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Download the Odyssey app today. We're pleased to welcome Andy Herman of the Packer Report and Pack a Day podcast. Man, there's a lot to flesh out with these Green Bay Packers who are now at three and five.
And I thought about this for a while, Andy, wondering how we could start this conversation. So here it goes. On a scale of one to ten, where would you put the level of concern after these four consecutive weeks of losses for Green Bay? Yeah, I would say it's probably somewhere around eight or nine. And I think this week against Detroit going to the Lions and playing the team that's also struggling has the ability to potentially bring that to a ten. This is the first must-win game Green Bay's had in a very long time outside of obviously a playoff game, which makes it automatically a must-win game.
But this is a must-win game for Green Bay. And they go in to their fifth stadium in five weeks, their third consecutive road game. They have a four game losing streak. They had never lost back-to-back regular season games in Matt LaFleur's tenure before this. And now they've lost four in a row. And they were just playing Buffalo and Buffalo and were down 24-7 in that game.
And while they kind of kept it a little bit close at the end, maybe made it a little bit more respectable, it was still a very easy Buffalo victory. So Green Bay is very much searching for answers. Rob Demavsky of ESPN just put out an article stating that the players are starting to lose faith in the defensive scheme and are asking questions and if it's the right play call and things like that. So it's maybe not like you said completely panic hour, but it's getting very near close to that.
And I would put it at an eight or a nine right now. Before we start to dissect the problems, looking back at their four consecutive losses, giants, jets, commanders, bills, I kind of worried that they would be a sacrificial lamb there in Orchard Park. Which of these losses do you think has been the worst one? I think Washington really felt that way because I think that's a game that everyone expected them to bounce back and sort of right the ship. And they just didn't. And they never really looked like themselves at all in that game. Like you said, Buffalo is sort of a sacrificial lamb and they never really were expected to win that game. But I think Packer fans are also sort of smart enough and aware enough to be like, you know what, if this was a good brand of football, you know, through eight games and they just happened to lose a full flute games here or there, and they were somehow three and five.
Yeah. I think there would probably be a little bit more faith where this team is at, but it was, it's never really been about the record. Even when they were, you know, three had their three wins early in the season, they get crushed by Minnesota basically in that first game or kind of no show that game, the Chicago game was okay. They, they, they played fine. They beat a team in Chicago that wasn't playing very good football at that time either.
Then, you know, they, they barely beat Bailey's happy. And at the time it was making his first appearance as a backup quarterback in Green Bay. There was, there was no point in this season where they played any game where you're like, yeah, that, that felt like a convincing Packers victory.
No. In fact, it's more than quarters, the second quarter of the game against Chicago, which was their home opener on Sunday night. They scored, if I remember correctly, three touchdowns. And it felt like that was a shift toward what you would expect from Packers football with Aaron Rogers. But otherwise it's been a series here, a series there at no point has it felt like they've put together a complete game that really showcases what this team can do.
No, completely in Tampa Bay, the same thing, right? They go touchdown on the first drive, touchdown on the second drive, take a commanding lead to have the opportunity to go down on their third drive and score again. And Aaron Jones fumbles on the goal line and then everything fell apart from there. And they were able to get out of that game with a win, but they didn't play, you know, anywhere near the level that they did in the second half, like they did with those first couple of drives and the scoring that they showed in that and just the ability to move down the field on those first three drives.
So you're absolutely right. There's been flashes on defense. There's been flashes on offense. There's been even flashes on special teams after their abysmal showing the season ago, but they've not come close to playing complimentary football or putting together a full four quarter game. And it really shows in not only the standings, but in the point production and just where this team is sort of at right now on the season. Andy Herman is with us from Green Bay after the Packers fall to three and five and now barely can see the Minnesota Vikings atop the NFC North standings.
It's after hours here on CBS sports radio. The obvious question is why, and I know that's not fair or a simple, easy answer, but why, why has it gone so horribly wrong? Yeah, there's a, there's a lot that goes into that.
I think the first thing we just talked about, right? Just not playing complimentary football. It just feels like when this, you know, the defense is struggling, the offense immediately goes three and out and puts it right back in the defense's hands. You know, when the offense is finally getting some momentum, it's all of a sudden the defense allows a 10 play 80 yard drive for a touchdown and takes all that momentum away. And just when you think the special teams is maybe going to be trending in the right direction, they allow a block field goal. They allow a block punt return for a touchdown, another low snap at the end of this game, which leads to a missed field goal. Just those sorts of things have been really plaguing Green Bay.
And you know, Aaron Rogers has mentioned it on multiple occasions and it's a million percent true. Just the margin right now is razor thin for Green Bay. Everything needs to be sort of perfect for them to get any sort of momentum going and to get anything going in the right direction. And they just haven't been able to do that with any level of consistency. The offensive line is performing far below expectations. Octiari has been in and out of the lineup with his, you know, kind of the recurring knee issue.
Elton Jenkins was out again this week. And even when he's played, they've tried to move him to right tackle and left guard hasn't looked anything like the Pro Bowl caliber guard that he was prior to his ACL injury. Uh, and then guys like John Renee and junior Josh Myers haven't developed the way that they expected him to.
So it really starts with fundamentals. They can't block up front. They can't tackle on defense.
And when you're a team in the national football league that can't block and can't tackle, it's not exactly a recipe for success. Well, and I know that Rogers mentions his receiving core and the fact that they've had injuries almost every single time he talks about their challenges. So missing Allen Lazard, he's been in and out Randall Cobb.
He wasn't available for Buffalo either. Christian Watson goes out early because of concussion protocols. And so the two guys who catch touchdowns are both rookies. It's not just about Devontae Adams not being there anymore. It's about a lack of familiarity with a lot of guys who are on the field.
Yeah, it's a lack of familiarity. And you know, even some of the guys that are there again are coming off of injuries. You know, we, we talked about Bakhtiari. We talked about Jenkins, Robert Tunion, another player who's coming off a torn ACL from a season ago, Highland Hill. They're running back from last year, still out with an ACL from last year. So they have a lot of injuries that, you know, even the guys that are back are still sort of recovering from those injuries. You've got a Sammy Watkins, who while a veteran is new to the team, you've got three rookie wide receivers.
You've got a Mari Rogers, who's playing, who really didn't play all that much a season ago at all. So you're still sort of integrating him into the offense. So yeah, there's a lot of moving pieces. And then they basically completely reshuffled this offensive line, moved Yash and I'm into right tackle. They recently moved John Runyon from left guard to right guard, moved Elton Jenkins back to left guard.
So there have been a ton of moving pieces. The wide receivers have all basically been in and out of the lineup. Lazards hurt. You know, Watkins has been in and out, Cobbs hurt. So yeah, there, there hasn't been any sort of consistency with this offense. And I think even if everyone was, you know, entirely healthy, I think we would be seeing some of these consistency issues just moving on from Devontae Adams and playing, you know, a little bit of a new style of offense, but add in the injuries and the reshuffling and everything like that.
And you can just see this is an extremely disjointed offense at the moment. Randy Herman is the owner of pack a day podcast. And also with the packer report, it's a lot to talk about these days.
It's after hours here on CBS sports radio. So when you hear the rumblings from the defensive players or the reports of rumblings from defensive players, and Matt LaFleur actually says out loud, he doesn't anticipate any changes, you know, that there's fire somewhere. When you look at the defensive side of the ball, what stands out to you?
This has been, you know, certainly, you know, often reported and often talked about on the broadcast as well. But this is a defense that is chock full of talent. And, you know, whether it's that the players aren't living up to expectations, or maybe they signed or drafted the wrong guys, that's certainly within the realm of possibility as well. But this is first round picks and high priced free agents throughout the entirety of this defense. There is no, you know, random undrafted guy or no name player that is at any of these positions. This is Adrian Amos and Darnell Savage, first round pick and free agent signing. This is Rizul Douglas, a guy they just put a big contract into Jair Alexander, Eric Stokes, first round pick, Devondri Campbell, big free agent signing this past off season. Koy Walker, first round pick, Devontae Wyatt, first round pick, Kenny Clark, first round pick Rishon Gary, first round pick Preston Smith, big free agent signing, like you can go through the majority, like all of this team and find big contracts or first round picks on almost all of them. And when you don't live up to expectations, when you've put so many resources into this, you know, there's going to start being questions that are asked, you want the return on investment to all of those picks, all of that money.
And right now they're not getting it. And I thought this game against Buffalo, I know Buffalo is a talented team, arguably the best team in all of football, that offense is so dangerous. But I thought this was also just on their own accord, the worst game that they've played as a defense so far in a game that they had to have. There was a lot of jogging, a lot of missed tackles, Darnell Savage, you know, trying to chicken wing a tackle on Josh Allen in the open field and completely misses him entirely.
Those are the sort of things that we've just, you know, unfortunately seen far too often through, you know, eight weeks on this season. And it's definitely something that's going to have to again, get corrected internally. I don't, as you said, with Matt LaFleur, I don't think they're looking to change defensive coordinators at this point. So it's just going to be up to everyone at 1265 to take more accountability and try to fix it.
And like I said, go back to the fundamentals that are sort of escaping them at the moment. Accountability, discipline, lack of fundamentals, disjointed performance, which is what we're seeing. A lot of times that goes back to the head coach, Andy.
I totally agree. And I think this is the first adversity that we've seen in the Matt LaFleur era, 13 wins seasons for the first three years of his career as a head coach. And now, like I said, first time he's ever lost back to back games in a regular season and now he's lost four in a row.
So there's a lot of questions. And I think some of the things that are getting brought up as well are now some of the failures towards the end of seasons in his last few seasons. And specifically last year, when you look at a special teams that was abysmal at the beginning of the season, in the middle of the season, at the end of the season, and it never got corrected.
And it cost them a game in the playoffs last year against San Francisco. The fact that that never got corrected and it cost them at the most inopportune time now is sort of starting to raise questions of, all right, you know, now we've seen some of these tackling issues, the blocking issues, the disjointedness, all of those things. And now we're eight weeks into the season and we haven't seen those things start to correct themselves.
So I'm right there with you. That falls on the head coach. Matt LaFleur is the first to always take accountability, but you also need to see results and change. And so far that hasn't been the case.
And it also falls on your two-time MVP long tenured quarterback too. Maybe that was what he did in his comments about how guys need to be replaced if they're not going to do it the right way. The personality to me doesn't seem like he's the one who can stir everybody up. Yeah, I don't think he wants to be that, you know, going back to some of the old Packer teams, the Reggie White, the Charles Woodson, the big emotional leader in the locker room.
I think he's always available for players from, you know, all reports and all accords. But I don't think he wants to be that Ra-Ra guy. Now he'll call players out, you know, he'll certainly get upset when things go wrong. But I think he, you know, he leads by example, and he sort of demands a certain level of productivity and attention to detail. And when that doesn't happen, you know, he's, he's one to get upset with players and sort of understandably so. So that's where I think things are at. And I don't think that's going to change at this point in his career.
And I think he's all of a sudden going to become the Ra-Ra cheerleader, you know, lift everyone up in the locker room sort of guy. But he's going to try to lead by example and try to play the best brand of football he can. And as you're mentioning too, that that's where some of the blame falls on Rogers.
As I look at it, I evaluate it. I don't think Rogers is the one to blame for the issues that are going on. However, what I will say is they are paying him to be the solution to the problems that are going on.
And that's what I don't see right now. I don't see him being the solution and I don't see him elevating the players around him, which when you're back to back MVP and you get the biggest contract in league history when he signed, that's what you're expected to do. So while I don't necessarily put the blame on him, I don't think that he gets, you know, I don't think he's done his job to elevate the team and solve those problems, which again, is what he's responsible for doing when he gets that contract. If not Aaron for the emotional leader, Andy, then who?
That's a great question. And you know, this is what Matt Loeffler wants to be is a player led team and they have veterans in every single one of these rooms, whether it's Rogers at quarterback, whether it's Aaron Jones at running back, and we could go position by position with the box Chiaris and the Kenny Clarks, the Preston Smiths, the Amuses, et cetera. They have leaders in every single one of those rooms. And yet you don't see a true cohesive, you know, leader that's, that's stepping up to the plate and really getting guys going. I know there was reports that Dalin Levitt of all people was one of the ones that was really trying to get everyone fired up this past week prior to the bills game and following the loss to Washington.
And again, right now that I think everyone's sort of searching for solutions and trying to see who that guy's going to be, trying to find a galvanizing moment for this team. It's avoided them so far and they desperately need to win in Detroit this week. It's not as though the schedule gets a heck of a lot easier though on the road at Detroit, then they've got the Dallas Cowboys and the Tennessee Titans. Then it's on the road at the Eagles before they visit Chicago. This is a stacked schedule. It does not get any easier.
Yeah. And that's why I think this, this game against Detroit is clearly so important in a must-win game because you lose to Detroit and you lose five in a row and then have to go Dallas, Tennessee, and Philadelphia in three consecutive games. Listen, I don't, the schedule maker, and this is not an excuse for Green Bay, but the schedule makers did Green Bay no favors with having to go to London and then basically coming back for one week, having a three game road trip, then having Dallas at home, Tennessee at home, Philly on the road, Chicago on the road before finally getting a buy in week 14. That is a tough stretch of games, a lot of games on the road. And, you know, they didn't really take advantage of, I think what many would consider, you know, at the time at least, and I know it looks a little bit differently now, but some winnable games against the Giants, you know, in a neutral site game and Jets at home, they didn't take advantage of those. And now they have some really difficult games coming up, including Buffalo this past week where they already lost. And now you get one game against Detroit, which they've been pesky against everyone. They've been pesky against Matt Leflore in the past.
And then you get, of course, again, Tennessee and Philadelphia, or Tennessee, Dallas, and Philadelphia right after that. So it's not going to get any easier and Green Bay is going to have to find those answers sooner rather than later. Just in a moment of levity, I would love to know, in fact, I might even pay money if we could have the honest answer to Aaron Rodgers reaction when Vaughn Miller asked them why they were running the ball on some of the plays late in the game against the bills.
And I'm sort of surprised because everything that Rodgers says gets parsed with insane detail. I'm surprised because he said he made some comments or in almost no comments in his post game press conference of, you know, I, you know, I ran the game plan that I was asked to run and, you know, I'm obviously paraphrasing here, but like you, you know, wanted to take some more shots down the field, but that wasn't the opportunity that he was given. You could tell, I think that he wanted to air the ball out a little bit more and Green Bay stuck to the, you know, to the running game. I sort of agree with Matt Leflore to some extent of what they were trying to do because all season when they've been down in that situation, they've just sort of aired the ball out and took the ball away from Aaron Jones.
And it has not worked at all. Buffalo was giving them, you know, uncrowded boxes and good run looks and they were trying to take advantage of it. It didn't work, but I think you could make a strong argument that if they just try to chuck the ball around in a Buffalo defense that was playing two shell and not giving them any passing lanes, I don't know that that game was actually going to go better. I think things could have actually gotten worse with the Packers. There just don't seem to be a lot of answers right now.
Totally agree. And that's where Matt Leflore is at and where this coaching staff and this offense and Aaron Rodgers and everyone is at is they're just trying to find some sort of formula that can stick. And you can see this past week, they clearly had a intention to run the ball and try to have probably a ball control offense and try to keep Josh Allen off the field, you know, defensively, they've changed things up at the beginning of the season. They were playing a ton of zone. After that, they went a ton of press man to man, move Jair in the slot, put Resul Douglas back on the outside. This past week, they went back to zone understandably, because it's almost impossible to play man, you know, consistently against the bills. And on special teams, they're still changing things up.
Like you can tell the offensive line, as mentioned earlier, they were completely reshuffled. They are trying things, they're throwing things at the wall to see what can stick. This is not for lack of effort or lack of ingenuity or creativity or trying. Some of the answers have been too late, and probably been a bit too reactive instead of proactive. But they've been trying things.
And as of this point, they have not found a formula that has come close to success. It's a good time to subscribe to Andy Herman's Pack A Day podcast, and also catch his musings and his thoughts on the Packer report. So on Twitter at Andy Herman NFL from Green Bay, where the Packers are in an unfamiliar position, at least in the Matt LaFleur era. Andy, thank you so much for a couple of minutes. It's great to catch up with you. Yeah, likewise.
These are always amazing, Amy. Thanks so much. Football season is here. The new Odyssey app lets you stay connected to your NFL team, your station, your shows, follow your favorite stations and come back again and again. Get real time updates on everything you care about.
Miss your show? Jump back to their awesome rewind feature. The Odyssey app is NFL football, live and on demand, wherever you are, whenever you want. And do we mention it's all free? Download the Odyssey app today.
Football season is here. The new Odyssey app lets you stay connected to your NFL team, your station, your shows, follow your favorite stations and come back again and again. Get real time updates on everything you care about.
Miss your show? Jump back to their awesome rewind feature. The Odyssey app is NFL football, live and on demand, wherever you are, whenever you want. And do we mention it's all free? Download the Odyssey app today.
Football season is here. The new Odyssey app lets you stay connected to your NFL team, your station, your shows, follow your favorite stations and come back again and again. Get real time updates on everything you care about.
Miss your show? Jump back to their awesome rewind feature. The Odyssey app is NFL football, live and on demand, wherever you are, whenever you want.
And do we mention it's all free? Download the Odyssey app today. Be in Hannah's. Hannah Anderson. Holiday clothes made to play, made to last. Shop now at hannahanderson.com.
Whisper: small.en / 2022-11-06 13:56:10 / 2022-11-06 14:01:55 / 6