#905 Packers Unscripted: Missed opportunity in Minnesota

0:03Speaker 1:Hi everybody, welcome to another edition of Packers Unscripted from Packers.com. I am Mike Spofford, joined as always by my trusted colleague Wes Hodkowitz. We're coming to you here from the Pottawatomie Sportsbook studio inside the walls of Lambeau Field. Wes, we are back from the trip to Minneapolis. A season opening 39-22 loss to the Minnesota Vikings. Very disappointing the way this one went. finished the way it played out at the end. The long and the short of it is it was a snowball effect and the Packers couldn't stop that snowball from rolling downhill and burying them at the end of the day.

0:45Speaker 2:We did five final thoughts on Friday. You and I stepped in the studio Friday morning before anything really got started here at Lambeau, before we were in Minneapolis, before we took the plane ride, before we stepped into US Bank Stadium. And I think both of us in our keys to victory kind of laid out what had to happen in this game to get it done. And in mine in particular was the need to finish and the need to do it in the fourth quarter. And not because it was a narrative coming out of last season, not because it's something that has been just overemphasized and reiterated this offseason, because that's what it was going to take in that environment. Because you and I felt it.

1:18Speaker 2:We felt it a half dozen times already now at U.S. Bank Stadium. What this can be like in there when that team is playing well, when momentum is on the Viking side, and you can't stop it. Now, obviously, as the followers on X would tell you, I had certain feelings about how a couple things went during the course of that game, compliments of Ed Hockley's son, but the fact is you still have to find a way to get some stops and to get some momentum rallying your way, and I just felt like that series, the go-ahead drive by Minnesota, That was the turning point, and Green Bay just was not able to recapture any of its early room momentum after that.

2:01Speaker 1:Yeah, that was really, I guess, what I would say was the most disheartening thing about it is that even with everything that had started to go wrong, you know, you take the points off the board, you get stopped on the fourth and one, the Vikings go the other way, you have the three third down penalties, and the Vikings take the lead. They take their first lead of the game. But in that moment... It is a three-point game with six and a half minutes on the clock, and Jordan Love is taking the field, having thrown for over 300 yards already at that point in the game. Anytime the Packers are on the road, down by three, with six minutes on the clock, and Jordan Love has the ball, that's a situation that, as a Packers fan, you should feel pretty good about, and that's a situation where I think the Packers are going to win their fair share of games because of who Jordan Love is and what this offense can be. But it couldn't find anything. There was no answer. There was no answer to the things that had gone wrong. And that is the narrative that this team is going to have to change because now it has carried over from last season, fair or unfair, whatever.

3:09Speaker 1:All of the comebacks by the opponents when the Packers have been on the road over the last however many weeks, months you want to look at it, they've all had their different circumstances. They haven't all been the same. But the results have been the same, and so that's why the narrative is there, and that's what the Packers need to deal with. Because the bottom line is you have to be, especially to win on the road in this league, you have to be the better team at crunch time.

3:40Speaker 1:And that's the one thing that the Packers haven't been able to solve just yet.

3:44Speaker 2:No, and— We've talked a lot about that. As you said, it's been a part of the narrative. And I wrote in our insider inbox column that the thing that actually bothered me the most coming out of the game was the red zone. Because this is an area, I mean, you look statistically, Green Bay wasn't bad in it per se last year. I think they were middle of the pack, but they've been nowhere near what they were in like the gold zone era. And what is one big reason why teams can come back in the fourth quarter. What's one big reason teams can come back in the second half?

4:13Speaker 2:This has nothing to do with Matt LaFleur. This goes back to the Mike McCarthy era. It happens across the league constantly. If you don't punch the ball in, if you don't finish for seven, you're going to find a way to let the opponent come back in. And that was probably the biggest takeaway from this. I love the fact, I thought it was a gutsy call, but I thought it set the tone for Trey Smack to go out there and make the 59-yarder's second longest field goal in Packers history in his first NFL game.

4:40Speaker 1:Amazing to me that a guy who's going to be in the Packers Hall of Fame here before too much longer, Mason Crosby, that in Trey Smack's first regular season NFL game, he made a field goal longer than Mason Crosby ever made in a game in his 16-year career. And that's not a knock on Crosby. It's just incredible to me that that's how it played out.

5:01Speaker 2:You know what it is? And I think this is going to happen given another five years. We can talk about this probably in another episode, but given another five, 10 years, I think you're going to see the, the, the kicker numbers specifically on field goals. Almost like when you look back at the nineties quarterback numbers, right? When you look at Troy Aikman's numbers and the standard kid looks at him and goes, man. those weren't that impressive. Well, you had to be there to witness it. The game kind of changed. And obviously the way that the quarterback was utilized and what it took to win, right? The field goal thing is just out of this world now.

5:30Speaker 2:You have to have a guy that can make a 59-yard kick because head coaches want to try it. Whereas, you know, maybe 10, 15 years ago, if that's in the Metrodome, are you punting, trying to pin them back? You know, what exactly is the play there, you know? So it's just funny to see how that game has turned. That being said... there was way too much of Trey Smack in this game. There were too many times where, you know, you get 240-plus yards. You know, Matt LaFleur talked about it. There was 10 plays he had explosives for over 350 yards, I think is what he said.

5:58Speaker 2:But there were two in specific that I think about with the Matthew Golden catch and the Jonu Smith catch, and he only got three points out of those. And he could have potentially had six, but obviously the fourth and one thing happened. But either way, you didn't score a touchdown off either of those opportunities.

6:13Speaker 1:Correct.

6:14Speaker 2:And that's why the door was left open for Minnesota to do what they did.

6:17Speaker 1:Yeah. And when you talk about the, you know, kicking too many field goals thing, I mean, all you have to do is look at what almost became a disastrous home week one loss for the Detroit Lions because they were in goal to go with a couple minutes left on the clock and up by four points and they got stopped and couldn't punch it in. They kicked the chip shot field goal. The Saints came back the other way and got the touchdown that sent the game to overtime, and the Lions ended up coming just a two-point conversion by New Orleans away from losing a home game in week one that nobody thought they would have any business losing.

6:51Speaker 1:So that's just another example of that. The other thing I thought, when it comes to the regrets, and I do want to get into some of the fourth quarter stuff later, but earlier on in this game, as far as the regrets are concerned, you had The Packers had a possession. The defense got a stop deep in Minnesota territory, a punt that was downed inside the five. Defense completely shut them down. The Vikings punter is in the back of the end zone. Sky Moore gets a nice return, and it's first down on the Minnesota 36-yard line. Now, you don't do it this way, but you could literally take a knee three times and put three points on the board right there. but the Packers went backwards because of penalties, and on a drive that starts at the Minnesota 36-yard line, you end up with zero points. Combine that with the red zone failures and too much Trey Smack in this game. I mean, that's, you know, I am the last person, as I said in Insider Inbox, I'm the last person to preach trying to avoid crunch time because you have to be able to perform in those moments. But that 22-10 lead the Packers had in the third quarter absolutely positively should have been larger because

8:05Speaker 1:they were in more control of that game than just a 12-point lead. And when you're playing on the road and the home team starts to get the momentum with the crowd behind it and everything, it can be tough to stop, and the Packers couldn't stop it.

8:20Speaker 2:Vikings had 239 total yards of offense in this game. Jordan Love threw for 387 yards in this game. It just shows you that if you don't do the right things, if there's too many penalties, if you have turnovers, obviously the thing got out of control there at the end. But when the moments happen where Green Bay was able to find the sort of take-them-out-of-the-game moments, right? I'm trying to find the correct way to say this because I don't want to be too violent. But the thing where you knock them out. They had them on the ropes and they didn't swing for it, right?

8:56Speaker 1:Yeah.

8:57Speaker 2:They might have tried to swing for it. They didn't connect.

8:59Speaker 1:Yeah, it didn't work out.

9:00Speaker 2:It's just to find yourself in a situation then where it gets to one score. You know, we talk about, you know, Matt LeFleur mentioning that one of the reasons why they make the 40-yard kick with smack, there's the offsides penalty, you know, the encroachment penalty. So it goes to fourth and one. They decide to try to go for it with the sneak. Right. And I talked about this in inbox because people are like leaving the points. I mean, that was yet another field goal and you're still only up eight points. I understand if you don't convert, everyone's going to say, well, why didn't you take three points?

9:33Speaker 2:I think it was bigger than that. The other aspect of it too, though, is if you don't come up with a touchdown there, when are you going to get it? And I think for the Packers to go into this game, knowing that they had to, let me put it this way. The two touchdowns of Christian Watson, right? Christian Watson has this tremendous first half, right? Five catches, 131 yards, whatever it was, two touchdowns. How quiet did it get in U.S. Bank Stadium after all that? I mean, pin-droppingly quiet. Wes Hodkowitz could have shouted from one side to the other, hey, how's it going, Nate Lacascio? And somebody would have heard me, right?

10:06Speaker 2:What was it like then in the fourth quarter after that swing? That's the point I want to make with all this. If you have a chance not only to take the Vikings out of it, but to take that crowd out of it, you have to find a way to do it.

10:18Speaker 1:Yeah, a couple of comments I'll make there with regard to the noise. You and I have been going to U.S. Bank Stadium since it opened in 2016. There were a couple years we didn't travel with the team, so I believe you and I have covered nine games there in 11 years. I don't think I have ever heard that crowd louder than the third down on the series right after the Vikings had taken the three-point lead the third down and the Packers are a little bit late getting out of the huddle and Jordan loves trying to make an adjustment. And then he's like stomping his foot and clapping his hands and wanting the ball to be snapped because the play clock is running down. And then, and then, you know, it's the sack and they strip the ball and Minnesota gets the ball back. That even before the ball was snapped, I don't know if I've ever heard that place any louder than that. I mean, it was, it was, it was insane. Now, You can certainly argue a timeout there might have been a good call because the Packers were completely discombobulated. But that aside, it was an incredibly difficult environment in which to operate, and the

11:25Speaker 1:Packers brought that on themselves because they let the Vikings get the momentum. The other thing I want to say with regard to when the game started to go the wrong direction Everything in this game ties together, right? There isn't anything that happens in a vacuum. Matt LaFleur, to explain his decision to take the points off the board and go for it on the fourth and one, and he reiterated his rationale again on Monday, he was focused on trying to make it a two-score game. Well, if Trey Smack doesn't miss an extra point in the first half, then the three points in the fourth quarter puts the Packers up nine, and it is a two-score game. And Matt LaFleur probably does not take the points off the board and go for it on fourth and one because he wanted to be up by two scores. So again, it's all those little things. You mentioned the total yards the Vikings ended up with. Not an impressive day offensively, but how did they start to get back into the game?

12:26Speaker 1:Because a Packers special teams unit that had put a good kickoff return from Bo Melton on the board to help the Packers get some points gave up a long kickoff return the other way, and Minnesota only had to go 28 yards to after the long kickoff return to go from 22 to 10 to 22 to 17. That was where the comeback started. It was, it was on the long kickoff return. So it's, it's all of the, it's all these things. I thought when you look at the explosive plays on offense, you look at, you look at what Edger and Cooper particularly, and quite frankly, most of the defensive front for Green Bay, what they were doing defensively against Carson Wentz and against Kyler Murray before he left the game with the concussion. you look at Melton's kickoff return and smacks long field goal. I mean, there was some really good stuff. The Packers did in all three phases in this game, but then there were also things that went wrong. Things weren't sustained things that went wrong. And unfortunately for the Packers, what's, what's been the case and what's been the narrative is the things go wrong at the wrong time in the game. And, uh,

13:34Speaker 1:and then the game gets away. And so it's, uh, extremely, extremely frustrating in that regard. And, um, I'm going to turn it back to you right now because I want to get to another topic in a minute, but I want you to be able to say something before the break.

13:48Speaker 2:Yeah. I just want to throw in there too, because the kickoffs, let's just touch on that really quick. The miles press thing can happen. I mean, just again, absolutely atrocious officiating for four quarters. Another instance there where there's probably two or three holding penalties on that play. But what was the difference, Mike? The fact that the Vikings did punch that in for a touchdown. Right. Bo Melton cranks that 59-yard or 58-yard or whatever it was in the first half. Packers have to settle for a 43-yard field goal.

14:12Speaker 1:Field goal, right.

14:13Speaker 2:Again, not getting it done in the red area is what's ultimately going to end up happening. At the time in which we're doing this, we haven't talked to Cam Acord. I don't know how he's going to handle that. I mean, I've watched that return from Price four or five times now. I don't know what the coaching point is there other than they lost containment on the right wing, the outside wing, but that's not even where he brought it. He brought it up through the gap and he got two guys with their, with their hands on the outside shoulder of, I mean, the Christian Welch one is just an abomination.

14:42Speaker 2:I mean, Welch is literally being turned a different direction, but again, at Hocula's kid wasn't interested in calling it. Yeah.

14:50Speaker 1:We do need to pay some bills. So I'm going to take a quick break so we can hear a word from our sponsors. Sirius XM NFL Radio delivers hard-hitting analysis and up-to-the-minute NFL news that true football fanatics need 24-7, 365. Did you know Lambeau Field is just one of our state's many wonders? Start making unforgettable memories on your next vacation. Discover the Apostle Islands and more at TravelWisconsin.com slash wonders. Welcome back to Packers Unscripted. All right, Wes, I didn't really want to go there, but I'm going to go there.

15:25Speaker 1:Because I took a look at the Vikings go-ahead touchdown drive with the three penalties on third down. What bothered me the most, as I noted in Insider Inbox and you've repeated in certain platforms, is that there wasn't a single illegal contact, defensive holding, or roughing the passer and passing. Take a look at some of those hits on Jordan Love, as many of the fans in the live blog, the live chat were saying to me as the game was going on. Not a single one of those three infractions called throughout the game, and then all three of them get called on the same drive, all on third down against Green Bay. I went back and looked at them. Surprisingly, I'll start by saying this, surprisingly, The defensive holding on McKinney is the one I understood the most when you looked at the video. Unfortunately for McKinney, he puts his hands on the tight end and one of his teammates who's chasing somebody else running a route essentially trips McKinney from behind. And so then as McKinney is falling to the ground, he's kind of dragging the tight end down to the ground with him, which is not a bad

16:41Speaker 1:move because otherwise the guy's going to be wide open for a touchdown. The official standing back by the goalpost like sees it, throws the flag Before Carson Wentz throws the pass. So I get that one.

16:52Speaker 2:Same official, by the way, that missed the contact on Matthew Golden in the back of the end zone earlier in the game. Yeah, yeah.

16:58Speaker 1:But I get that one. But the other two, the one that bothered me the most was the illegal contact on Javon Bullard. And this is the larger problem to me with NFL officiating is that when you look at that play, yes, Javon Bullard made contact with the receiver downfield. When he made contact with the receiver downfield, Carson Wentz was already turtling up to take the sack in the pocket. He was going down to avoid the hit. That contact with the receiver had zero material impact on the play whatsoever.

17:37Speaker 1:But in NFL officiating, these guys are graded and evaluated by you have to call what you see. There's no discretion. There's no judgment in terms of the impact on the play. So the guy who's standing and he's standing 30 yards behind Javon Bullard, but he just sees that contact and he throws the flag when the contact is occurring while the quarterback is getting sacked. So it's a completely ridiculous call. But if this is how the league is going to evaluate its officials... then, and not allow them to use judgment and discretion in terms of how, in terms of how something actually impacts the play, if they just only call things by the letter of the law, well, then this, this is, this is what you get. And I will add without that element of judgment or discretion. Or I should say, there are some officials who use that. And there are some who don't. And that is why the officiating in this league is wildly inconsistent. And that's a problem that's not going away. The roughing the passer on Chris McClellan, I think it's a tough break for the rookie.

18:50Speaker 1:I see why it was called, but I also thought McClellan was in a tough spot and he was trying to do what he could not to do the body weight thing on the quarterback. And I thought, I thought roughing the passer was supposedly going to be part of replay reviews this year.

19:06Speaker 2:Nothing.

19:08Speaker 1:But nobody looked at it. Nobody saw that McClellan was trying not to land on him to then wipe out the penalty. They just took Sean Hockley's word for it, and the Vikings got another fresh set of downs. Okay, I'm done. No. I'll turn it over to you.

19:22Speaker 2:I'm glad you did it because I think I've calmed down over the last two days in real time. Incredibly frustrating. And the main reason why is like, I mean, people can be like, oh, you're wearing a Packers shirt and this is your team and you're rooting for your team. And it's actually not above that. For me, it's about the fact that I feel like officiating, and you've heard me talk about it for the last 10 years now, since Dean Blandino left the league office has been on a down road slope and it has not stopped. if anything it's gained momentum and it is affecting the enjoyment of watching the game because it's becoming an officials game Whereas I thought at one point it was more about letting them play, seeing what happens. But now we are so in this weird gray area between player safety and still trying to have contact and they can't figure out how they want to do it. Me personally, the only way I feel like you can officiate the National Football League, I've reiterated this since the 2020 NFC title game, is you establish in the first half how the game is going to be played. And then that's how the game

20:25Speaker 2:is played in the second half. Where I was really struggling with what Ed Hockley's son did was, to your point, everything switched. The emphasis changed. The quarterback hits in the little after contact wasn't being called anymore. You know, Carl Brooks getting shoved after a field goal and, you know, after the play wasn't called. All these things I'm really, you know, struggling with. But what I look at is not necessarily from the, okay, what benefits Mike Spofford and Wes Huckwitz? No, it's what benefits the consumer, the consumer that's investing this money into this product, this consumer that's expecting the best athletes in the world to you would think would also have the best officiating in the world.

21:04Speaker 2:And I felt for many years now that it is subpar. I think when you look at what major league baseball has done now with the, you know, the umpire reviews and everything like that, you're the biggest baseball fan in the world. One of the biggest baseball fans I know. Would you say that that has made the game better?

21:18Speaker 1:A hundred percent.

21:19Speaker 2:A hundred percent. And yet they've done it in a way in which they still pace of play is a consideration, getting things moving, getting people back home three hours after game, all that stuff is a consideration. Yeah. We're still playing, you know, we're not playing the game like it's 1984 anymore, but we are officiating the game like it. And it just seems like technology and advancement is just, okay, well, we have to do this. The NFL has to take it seriously. Or you and I are just going to keep talking about this five, six times a season.

21:44Speaker 1:Yeah.

21:45Speaker 2:Just a very disappointing game all around. The other thing I was curious about with the Javon Bullard thing, I saw this on Twitter and I was thinking about it and I watched it in real time. I thought there were considerations that if the receiver does initiate the contact, the illegal contact penalty changes. It shifts within five yards. And to me, it looked like Bullard wasn't even the first one to throw hands on that play. So here's the worst thing of all, I felt just in far as there was no calls made in that game that I don't feel like your standard official at the Bayport-De Pere football game couldn't have made. I don't think there was any delineation whatsoever of, and if anything, they missed quite a bit. Um, even like later in the game, I know there was some Vikings fans that were talking about legal hands of the face. I think they've got pretty close there with Brenton Cox Jr. on the sideline with the hand on the helmet. I'm not sure how the side judge didn't call that just based on the fact that they've been calling so much obvious stuff. Yeah.

22:36Speaker 2:In terms of when it's just isolated like that. Sure. Um, be that as it may, the game turned out how it turned out. And my point, the last thing I'll say on this, uh, and it was the thing I closed inbox with. If I'm the Packers, I almost feel like you got to forget that this game happened while also understanding all the reasons why you lost the game. Whether it was the inconsistency up front, whether it was the inability to establish the run, whether it was the red zone issues, whether it was the fact that when that snowball started rolling in the Vikings favor, there was no response. I think back to the first half, right?

23:07Speaker 2:Justin Jefferson gets that big touchdown. Big response right after that from Green Bay's offense.

23:12Speaker 1:100%.

23:13Speaker 2:This time they didn't find it. Yeah.

23:15Speaker 1:Here's a couple other things. Because I said I was done on officiating. Now I'm not.

23:20Speaker 2:I've talked for three days, so you can talk for 10 minutes if you want.

23:24Speaker 1:I chuckle when you talk about, oh, weren't they going to say on illegal contact if the receiver initiates it, then they don't need it. It's like the college game does not have an illegal contact penalty. Contact with receivers downfield is fine as long as it's not restrictive, as long as you're not grabbing a jersey, which is defensive holding. Contact downfield is fine until the ball is thrown. And the college game functions just fine. Illegal contact in the NFL is nothing but a rule to generate offense, to generate points, to make it hard to play defense. That is all that it is. And the game would be better off without that penalty. There is no doubt in my mind. And it's probably the one penalty that That is called more inconsistently across the board than any other.

24:12Speaker 2:Somebody said there was– somebody– I don't know this for a fact, so don't– somebody fact check this. Somebody said that– tweeted at me that that was the only illegal contact penalty in the league this week.

24:22Speaker 1:Wow.

24:23Speaker 2:So I have not had a time to fact check that. Here's what I'll do. When we get done here, I will go do that, and then we'll follow up on Thursday. But if that's the case, man– Yeah.

24:31Speaker 1:A couple other things. Backtracking a little bit. I think the most– The most disappointing thing, because as we started the show talking about the narrative with the Packers and the late game collapses and we talked about the Packers didn't have a response. Well, on that drive, the defensive drive after the fourth and one stop, the Packers had three pretty good defensive responses. They got a sack on third down that got wiped out by a highly questionable call.

25:01Speaker 1:They got a pressure from the rookie defensive tackle that forced a throwaway. that then that incomplete pass gets wiped out because of the RTP, and then they make an interception in the end zone. But I will concede I totally understand why that flag in the end zone. So the Packers didn't respond, but yet they sort of did at least initially, and then things didn't go their way, right? So I want to get that out of the way. The other thing is– Where things are in officiating in this league to me reach has reached a height of absurdity.

25:34Speaker 1:When you look at what happened at Ford field in Detroit, the fact that Mike Pereira is on Fox talking and twisting himself in knots, trying to explain how Jared golf is trying to throw the ball forward. His intent is to throw the ball forward, but he gets hit and the ball goes backward and the saints pick it up and run it for defensive touchdown. And it gets wiped out because it's called a forward pass because his intent was to throw the ball forward, but the ball never went forward. When did that rule get put in place?

26:09Speaker 1:What you're telling me there is then anytime a quarterback cocks his arm and the ball comes out... that it's an incomplete pass no matter where the ball goes. That's literally what they said, and they took a touchdown off the board from the New Orleans Saints. Like, what in the world is that? It's absolutely mind-boggling. It's making stuff up that doesn't exist. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. So the league has a problem.

26:45Speaker 1:The league has a problem, but they're really not interested in doing anything about it.

26:49Speaker 2:I was going to say, this is the quietest offseason. There's not even any true emphasis this year. It was quiet at the owners' meetings. It was quiet throughout the summer. We didn't even talk to the officials this summer in training camp.

27:00Speaker 1:It is what it is. Well, glancing around the league quickly, in the NFC North, the Detroit Lions did survive thanks to the two-point conversion stop, thanks to the Saints getting a touchdown taken off the board by the most bizarre call I've ever seen. The Chicago Bears get a win. Um, their game in Carolina goes from 31-31 with nine minutes left in the third quarter to 59-37 was the final score. So the Chicago Bears nearly put up 60 points in week one. Um, Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams in that offense. Um, and then, uh, I'll just do a couple tip of the caps. Mike LaFleur, Arizona Cardinals get a win in week one on the road against the Los Angeles Chargers.

27:53Speaker 1:Mike LaFleur is in the win column. And then the Buffalo Bills survive a shootout down in Houston. If you want to know, and again, we'll have these conversations throughout the course of the season. People get tired of me. because I say it on this show, I say it in Insider Inbox, I say it everywhere. They get tired of me saying it's a week-to-week league. The Houston Texans were being billed as the greatest defense since the 1985 Chicago Bears, since the 2000 Baltimore Ravens. And what happened?

28:28Speaker 1:They gave up 36 points at home to the Buffalo Bills. Now, I'm not saying the Houston Texans defense stinks, because it doesn't. The reason I say it's a week to week league is because it's 100 percent true. You just don't know what is going to happen on a week to week basis in this league. And from the Packers perspective, it's like, all right, game one got away. It's unfortunate. It was a missed opportunity. You throw it in the trash and you move on because the New York Jets are waiting for you in week two. Here we go.

28:58Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, even you can take a two on Sunday night football. Kansas City just completely runs through Denver. Denver doesn't get 200 yards of total offense in that game.

29:05Speaker 1:Yeah. The team everybody thought was going to go to the Super Bowl if Bo Nix doesn't get hurt in the playoffs last year. um, they, uh, um, they get completely blown out by a division rival on, on the opening Monday night.

29:18Speaker 2:Very interesting week one all around. And I think obviously you put out the bills thing. I mean, if anything, it's kind of like college football when you get those marquee matchups right off the bat, I think that shows Houston, okay, this is what the standard is. I mean, Josh Allen was exemplary in that game in all facets and kept the bills in their game a chance to win. There's a reason why he's a league MVP at this point. Don't know what to make out of that Chicago Carolina game.

29:43Speaker 2:I think we're going to learn a lot about the Bears moving forward. I don't think we've got the full story in that game against Carolina, but For a team that was feeling themselves coming in, that's another thing that's going to be a feather in their cap.

29:53Speaker 1:I think what we're going to be asking with regard to the Bears, because you can't overreact or oversimplify anything with regard to Week 1, are the Bears really that good at running the ball? Or does Carolina have some legitimate problems with their run defense? Because the 59 points was not all Caleb Williams. And it was somewhat Caleb Williams scrambling, but it was a lot of big running plays, gashing Carolina with the run that Chicago put up rushing numbers that were off the charts.

30:25Speaker 2:By the way, I want to mention this because we won't talk about it on Thursday. Something to follow for the rest of the season here moving forward. In addition to the fact we never even talked about Tucker Craft's extension. We'll get to that at some point here too. But Jordan Love using his feet. I tweeted about it during the game. Now obviously you want the offensive line to hold up. You need to make some improvements there. They didn't have Aaron Banks. They plugged in Donovan Jennings. We'll see how that unfolds this week. I did like, though, what we saw in terms of Jordan Love in this game.

30:51Speaker 2:He stood tall in the pocket when the protection was there, when he needed to extend plays, he did. And my God, Mike, I said this to Dominique Yates from Gannett at halftime. The amount of precision and speed and power that Jordan was throwing with the ball on the run, that pass to Matthew Golden... Along the sideline, holy shnikes. Yeah. I thought, again, too many hits on Jordan, 15 overall. Yep. But QB1 came to play in week one, and hopefully that's a good sign for the Packers.

31:19Speaker 1:Yeah, he absolutely did. I mean, and you mentioned Tucker Kraft, Christian Watson, Matthew Golden. And, yeah, the Packers have some work to do on the offensive line. They need to get the running game going because the lack of the running game is why Brian Flores wasn't playing honestly. He just kept blitzing, you know, at will. all of those things factored into this game. But, but, you know, it's week one and the Packers are moving on and, and this, this game, this game will not define the 2026 Packers.

31:49Speaker 1:I am confident of that. No.

31:50Speaker 2:And the reason I want to bring that up is because you think about, I know Caleb Williams is getting his flowers right now. Oh, he's scrambling and all this scrambling. Isn't always just about the yards that you gain. It's about the plays that you create off of it. And I felt like Jordan Love, whatever, he might not even had a carry in this game, but I thought in general, well, other than the sneak, obviously, but I thought in general really used his feet well on this one.

32:09Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.

32:11Speaker 2:All right.

32:11Speaker 1:Well, We've gone a little bit over time, so for as much as there is still to talk about, we'll call it a wrap for now on Packers Unscripted. Be sure to follow all of our coverage of the team on Packers.com. For Wes, I'm Mike. Thank you for tuning in.