00:00:06
Speaker 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. And Wes, next up for the Packers is a big NFC North showdown with the Detroit Lions. It'll be at Ford Field Sunday, 325 Central Time kickoff. The Lions are 3-2, Packers are 4-2, Detroit coming off of a bye week. And I guess when you look at this, in a lot of ways, it's a similar matchup to last week for Green Bay in that you're going up against a very explosive offense, but a team that has also struggled on the defensive side of the ball.
00:00:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a pretty good summation of everything. When you have Jared Goff at the controls, the type of player that he is, the start that he's been off to, you put him behind a somewhat rebuilt, improved offensive line. Jameer Gibbs in that backfield is as good as it gets in the National Football League. And then certainly a top three receiving core, a top tight end that in many ways closely mirrors what the Packers have when at full strength. Offensively, they can go with anybody. Defensively, it's been a grind. trying to find the right combination, trying to figure out exactly what's happening in the secondary. Maybe Brian Branch is back in the fold this week. They potentially could get some help there, but it's been a slog here for the Lions early on. But to their credit, they won the games that I think people think they should have won, and they find themselves above. 500 here going into their bye week, coming out of their bye week.
00:01:47
Speaker 1: Coming out of their bye week, yeah. Well, you look at some of the numbers on the offensive side of the ball. Jared Goff has a 111 passer rating through five games, has not thrown an interception yet this year. Jameer Gibbs is on pace for about 1,500 rushing yards and 20 touchdowns. Not to mention he's also on pace for about 750 receiving yards on top of that because he's used as a weapon for Goff in the passing game as well. That collection of pass catchers on the outside, St. Brown, Jamison Williams, Sam Laporte. You throw in Isaac Tesla too, although Tesla doesn't have a whole lot of catches this year, but that guy's averaging like 20 yards a catch all by himself. The other three guys, just under a thousand yards combined. And they've got a total of 10 touchdowns with that big three. We've been talking a lot. You have a great story up on Packers.com about the Packers defense and where it is and sort of how it's evolved in this first month and a half of the regular season. with Jonathan Gannon as defensive coordinator and how he's worked with the leaders like Xavier McKinney and Zaire Franklin, the leaders on the defensive side of the ball to get things in place. I don't know if there's a bigger test as far as the middle of the season for where this Packers defense is than this matchup on top of the fact that it comes on the road at Ford Field. You're not going to have, you know, The Lions aren't going to be in a silent count like teams are at Lambeau Field, which always gives the defense an advantage. This is a monster test.
00:03:21
Speaker 2: This is a huge test, Mike. And I think for Green Bay, this is in some ways, too, the get-right game after what happened with the Atlanta Falcons. So defensively, you've touched on it. Their run defense, what they've done, the job they've done this season, you can't take out that Falcons game. But if you can, they would be a top-five run defense in the National Football League this year. They have to put forth a better effort against Jameer Gibbs, but historically, Packers have defended Jameer Gibbs really well. They've done a good job in every iteration of this Lions offense, going back to when Ben Johnson was there. They've had solutions, but what are those solutions? It's gang tackling. It's the guys at the front closing their gaps. It's linebackers fitting the right holes. It's safeties being able to clean things up. Green Bay needs all of that. Oh, but by the way... You have Amon Ross St. Brown, who's as good of a chain-moving receiver as there is in the National Football League. You have home-run threats. Jamison Williams has been off to a very slow start, but even before the bye, he was coming alive a little bit. There's a lot that the Packers have to figure out with this one, but defensively, everything that Green Bay has put forth, you heard Dan Campbell talk about it this week, the amount of respect that's been shown between these coaching staffs. This is not going to be easy in terms of who's going to be counted on to make the big play, whether it is on the secondary in Xavier McKinney and Evan Williams, whether it's up front with a Lucas Van Ness, could it be Zyre Franklin, you know, just completely bursting through the offensive line again. All these things have to be factored in, but for the Lions' sake, they know what's at stake here and what they have to do to try to pick up this win. Yeah.
00:05:01
Speaker 1: A couple of inbox readers earlier this week raised an interesting point with this particular matchup where this might be a game where the absence of Edger and Cooper could really show up because of his speed and on the second level, that sideline to sideline, the way he can chase plays when you're talking about trying to chase down a guy like Jameer Gibbs. So that could definitely show itself in a matchup like this. That being said, you mentioned all the other things, the gang tackling, the guys up front getting the penetration that would force Jameer Gibbs to take an extra sidestep or even to reroute a little bit where he doesn't necessarily get up that head of steam to where then he can start breaking tackles and he becomes that more elusive guy in the open field. So yes, the Packers are probably going to miss Cooper in this game, but there is such a team component to defending a guy like Jameer Gibbs. But then of course, what makes the Lions so tough is like, you know, this isn't like the Barry Sanders Lions. I mean, they have all these other guys that we've been talking about and you have a quarterback who statistically is playing at an MVP level right now. So big time test for Green Bay. Flipping to the other side of things, the Lions have struggled particularly in the area of pass defense. But what is so curious about this Lions defense when it comes to defending the pass is they lead the NFL in sacks. They have 20 sacks through five games. Now my quick sports math says that that's four sacks a game. That's pretty good, right? They have four different guys in that defensive front who have at least three sacks already this season. So when you talk about going on the road, Jordan Love and the Packers will be doing the silent count where the opposing defensive front gets that advantage. Protecting Jordan Love in this matchup is absolutely paramount because the Lions are going to rely on their pressure up front to slow down this Packers passing game. I think they, I think they know from a coverage standpoint, they're going to struggle against Matthew Golden and Christian Watson and Tucker craft. They are going to try to win this game defensively by. pressuring Jordan Love into hurrying things up into inaccurate throws you know all of those kinds of things that's Detroit's game plan here because that's what their strength is.
00:07:32
Speaker 2: Yeah and I mean don't don't ask me what the issue is with the Detroit Lions because I haven't been able to figure it out but the stats are what they are they're giving up more passing yards than any other team they're giving up more total yards than any other team and despite having those 20 sacks they only have five takeaways so which I think is somewhere like 26 in the NFL so It's just this feast or famine type approach. It just seems like that when teams are able to beat their rush, there's big play opportunities downfield. You've got to imagine Shepard and all those coaches there. They see what Christian Watson has done on film. They've seen what Golden have done on film. Their antennas are going to be up for that. In a game like this, it is going to come down to some of the other guys in this equation. The Tucker Crafts of the world. Tucker Craft has had some big time performances in the past against the Lions. He's found a way to get underneath the skin of that secondary a time or two. Josh Jacobs could potentially be back in the cards for this one off the commissioner's exemplist. If he's back out there, that changes the math in the trenches there a little bit in what a respectable Detroit run defense is going to have to account for with Jacobs there. But most importantly, Mike, let's be honest about something. You're absolutely right about Jared Goff playing at MVP level. And I think what impresses me the most about Goff is he keeps doing this despite having different offensive coordinators, despite being in a different, completely different team a few years ago when he went over to Detroit. And yet it seems like as he's gotten older, he's gotten wiser and he's gotten better with the football and he's given the Packers a lot of problems at times. But Jordan Love is pretty darn good too. And I understand for a guy that's already perennially been overlooked by the National Football League, there's going to be a lot of people that don't watch Packer games that are going to look at a 91 passer rating, they're going to look at his completion percentage, and they're going to be like, okay, whatever. The Packers aren't 4-2 right now without Jordan Love. This offense isn't having the explosive firepower that it has without Jordan Love, and I think the cool thing about it, you want to be able to run the football. The Packers, this is crazy what's happened so far the first five weeks of the season, six weeks. But Jordan loves airing it out. And we're seeing that, hey, if he needs to be a 4,000, 5,000, hopefully not 6,000-yard passer, that he can do it. And that part of it's been fun. You don't want him to get hit as much as he's been hit, but it has been fun watching him isolate on those perimeter weapons and really go to town.
00:10:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this really could turn into a quarterback showdown. I mean, what's always... What's always stood out to me about Jared Goff and this Lions offense, whether it was when Ben Johnson was running it or since Johnson left to go to Chicago, is that Jared Goff's success, and I'm not meaning this as a knock against him, but when that Lions offense is really clicking, it's because they have the running game going and Jared Goff off play action is just deadly. He will absolutely carve you up. The way to slow down this Lions offense is to handle the running game so that Jared Goff has to get into a straight drop back situation because that's when your pressure, when you're pinning your ears back and going after him, that's when your pressure can impact things. If he's living in play action on second and medium and third and manageable all day long, if he's living in the play action world, this offense is really, really tough to stop. What's been so impressive to me about Jordan Love so far this season is what he has done and how he has led the Packers offensively to this four and two record with no running game to speak of whatsoever. Um, and at the same time, you know, losing Jaden Reed and Tucker Kraft working his way back to the pre-injury Tucker Kraft, um, what Love has done in, in that regard has, uh, um, has been remarkable. And this, this could turn into just a, um, you know, massive quarterback showdown Sunday afternoon.
00:11:41
Speaker 2: He's just, he's such, I think one thing that goes back for me is he's so unselfish that at times you forget just how good he is at throwing the football, right? The offense the last three-ish years has not been about Jordan Love, right? It's been about depth at receiver. It's been about Josh Jacobs two years ago being a Pro Bowl player, you know, Tucker Kraft breaking out. It's been about spreading the ball out. This is one of those scenarios where the other 10 guys in the huddle are all looking at Jordan Love right now. Matt LaFleur is looking at Jordan Love and it is about what plays this guy can make now, you know, as he's 27 years old and kind of entering the peak of his powers. And it's just been really fun to watch from that regard because it looks like he's playing free, he's playing loose, and most importantly, he's having fun. this guy loves to throw the football, and he can do some amazing things with it. For the people that have watched, Packer fans have seen it. For the people that are just seeing him now for the first time, it's cool that they're finally starting to get a chance to experience that on a national scale.
00:12:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's dive right into keys to victory here for Green Bay. There are a lot of things that the Packers will have to do well in order to win this game. What rises to the top of the list for you?
00:12:53
Speaker 2: I told my tire man, Doug Allberg, this morning, it's going to come down to explosive plays on Sunday. When you look at it, and that goes both ways, man, I think the Packers need to establish the run. They need to keep Detroit honest. So whether it's Josh Jacobs, Marshawn Lloyd, whomever back there, they need to do that. there are big plays to be made through the air in this game. And if teams, or in this particular case, if the Lions want to start to cloud a little bit more of the coverage with Watson or with Golden, whoever has the one-on-one op needs to maximize it. Tucker Kraft can catch a 50-yard pass now. We've seen it this year, right? We've seen the opportunities that are there for the Packers offense if the moments happen where teams are isolating on those top two receivers. So I don't care if it's Watson, I don't care if it's Golden, Bo Melton, J. Michael Sturdivant, Savion Williams, whoever you want to pick. If the Packers can maximize those chances at explosive plays, catch the football, score touchdowns, I think they control this game. Because on average, I do think the Packers' offense is more explosive than what Detroit has. Detroit's more of a possession-based scheme. That's the way they run this thing.
00:14:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would agree there. To me, To me, this game comes down to two things for Green Bay that they have to do really, really well in order to win. The first one is tackling on the defensive side of the ball. And other than one game, and we always keep saying that, other than the one game, the Thursday night home opener against Atlanta, this Packers defense has played the way you want it to play. And this Packers defense has tackled very well. What stands out to me as far as tackling in this particular game is when you're talking about Jameer Gibbs and his ability to make people miss and turn short gains into big ones. Jamison Williams, the same way with his, with his speed, you know, they'll run him on a shallow cross just to get him in some space. And then like, okay, if he breaks one tackle last week with the Packers defense, really heating up Dak Prescott, putting so much pressure on the Cowboys. There were a lot of plays that came down to a one-on-one tackle in the open field when Prescott did find a hot read, hit his guy, right? It was Cissé or Keyshawn Nixon or one of the other DBs one-on-one. That tackle was made where if that tackle is missed, suddenly the Cowboys have a big, you know, a play that ruptures and they're making their way down the field. The Packers did a great job with those types of tackles last week. And I think that has to continue in this one. And the other thing is what I said earlier is protecting Jordan Love because This Lions defensive front has racked up a ton of sacks. We've seen Jordan Love get hit this season way too many times. Things had started to stabilize on the offensive line, but then last week he took some shots again against the Cowboys, and you've got to be able to avoid that. Now we'll see, heading into this game, Aaron Banks is getting healthier. Kevin Zeitler, he's been in the fold for a few weeks now, so are the Packers going to make changes at the guard positions and shift things up on the offensive line again? maybe, maybe not. We'll probably find out during warmups on Sunday while we're sitting in the press box watching things. And you mentioned the potential return of Josh Jacobs here. And for those who are wondering, he spoke to the media late in the afternoon on Wednesday. There's video and a story that I wrote with everything Jacobs had to say. That's up on Packers.com. But as we all know, he can change the equation offensively with what he can do with the ground game. And, and Jacobs can catch passes out of the backfield too and be that outlet for Jordan Love. But if there's one thing to me offensively that stands out, it's you've got to protect your quarterback in this game because I think the Lions are going to come after him with everything they got.
00:16:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Aiden Hutchinson already having four sacks. I mean, a number of those guys, I think the five, six, seven guys have multiple sacks on it. This is what it's going to take to try to find a way to answer that bell. And You know, I'm very intrigued because, like, I obviously tip my cap to Travis Glover and the job that he's done the last three weeks. I mean, he did. He's helped them stem the tide here in this time in which they didn't have Monk, and then obviously now Zeitler getting up to speed. But the Packers did sign Kevin Zeitler for a reason. This is not a guy that they just brought in off the street. He's getting paid to be a starting right guard, and you have to imagine when that moment comes, he's going to be ready for it, and the Packers are going to want to make sure that he's in the best place for it. My thing with the Aaron Banks situation, because Adam Stenovich talked about it, a lot of guys have been asked about it this week, just have to make sure he's healthy. Get him healthy. So get the toe figured out, get the knee figured out. Laken Tomlinson has bought them time. The addition of Laken Tomlinson bought them this opportunity. Now, I'm sure there's probably a piece of Laken Tomlinson that wouldn't mind getting out there against his former team, too, on Sunday.
00:17:41
Speaker 1: For sure.
00:17:41
Speaker 2: But all those things added up together, and Zeitler, too, for that matter, now that I think about it. Yeah.
00:17:48
Speaker 1: Um, former lion.
00:17:50
Speaker 2: You want to have banks for the stretch run. You want to have Zeitler ready when he's good to go. And at the very least, what we've seen from these last three weeks is the Packers now have an offensive line that can help them get there. They have to do better in the run game, but this is a group on average now that can give that protection that Jordan Love needs. Yeah. It's going to be put to the test.
00:18:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Well, we need to pay a couple of bills. So right now we'll take a break and hear a quick 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. Hey Packers fans, looking to score a few more Wisconsin memories? From Devil's Lake State Park to the Milwaukee Art Museum, discover all the wonders of Wisconsin at TravelWisconsin.com slash wonders. Welcome back to Packers Unscripted. All right, Wes, before we go, just taking a glance around the league in week seven, um, big one in the NFC North right away tonight, Thursday night, um, New England is at Chicago, a second game back for Caleb Williams coming off of his injury. And the Patriots appear to have righted the ship after all kinds of questions being thrown around about where they were headed and what's going on with Drake May and all this after three, four games. Um, The Patriots are starting to look like the Patriots of last year that, you know, were obviously ended up in the Super Bowl, but were a pretty solid team all season long. This is an interesting one on Thursday Night Football for an AFC versus NFC clash.
00:19:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, and to me, the Patriots look like the quintessential example of a team that needed that extra preseason, so to speak, right, that we've talked about now in the month of September. That happens a lot of times when, especially you have young teams. I think everybody... And you hear players talk about this all the time and it kind of goes over, you know, fans' heads about, you know, you have to restart this. You got to rebuild it again. You got to build your chemistry. You got to get all your stuff and you can't just pick up exactly where you left off last season. You know, the the new england patriots were the wunderkinds last season right i mean they just they they won all the close games they beat the teams they were supposed to beat and next thing you know they're in the super bowl yeah they should just keep doing that right well no you come back to earth a little bit when everything gets reset with another 31 teams the following season so yeah this is a this is a big one for the pats and it will be a good test against that defense and the bears Seeing exactly what they have right now offensively, they were very efficient. They controlled the ball last week, but it was not, you know, fireworks. It was kind of plodding down the field and long drive after long drive. Curious if they can.
00:20:20
Speaker 1: Win that way. And the Bears defense started to falter in the fourth quarter there and letting Atlanta back into that game defensively. The Bears have always been a much better defensive team at home, though, and they are at home for Thursday Night Football in this one. I think they're going to make things difficult on Drake, May, and company. Elsewhere in the NFC North on Sunday, the Minnesota Vikings sitting atop the division at 5-0. They're coming off of their bye. They're hosting the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts having just handed the Tennessee Titans their first victory of the season last week. Not a loss in their own division that the Colts were planning on by any stretch. But yeah, the Vikings are riding high. And I think always the question that comes with Minnesota when they're a team in this type of position is, to use the old Mike McCarthy phrase, how do they handle success?
00:21:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was talking to Tim Van Voren about this in the locker room on Wednesday. And I said, I was like, the one thing that's really funny about the Vikings, because it kind of reminded me of that team from what, two or three years ago where they won 13 games and everybody's kind of like, wait, what happened here? You know, they need to just win like five, six more and they're already like in the conversation for playoffs. And that's one of seven spots that get spoken for. That's a division title that they're out in front for. So it doesn't really matter how you do it as long as you get the wins. And when you have the defense that they have and The only thing that Aaron Jones evidently needed to be a featured back again is just to have no other options, that he has to be the guy, and suddenly the body is all in alignment.
00:22:00
Speaker 1: Incredible what he is doing at age 31, and considering the number of injuries that he has dealt with over the course of his career.
00:22:07
Speaker 2: 20 carries a game, it's like it's 2020 again, the way that he's handling this thing. Yeah. Um, and when you talk about a team that's kind of on a peak right now, I don't know if there's one that's lower right now than Indianapolis. This was a tough week when you hear DeForest Buckner's comments, when you obviously see what they went through, uh, finally making the decision to move on from Chris Ballard. Um, yeah, I would say the Vikings are catching the Colts at a good time.
00:22:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would think so. I would think so too. One other game. I just want to get your thoughts on quickly, Kansas city at Seattle, an old so to speak, quote unquote, like AFC West matchup before, uh, before Seattle hopped over to the NFC, but, uh, Seattle Seahawks need to win this game or the defending Superbowl champs are below 500. Yeah.
00:22:53
Speaker 2: Kenneth Murray, man, that, that was real. Uh, it looked like that was the best friend for Sam Darnold in that offense. And, and they've not been able to recapture that yet. Now, obviously they've had a lot of injuries in the backfield, but, um, they've sort of been kind of a shell themselves ever since that, whatever that gluteus maximus injury, hip injury, whatever that was that Darnold had at the beginning of the season. And meanwhile, you talk about a team like the Kansas City Chiefs just doing what they do.
00:23:19
Speaker 1: Doing what they do.
00:23:21
Speaker 2: And Patrick Mahomes finding a way with that offense and they're making plays. So yeah, this is a big one for Seattle. I mean, you talk about going, not falling below 500, not falling below 500 against Kansas City at your own home field.
00:23:34
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:23:35
Speaker 2: There's a lot on the line for the Seahawks on Sunday.
00:23:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt about it. Well, With that, we'll call it a wrap on this edition of Packers Unscripted. Be sure to follow all of our coverage of Sunday's game from Ford Field. Wes and I will be there, and we'll have it all for you on Packers.com. For Wes, I'm Mike. Thank you for tuning in, everybody.
00:23:52
Speaker 2: We will see you next time.
Speaker 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. And Wes, next up for the Packers is a big NFC North showdown with the Detroit Lions. It'll be at Ford Field Sunday, 325 Central Time kickoff. The Lions are 3-2, Packers are 4-2, Detroit coming off of a bye week. And I guess when you look at this, in a lot of ways, it's a similar matchup to last week for Green Bay in that you're going up against a very explosive offense, but a team that has also struggled on the defensive side of the ball.
00:00:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a pretty good summation of everything. When you have Jared Goff at the controls, the type of player that he is, the start that he's been off to, you put him behind a somewhat rebuilt, improved offensive line. Jameer Gibbs in that backfield is as good as it gets in the National Football League. And then certainly a top three receiving core, a top tight end that in many ways closely mirrors what the Packers have when at full strength. Offensively, they can go with anybody. Defensively, it's been a grind. trying to find the right combination, trying to figure out exactly what's happening in the secondary. Maybe Brian Branch is back in the fold this week. They potentially could get some help there, but it's been a slog here for the Lions early on. But to their credit, they won the games that I think people think they should have won, and they find themselves above. 500 here going into their bye week, coming out of their bye week.
00:01:47
Speaker 1: Coming out of their bye week, yeah. Well, you look at some of the numbers on the offensive side of the ball. Jared Goff has a 111 passer rating through five games, has not thrown an interception yet this year. Jameer Gibbs is on pace for about 1,500 rushing yards and 20 touchdowns. Not to mention he's also on pace for about 750 receiving yards on top of that because he's used as a weapon for Goff in the passing game as well. That collection of pass catchers on the outside, St. Brown, Jamison Williams, Sam Laporte. You throw in Isaac Tesla too, although Tesla doesn't have a whole lot of catches this year, but that guy's averaging like 20 yards a catch all by himself. The other three guys, just under a thousand yards combined. And they've got a total of 10 touchdowns with that big three. We've been talking a lot. You have a great story up on Packers.com about the Packers defense and where it is and sort of how it's evolved in this first month and a half of the regular season. with Jonathan Gannon as defensive coordinator and how he's worked with the leaders like Xavier McKinney and Zaire Franklin, the leaders on the defensive side of the ball to get things in place. I don't know if there's a bigger test as far as the middle of the season for where this Packers defense is than this matchup on top of the fact that it comes on the road at Ford Field. You're not going to have, you know, The Lions aren't going to be in a silent count like teams are at Lambeau Field, which always gives the defense an advantage. This is a monster test.
00:03:21
Speaker 2: This is a huge test, Mike. And I think for Green Bay, this is in some ways, too, the get-right game after what happened with the Atlanta Falcons. So defensively, you've touched on it. Their run defense, what they've done, the job they've done this season, you can't take out that Falcons game. But if you can, they would be a top-five run defense in the National Football League this year. They have to put forth a better effort against Jameer Gibbs, but historically, Packers have defended Jameer Gibbs really well. They've done a good job in every iteration of this Lions offense, going back to when Ben Johnson was there. They've had solutions, but what are those solutions? It's gang tackling. It's the guys at the front closing their gaps. It's linebackers fitting the right holes. It's safeties being able to clean things up. Green Bay needs all of that. Oh, but by the way... You have Amon Ross St. Brown, who's as good of a chain-moving receiver as there is in the National Football League. You have home-run threats. Jamison Williams has been off to a very slow start, but even before the bye, he was coming alive a little bit. There's a lot that the Packers have to figure out with this one, but defensively, everything that Green Bay has put forth, you heard Dan Campbell talk about it this week, the amount of respect that's been shown between these coaching staffs. This is not going to be easy in terms of who's going to be counted on to make the big play, whether it is on the secondary in Xavier McKinney and Evan Williams, whether it's up front with a Lucas Van Ness, could it be Zyre Franklin, you know, just completely bursting through the offensive line again. All these things have to be factored in, but for the Lions' sake, they know what's at stake here and what they have to do to try to pick up this win. Yeah.
00:05:01
Speaker 1: A couple of inbox readers earlier this week raised an interesting point with this particular matchup where this might be a game where the absence of Edger and Cooper could really show up because of his speed and on the second level, that sideline to sideline, the way he can chase plays when you're talking about trying to chase down a guy like Jameer Gibbs. So that could definitely show itself in a matchup like this. That being said, you mentioned all the other things, the gang tackling, the guys up front getting the penetration that would force Jameer Gibbs to take an extra sidestep or even to reroute a little bit where he doesn't necessarily get up that head of steam to where then he can start breaking tackles and he becomes that more elusive guy in the open field. So yes, the Packers are probably going to miss Cooper in this game, but there is such a team component to defending a guy like Jameer Gibbs. But then of course, what makes the Lions so tough is like, you know, this isn't like the Barry Sanders Lions. I mean, they have all these other guys that we've been talking about and you have a quarterback who statistically is playing at an MVP level right now. So big time test for Green Bay. Flipping to the other side of things, the Lions have struggled particularly in the area of pass defense. But what is so curious about this Lions defense when it comes to defending the pass is they lead the NFL in sacks. They have 20 sacks through five games. Now my quick sports math says that that's four sacks a game. That's pretty good, right? They have four different guys in that defensive front who have at least three sacks already this season. So when you talk about going on the road, Jordan Love and the Packers will be doing the silent count where the opposing defensive front gets that advantage. Protecting Jordan Love in this matchup is absolutely paramount because the Lions are going to rely on their pressure up front to slow down this Packers passing game. I think they, I think they know from a coverage standpoint, they're going to struggle against Matthew Golden and Christian Watson and Tucker craft. They are going to try to win this game defensively by. pressuring Jordan Love into hurrying things up into inaccurate throws you know all of those kinds of things that's Detroit's game plan here because that's what their strength is.
00:07:32
Speaker 2: Yeah and I mean don't don't ask me what the issue is with the Detroit Lions because I haven't been able to figure it out but the stats are what they are they're giving up more passing yards than any other team they're giving up more total yards than any other team and despite having those 20 sacks they only have five takeaways so which I think is somewhere like 26 in the NFL so It's just this feast or famine type approach. It just seems like that when teams are able to beat their rush, there's big play opportunities downfield. You've got to imagine Shepard and all those coaches there. They see what Christian Watson has done on film. They've seen what Golden have done on film. Their antennas are going to be up for that. In a game like this, it is going to come down to some of the other guys in this equation. The Tucker Crafts of the world. Tucker Craft has had some big time performances in the past against the Lions. He's found a way to get underneath the skin of that secondary a time or two. Josh Jacobs could potentially be back in the cards for this one off the commissioner's exemplist. If he's back out there, that changes the math in the trenches there a little bit in what a respectable Detroit run defense is going to have to account for with Jacobs there. But most importantly, Mike, let's be honest about something. You're absolutely right about Jared Goff playing at MVP level. And I think what impresses me the most about Goff is he keeps doing this despite having different offensive coordinators, despite being in a different, completely different team a few years ago when he went over to Detroit. And yet it seems like as he's gotten older, he's gotten wiser and he's gotten better with the football and he's given the Packers a lot of problems at times. But Jordan Love is pretty darn good too. And I understand for a guy that's already perennially been overlooked by the National Football League, there's going to be a lot of people that don't watch Packer games that are going to look at a 91 passer rating, they're going to look at his completion percentage, and they're going to be like, okay, whatever. The Packers aren't 4-2 right now without Jordan Love. This offense isn't having the explosive firepower that it has without Jordan Love, and I think the cool thing about it, you want to be able to run the football. The Packers, this is crazy what's happened so far the first five weeks of the season, six weeks. But Jordan loves airing it out. And we're seeing that, hey, if he needs to be a 4,000, 5,000, hopefully not 6,000-yard passer, that he can do it. And that part of it's been fun. You don't want him to get hit as much as he's been hit, but it has been fun watching him isolate on those perimeter weapons and really go to town.
00:10:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this really could turn into a quarterback showdown. I mean, what's always... What's always stood out to me about Jared Goff and this Lions offense, whether it was when Ben Johnson was running it or since Johnson left to go to Chicago, is that Jared Goff's success, and I'm not meaning this as a knock against him, but when that Lions offense is really clicking, it's because they have the running game going and Jared Goff off play action is just deadly. He will absolutely carve you up. The way to slow down this Lions offense is to handle the running game so that Jared Goff has to get into a straight drop back situation because that's when your pressure, when you're pinning your ears back and going after him, that's when your pressure can impact things. If he's living in play action on second and medium and third and manageable all day long, if he's living in the play action world, this offense is really, really tough to stop. What's been so impressive to me about Jordan Love so far this season is what he has done and how he has led the Packers offensively to this four and two record with no running game to speak of whatsoever. Um, and at the same time, you know, losing Jaden Reed and Tucker Kraft working his way back to the pre-injury Tucker Kraft, um, what Love has done in, in that regard has, uh, um, has been remarkable. And this, this could turn into just a, um, you know, massive quarterback showdown Sunday afternoon.
00:11:41
Speaker 2: He's just, he's such, I think one thing that goes back for me is he's so unselfish that at times you forget just how good he is at throwing the football, right? The offense the last three-ish years has not been about Jordan Love, right? It's been about depth at receiver. It's been about Josh Jacobs two years ago being a Pro Bowl player, you know, Tucker Kraft breaking out. It's been about spreading the ball out. This is one of those scenarios where the other 10 guys in the huddle are all looking at Jordan Love right now. Matt LaFleur is looking at Jordan Love and it is about what plays this guy can make now, you know, as he's 27 years old and kind of entering the peak of his powers. And it's just been really fun to watch from that regard because it looks like he's playing free, he's playing loose, and most importantly, he's having fun. this guy loves to throw the football, and he can do some amazing things with it. For the people that have watched, Packer fans have seen it. For the people that are just seeing him now for the first time, it's cool that they're finally starting to get a chance to experience that on a national scale.
00:12:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's dive right into keys to victory here for Green Bay. There are a lot of things that the Packers will have to do well in order to win this game. What rises to the top of the list for you?
00:12:53
Speaker 2: I told my tire man, Doug Allberg, this morning, it's going to come down to explosive plays on Sunday. When you look at it, and that goes both ways, man, I think the Packers need to establish the run. They need to keep Detroit honest. So whether it's Josh Jacobs, Marshawn Lloyd, whomever back there, they need to do that. there are big plays to be made through the air in this game. And if teams, or in this particular case, if the Lions want to start to cloud a little bit more of the coverage with Watson or with Golden, whoever has the one-on-one op needs to maximize it. Tucker Kraft can catch a 50-yard pass now. We've seen it this year, right? We've seen the opportunities that are there for the Packers offense if the moments happen where teams are isolating on those top two receivers. So I don't care if it's Watson, I don't care if it's Golden, Bo Melton, J. Michael Sturdivant, Savion Williams, whoever you want to pick. If the Packers can maximize those chances at explosive plays, catch the football, score touchdowns, I think they control this game. Because on average, I do think the Packers' offense is more explosive than what Detroit has. Detroit's more of a possession-based scheme. That's the way they run this thing.
00:14:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would agree there. To me, To me, this game comes down to two things for Green Bay that they have to do really, really well in order to win. The first one is tackling on the defensive side of the ball. And other than one game, and we always keep saying that, other than the one game, the Thursday night home opener against Atlanta, this Packers defense has played the way you want it to play. And this Packers defense has tackled very well. What stands out to me as far as tackling in this particular game is when you're talking about Jameer Gibbs and his ability to make people miss and turn short gains into big ones. Jamison Williams, the same way with his, with his speed, you know, they'll run him on a shallow cross just to get him in some space. And then like, okay, if he breaks one tackle last week with the Packers defense, really heating up Dak Prescott, putting so much pressure on the Cowboys. There were a lot of plays that came down to a one-on-one tackle in the open field when Prescott did find a hot read, hit his guy, right? It was Cissé or Keyshawn Nixon or one of the other DBs one-on-one. That tackle was made where if that tackle is missed, suddenly the Cowboys have a big, you know, a play that ruptures and they're making their way down the field. The Packers did a great job with those types of tackles last week. And I think that has to continue in this one. And the other thing is what I said earlier is protecting Jordan Love because This Lions defensive front has racked up a ton of sacks. We've seen Jordan Love get hit this season way too many times. Things had started to stabilize on the offensive line, but then last week he took some shots again against the Cowboys, and you've got to be able to avoid that. Now we'll see, heading into this game, Aaron Banks is getting healthier. Kevin Zeitler, he's been in the fold for a few weeks now, so are the Packers going to make changes at the guard positions and shift things up on the offensive line again? maybe, maybe not. We'll probably find out during warmups on Sunday while we're sitting in the press box watching things. And you mentioned the potential return of Josh Jacobs here. And for those who are wondering, he spoke to the media late in the afternoon on Wednesday. There's video and a story that I wrote with everything Jacobs had to say. That's up on Packers.com. But as we all know, he can change the equation offensively with what he can do with the ground game. And, and Jacobs can catch passes out of the backfield too and be that outlet for Jordan Love. But if there's one thing to me offensively that stands out, it's you've got to protect your quarterback in this game because I think the Lions are going to come after him with everything they got.
00:16:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Aiden Hutchinson already having four sacks. I mean, a number of those guys, I think the five, six, seven guys have multiple sacks on it. This is what it's going to take to try to find a way to answer that bell. And You know, I'm very intrigued because, like, I obviously tip my cap to Travis Glover and the job that he's done the last three weeks. I mean, he did. He's helped them stem the tide here in this time in which they didn't have Monk, and then obviously now Zeitler getting up to speed. But the Packers did sign Kevin Zeitler for a reason. This is not a guy that they just brought in off the street. He's getting paid to be a starting right guard, and you have to imagine when that moment comes, he's going to be ready for it, and the Packers are going to want to make sure that he's in the best place for it. My thing with the Aaron Banks situation, because Adam Stenovich talked about it, a lot of guys have been asked about it this week, just have to make sure he's healthy. Get him healthy. So get the toe figured out, get the knee figured out. Laken Tomlinson has bought them time. The addition of Laken Tomlinson bought them this opportunity. Now, I'm sure there's probably a piece of Laken Tomlinson that wouldn't mind getting out there against his former team, too, on Sunday.
00:17:41
Speaker 1: For sure.
00:17:41
Speaker 2: But all those things added up together, and Zeitler, too, for that matter, now that I think about it. Yeah.
00:17:48
Speaker 1: Um, former lion.
00:17:50
Speaker 2: You want to have banks for the stretch run. You want to have Zeitler ready when he's good to go. And at the very least, what we've seen from these last three weeks is the Packers now have an offensive line that can help them get there. They have to do better in the run game, but this is a group on average now that can give that protection that Jordan Love needs. Yeah. It's going to be put to the test.
00:18:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Well, we need to pay a couple of bills. So right now we'll take a break and hear a quick 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. Hey Packers fans, looking to score a few more Wisconsin memories? From Devil's Lake State Park to the Milwaukee Art Museum, discover all the wonders of Wisconsin at TravelWisconsin.com slash wonders. Welcome back to Packers Unscripted. All right, Wes, before we go, just taking a glance around the league in week seven, um, big one in the NFC North right away tonight, Thursday night, um, New England is at Chicago, a second game back for Caleb Williams coming off of his injury. And the Patriots appear to have righted the ship after all kinds of questions being thrown around about where they were headed and what's going on with Drake May and all this after three, four games. Um, The Patriots are starting to look like the Patriots of last year that, you know, were obviously ended up in the Super Bowl, but were a pretty solid team all season long. This is an interesting one on Thursday Night Football for an AFC versus NFC clash.
00:19:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, and to me, the Patriots look like the quintessential example of a team that needed that extra preseason, so to speak, right, that we've talked about now in the month of September. That happens a lot of times when, especially you have young teams. I think everybody... And you hear players talk about this all the time and it kind of goes over, you know, fans' heads about, you know, you have to restart this. You got to rebuild it again. You got to build your chemistry. You got to get all your stuff and you can't just pick up exactly where you left off last season. You know, the the new england patriots were the wunderkinds last season right i mean they just they they won all the close games they beat the teams they were supposed to beat and next thing you know they're in the super bowl yeah they should just keep doing that right well no you come back to earth a little bit when everything gets reset with another 31 teams the following season so yeah this is a this is a big one for the pats and it will be a good test against that defense and the bears Seeing exactly what they have right now offensively, they were very efficient. They controlled the ball last week, but it was not, you know, fireworks. It was kind of plodding down the field and long drive after long drive. Curious if they can.
00:20:20
Speaker 1: Win that way. And the Bears defense started to falter in the fourth quarter there and letting Atlanta back into that game defensively. The Bears have always been a much better defensive team at home, though, and they are at home for Thursday Night Football in this one. I think they're going to make things difficult on Drake, May, and company. Elsewhere in the NFC North on Sunday, the Minnesota Vikings sitting atop the division at 5-0. They're coming off of their bye. They're hosting the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts having just handed the Tennessee Titans their first victory of the season last week. Not a loss in their own division that the Colts were planning on by any stretch. But yeah, the Vikings are riding high. And I think always the question that comes with Minnesota when they're a team in this type of position is, to use the old Mike McCarthy phrase, how do they handle success?
00:21:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was talking to Tim Van Voren about this in the locker room on Wednesday. And I said, I was like, the one thing that's really funny about the Vikings, because it kind of reminded me of that team from what, two or three years ago where they won 13 games and everybody's kind of like, wait, what happened here? You know, they need to just win like five, six more and they're already like in the conversation for playoffs. And that's one of seven spots that get spoken for. That's a division title that they're out in front for. So it doesn't really matter how you do it as long as you get the wins. And when you have the defense that they have and The only thing that Aaron Jones evidently needed to be a featured back again is just to have no other options, that he has to be the guy, and suddenly the body is all in alignment.
00:22:00
Speaker 1: Incredible what he is doing at age 31, and considering the number of injuries that he has dealt with over the course of his career.
00:22:07
Speaker 2: 20 carries a game, it's like it's 2020 again, the way that he's handling this thing. Yeah. Um, and when you talk about a team that's kind of on a peak right now, I don't know if there's one that's lower right now than Indianapolis. This was a tough week when you hear DeForest Buckner's comments, when you obviously see what they went through, uh, finally making the decision to move on from Chris Ballard. Um, yeah, I would say the Vikings are catching the Colts at a good time.
00:22:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would think so. I would think so too. One other game. I just want to get your thoughts on quickly, Kansas city at Seattle, an old so to speak, quote unquote, like AFC West matchup before, uh, before Seattle hopped over to the NFC, but, uh, Seattle Seahawks need to win this game or the defending Superbowl champs are below 500. Yeah.
00:22:53
Speaker 2: Kenneth Murray, man, that, that was real. Uh, it looked like that was the best friend for Sam Darnold in that offense. And, and they've not been able to recapture that yet. Now, obviously they've had a lot of injuries in the backfield, but, um, they've sort of been kind of a shell themselves ever since that, whatever that gluteus maximus injury, hip injury, whatever that was that Darnold had at the beginning of the season. And meanwhile, you talk about a team like the Kansas City Chiefs just doing what they do.
00:23:19
Speaker 1: Doing what they do.
00:23:21
Speaker 2: And Patrick Mahomes finding a way with that offense and they're making plays. So yeah, this is a big one for Seattle. I mean, you talk about going, not falling below 500, not falling below 500 against Kansas City at your own home field.
00:23:34
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:23:35
Speaker 2: There's a lot on the line for the Seahawks on Sunday.
00:23:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt about it. Well, With that, we'll call it a wrap on this edition of Packers Unscripted. Be sure to follow all of our coverage of Sunday's game from Ford Field. Wes and I will be there, and we'll have it all for you on Packers.com. For Wes, I'm Mike. Thank you for tuning in, everybody.
00:23:52
Speaker 2: We will see you next time.
