issues, miscues on the offensive line. Uh but what did you see from the offense in this one that allowed them to put up 40 points or was this more of a they got the right defense at the right time? I think a lot of it was right defense right time. I mean I again lot of talent on the offense um hurting at the offensive line from the injury perspective and it did have an effect even though you scored 40. It just shows you what a good play caller Matt Laflur is and what talented guys like I mean Josh Jacobs I mean Jordan Love, Josh Jacobs, you know Romeo Doss, those guys are are really really good football players and what was cool last night to see a little bit was when you go into the game and you go if anybody watched the my preview show, you know, we talked a lot about like I think we talked about last week Andy is Dallas is going to run, you know, they can’t get home with four. Now, they got home more than any week prior, but this week, but they you generally can’t pass rush and they have to play these they can’t play man because they got everybody hurt. So, they got to play these terrible zones where the linebackers get super deep. And so, it’s like if they’re going to take away the super deep crossers and everything, then what’s wide ass open? Well, your checkdowns. Josh Jacobs had a huge day in checkdowns. Um, your quarterback scrambles. I think one of the biggest plays of the game was when he avoided the sack from 97 and then went down the, you know, 20 25 yard run. Um, and your screen game and they ran a ton of screens. They didn’t execute very well on all of them, but they ran a ton of them. And so all of that stuff kind of made a lot of sense in the context of of how you should attack that this this defense. Um, you just want to it’s it’s it’s always weird when you score 40 points and you’re like, man, we left some meat on the bone, but you feel like they left some meat on the bone because you’ve seen that defense play for the last three weeks prior and you’re going, “Hey, 40 points sounds like a reasonable number in over, you know, in in the regular time, not in overtime.” And and again, you maybe they put their foot on the gas with a couple of those those series or, you know, maybe we just have a do a little bit better job of trying to figure out how to have a snap count that doesn’t make three of our players, you know, play at a deficit the entire football game and, you know, you have some more success. Yeah, it’s funny because Jordan Love echoed those sentiments in his postgame press conference saying he felt like there was a lot more out there for the offense, which again, you put up 40 points and you’re like, really? Cuz that’s a lot of points. But it did feel like there was more out there. Speaking of the screenplay, uh the one I can think of is Chris Brooks gets that screenplay with three Packers right in front of him, three blockers, and they all just collide into each other. Yeah. Still still some eyes to die. Did you Did you watch that play? Like that’s one of those plays where in my This is one of those plays where I’m wondering I I I ran that playback three times and I was like I I’m wondering if Elden Jenkins is hurt because he’s first out. Shawn Ryan could be first out, but they’re kind of on different levels. But he’s looking here and he doesn’t even see this the the Alley player and then so nobody goes to the Alley player. Shawn Ryan sees him late. I think it’s Shawn Ryan and then you know he he effectively tackles Chris Brooks and you’re going it’s like Keystone Cops and that’s a that is a like if you’re running zone that’s exactly if you’re first out where your eyes go. Like there’s it’s it’s not even a question. That’s they don’t play a ton. It’s like two man, right? So, your eyes go to that alley player and if he’s there, you take him. And the fact that they didn’t, you know, it’s there’s always plays in these games. It’s like I don’t want to go on an off shoot, but let’s do it anyways. Go for it. It’s like the It’s like the first half. There’s there’s plays in the game where they’ll get into like a a strong right set and then they’ll they’ll run their weak stuff and it’s clear and they adjusted in the halftime. That’s where two of the the two big Josh Josh Jacobs runs came from their adjustment after halftime. But pre in the first half, the entire uh defense, you know, Dallas Cowboys defense was completely moved over to the weak side because they’re like, “Yeah, we know you can’t run the ball with those tight ends, you know, strong. So, we’re going to if you’re going to put two or three of them over there, yeah, we just we know you’re just going to run over here.” They stack their linebackers. And it was literally like Shawn Ryan was taking his two steps trying to help the backside tackle with the with a dtackle and then he was running off the screen to the left trying to chase down the linebacker because that’s like that’s where he had to go and it was just you know yeah it’s it’s wild. Um, and that’s, you know, you have tendencies and then you have tendency breakers. And it’s always interesting to see how that plays out during the course of the game. But some of this stuff, like those are the plays that you were talking about earlier where back in the day with the like with the quarterback I played with, like we don’t even run the play. He’s like, “No, no, no. We’re going we’re going we went weak. We’re going strong. We’re going to can that and go back over.” And we talked about this last week where, you know, you hear can can can and maybe that means he’s flipping the script and going going to the the other side of with with the run or he’s going from run to pass or pass to run, right? But maybe those are some of the things that right now they’re just bringing in one play like we don’t have the ability to go, you know, strong and weak because some of that stuff, especially early on, you’re like, I don’t know, man. That doesn’t make a lot. It just doesn’t look right. No, it did not. And that’s again when we talk about having more meat on the bone for a game where you had 40 points, that’s a couple of the examples right there. And then uh one of the things that I don’t think’s been talked about maybe a ton, but probably starts to need to be talked about. You know, Green Bay’s had opportunities to win these games, but we know, Mike, that the the big indicator usually more than anything if you’re going to win a game is is winning the ball, winning the turnover battle. And for even in the first three games, as good as the defense was, they haven’t really been able to generate a ton of turnovers, and we have seen some turnovers in some inopportune times for Green Bay. Obviously, the interception a week ago against Cleveland, the fumble in this game against Dallas. Uh if you’re not going to win the turnover battle, just makes it really, really difficult, especially again when the the margins are razor thin in the NFL. They’ve got to start doing a better job of a just taking care of the football in some of those key situations, but defense has got to start turning the ball over a little bit as well. Yeah, you I mean when you start thinking about like what are the real differentiators, you know, every head coach in pregame talks like what are they talking about? It’s you know either have explosive plays or limit explosive plays and the turnover battle and and and if you can and you know it’s like do you want to control the clock or do you want to control the amount of plays you get to run? You know, it’s like you start talking about tempo and that but those are like those are really the keys to every football game now. It’s like how many explosive plays can you have and who’s going to win the turnover batter and by how much? And you know, I think at this this point last year, Xavier McKenna maybe had already had a couple picks. Yeah. Like one in like every game for like the first like two, three, four weeks or something. Yeah. Yeah. So it just kind of felt like, oh, okay, this I guess this is how it’s going to be for the rest of our lives, right? And usually that doesn’t work out. Like guys guys start going like, hey, that guy catches the ball every time we throw over there, so let’s just stop throwing over that way. You know what I mean? So there’s a there’s a couple different things. It’s always part of this always too is like it’s hard for me because they they tackle in my opinion they tackle a lot better than they did two three years ago. Like a lot better. Yep. And I I can show a highlight tape just off this one game of how Evan Williams and Devon Miller come in and and try to make hit. I love what they’re doing. Right. Yep. But they because they’re fundamental tackling, they’re not punching at the ball maybe like they’re not peanut punching all the time. They’re not going for all that stuff maybe as much. and um you know some of those opportunities when you hold a guy up and punch the ball through that’s when you get those those turnovers. So if you make it an emphasis in practice I think over the course of time you’re going to see those numbers come up. I think it’s just inevitable. But the other thing that I I didn’t bring up in that that coach talk was like pressure equals picks. And if you don’t create pressure on the football at a at a at a consistent clip um like they really didn’t do in this game, it’s it’s hard to turn over a good quarterback. Yeah, it really is. And we saw that, you know, the pressure overall has been good through the course of the first month of the season, but uh in this game it wasn’t quite there and it just has not resulted in the picks that you would maybe expect in some of those situations. I I I talked about this the other day. I’m almost encouraged by it a little bit because usually, you know, like these things come in bunches and it just kind of happens some like they’re going to start getting turnovers and then I think we’re going to start seeing this team hit on a lot more cylinders when that starts to happen. Just makes the offense’s job easier. Defense is getting off the field quicker and I think that will come with time. I just think they’re too talented to not have that happen. I’m just hoping, fingers crossed, Mike, they’re saving that for playoffs, big games against Philly and some of those and hopefully that starts paying dividends later. But they’re going to have to work for it, no questions asked. My last one before we get you out of here. We’re going into a by-week for Green Bay. We’re through a quarter of the season. What to you are the biggest areas of opportunity for this team and the biggest things that need to get cleaned up if this team wants to be a contender down the road. You need to get healthy on the offensive line certainly. I think between that and understanding how to snap the ball on the road in a hostile environment. So you’re not putting people at a deficit all the time. I honestly think as stupid as that and simple as that sounds, that is going to do so much for Matt Laflur as a play caller because I think you’re going to get a really good idea of what you’re good at. Sure. Um I think that’s going to clarify a lot of things for Jordan Love at the line of scrimmage. Um I think that’s going to make him even more effective and I think that’s going to give I think the first quarter of this, we talked about it. I think this for the first quarter of this season, there was going to be a lot of kind of sh lack of better term shuffling in the wide receiver room to see where everybody kind of fit, what personnel groups created the most space and different route combinations, etc. And I’m sure they are looking at those very carefully and saying, “Okay, we feel we’re we’re feeling better and better and better about certain rock route combinations, matchups, or types of matchups that we like with certain personnel.” uh Romeo Dobs in particular and where we want to put these guys, you know, to position for success. But I think those two things on offense are um incredibly important as they move forward against good football teams, particularly as it gets gets to cold weather and we have to go on the road. And then on the other side of the football, I really think they’ve played extremely well. Yeah, I think unfortunately the re, you know, the reality is Andy, like they played three really good football games and this game they didn’t play very well. Um, but they played against Dak Pres like Dak Prescott had one of the better games of his career, man. I mean, just call it what it is. And the Dallas Cowboys as as as much fun everybody pokes the Dallas Cowboys and as as bad as they’ve been in the playoffs, like I think they’re number one in offense. Yep, they are. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, like they put up a ton of they’re just a regular season like death squad when it comes to being able to put up points and yards on the offensive side of the football. Um, you want to the one thing that you that you want to get really good at I think is all the complimentary players like we’ve seen it except for really la this this last maybe even two weeks because you know the the flacco at the quarterback thing’s kind of tough as far as how they’re going to get rid of the football and whatnot but all the complimentary players now okay now we go all right Michael Parson’s got get your back healthy but once you get your back healthy you are now the absolute focal point of this defense. Everyone’s got a game plan for where you are because of the unique things you can do. That means that Rashan Garry, that means that Eric Bari when he’s in, that means that Lucas Van Ness, that means all these other guy, Carl Brown, which I Carl Brown’s playing well by the way, Carl Brooks, it was Carl Brooks, sorry. Um, all these guys like we now we know, we know by calls, we know by what the center’s saying, we know by the point, we know when we’re going to have our one-on- ones. we have to be, you know, really, really honing our skills and getting home. And you’d like to see a situation with those two linebackers. How do we get those guy like I would love to get those guys involved either at the line of scrimmage or one of them or both of them as often as possible? Like be as aggressive as possible with those two guys. if it means that we got to switch out some defensive linemen and go into some sort of penny package. Like I don’t I just feel like those two guys aside from Micah are like the the huge difference makers at the first and second level of our defense regardless if they are at the first and second of our defense. So just continue to build build out there. But I think it’s a really good defense, man. It’s I think it’s just going to get better. I think so, too. I have zero concern over the defense. I know this game was frustrating and putting up 40 points is not the way that you want to go into the bye-week, but I think they’re going to be totally fine. I think this is a one-off. I think the Cleveland game of only putting up 13 points is a one or 10 points is a one-off, and I think we’re going to see a much more well-rounded team moving forward, but they’re obviously going to have to correct some of the mistakes that we’ve talked about, offense, defense, and special teams if they want to be that team that ultimately we think they can become. Mike, I cannot thank you enough for everything. You’re absolutely amazing. and I appreciate everything that you’re doing for the show and for the podcast. Where can we find all of your incredible work and where can we find you on social media? Yeah, find me Mikewell 68 on Twitter. Uh I don’t know if I check anything else anymore, Andy. I’ll be honest with you, but the process to perform channel on YouTube. We try to put this stuff up on the packet podcast as well. So, I’m going to do a I’ll do a game review of this here uh uh in the next couple hours. And then um yeah, thanks for having me on. Awesome. We’ll definitely get that up on the channel here as well. Follow everything that Mike does. It’s some of the best film work and film breakdown that you can possibly find. So, appreciate you as always. We’ll make sure to follow you again, Mike Walsh. You can follow me at Andyherman NFL. That’s going to do it for us, but until next time and as always, go Packo.

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