So we've been all over, I've been all over the Cowboys tonight, and they're fans, and Jerry Jones and his ego run amok. And then there's the other side of things. Let's go to Giddy Green Bay joining me now. He is the owner of Packaday Podcast. And a writer for Packer Report Sixty Six.
Andy Herman is with Gresh here on the Infinity Sports Network. Andy, does it feel like Christmas? It definitely does have a little bit of that feel to it in Green Bay. Just got out of the Micah Parsons press conference. And yeah, obviously a lot of buzz, a lot of excitement.
Fans certainly in Green Bay are giddy. And we've been here before, you know, not obviously maybe with. a trade in this situation, but we've seen Reggie White come to town. We've seen Charles Woodson come to town, and we've seen what both of those things have led to eventually.
So there's a lot of expectations. I asked Mike of that directly in the press conference today. He's well aware of what two first round picks and a premium player and a huge contract means and is sort of internalizing those expectations and is ready to make a big impact in Green Bay.
So yeah, very, very excited town right now. Andy, were you expecting this like when you woke up yesterday was it on the the old proverbial bingo card that, boy, a uh the Packers are going to go make an unprecedented move today. Yeah, the interesting thing is, so I'm not somebody who I'm not an insider. I don't have sources within agents and organizations. That's not sort of my role that I play.
I had a lot of people on a variety of different walks of life within the sports scene, within random scenes, like everything. There was, I'll just say, there was a ton of buzz around this thing. You didn't really know what to take as real and what was kind of just fake and hearsay, but there was more than I had ever seen on anything before yesterday. And all of that being said, even despite that, This is a general manager and Brian Goudekins who worships at the altar of draft picks and does not like making these big substantial moves for anything for one particular player. He's obviously signed guys like Xavier McKinney, Josh Jacobs, and Zadarius Smith in the past.
So it's not like he's prone to doing things like that, but trading two first-round picks is almost sacrilegious for him.
So when you start talking about trading two first-round picks and maybe a player or two and giving the biggest defensive contract in football for one particular player, No, I did not have that on my bingo card for something. Even with all the buzz that was out there, even all the stuff that I saw, I still did not know that Brian Gudekins would ultimately pull the trigger on that type of deal. And just the way these things go. Like we saw with Trey Hendrickson, amongst others, usually at the very end, everyone comes together and you sign your contract, all is said and done, and there's no trade in the end anyway. But yesterday it did happen and no, did not see that one coming.
Andy, do you kind of view this as Right player, right time to assume this kind of risk? Or was there maybe some outside of the organization fan pressure grumbling that the organization hasn't made a big splash? No, I think it was the right set of circumstance, the right player at the right time for the right reasons is probably the biggest thing here. You know, 2025, when Aaron originally got traded, the year that I put out there, just personally, and what I talked about a lot is keep an eye on 2025. Same thing with the Devontae Adams stuff.
They got all those extra draft picks for Aaron and Devonta, and they were really going to have a lot of these players that were going to be kind of in the prime of their career on their first contracts, you know, in years three, year four, where they didn't really lose any of these young players yet. In 2025, they should have theoretically finally been done with that Aaron Rodgers and Devontae contracts, the Bakhtiari contracts, all those crazy dead cap hits that they had to accrue. And you looked at it and you're just like, they're going to have money to spend. They're going to have a whole draft class. They're not going to lose any of their young players yet.
And that's the year that I looked at and said, that's when the window is open widest. And then you got the free agency and you saw Aaron Banks and Nate Hobbs. You're like, all right, those are fine signings, but it didn't really move the needle. Felt like there was a little bit more. And then you get Matthew Golden in the draft.
And then, of course, the cherry on top with Micah Parsons for two future first-round picks and Kenny Clark. And now it feels like everything came together. That was the right player to go after in this reason before you get to some of these crazier cap hits with some of the players. The window's open now. And I think Goody certainly sensed that.
Andy, is there enough depth on the roster to cover Clark being sent to Dallas in this deal? I think that's one of the big remaining questions for this year. There's going to be bigger questions down the road when some of those salary cap hits do come to fruition, and you're going to have to just make some decisions and some choices. But for this year, right now, defensive tackle, kind of all eyes on that. Kenny Clark is gone.
They still have five guys on the roster, so they had six prior to trading away Kenny. Devontae Wyatt, they picked up his fifth-year option for next year already. They really like him, former first-round pick. Then every single time Jeff Affley, the defensive coordinator, has been asked about this defensive tackle room, he has been effusive in his praise. Obviously, Goody and Matt LaFleur got asked about it again today as well.
And they were also very optimistic about young players like Carl Brooks, Colby Wooden, who completely remade his body this offseason. And then two rookies, six-round pick, Warren Brinson, and undrafted free agent rookie, Nazir Stackos, both of them from the University of Georgia. They're very happy with that group, but they're going to have to go out and prove it. For the most part, that's a relatively unproven group overall.
So, who benefits within this existing defense the most, Andy, by having Michael Parsons now be a part of it? Yeah, he's a force multiplier, and I could probably give you just about every name on defense, but there's no question to me the one A player that benefits the most is Rashawn Gary. Rashawn Gary has been one of the most double-teamed and shipped players in the NFL over the course of his time in Green Bay, or certainly since he kind of broke out a few years ago. And now, as Matt LaFleur said today, you're going to have to choose. Do you want to double-team Rashawn or do you want to double-team Micah?
I think we all kind of know where that's going to go. Micah's going to get a ton of the attention from every single opposing offense. And for the first time in a while, you're going to see Rashawn Gary get a ton of one-on-one opportunities. And if he can make the most of that, in I think it was 2021, get over 80 pressures in a season. Last year, he was down in the 40s.
If all of a sudden you double Rashawn Gary's pressure production because you've got Mike on the other side, that's going to be a huge win. And he has every opportunity in the world to go out and prove that he can be a top defensive end with Micah Parsons across from him. Andy, I'm curious from what you followed and even saw at training camp this year relative to Jordan Love. I know from watching afar. When the throws got over thirty, that's where the interception started to show up.
So where are we in terms of the development of Love, people accepting him for the quarterback that he is? And has this guy sort of reached the peak? Do we know what Jordan Love is as a quarterback in your opinion? To me, this is sort of the ultimate defining season because if you go back to 2023, I think most people don't remember that first half of 2023 at the trade deadline, they were a bad team. They traded away Razul Douglas.
And Brian Gudekins was pretty adamant in that press conference that the second half of that season was going to be really important for Jordan, basically intimating that they had not made a decision if he was going to be the franchise quarterback yet, and they needed to kind of see it in the second half of the season. They had not given him that contract extension yet. And then in the second half of that season, he just goes absolutely bananas and has one of the best second halfs of the season that you could possibly imagine. And then you come back next year, which is obviously last year, and you're expecting, all right, that's going to be the Jordan that takes over. And then immediately, very first game, end of it, you've got that MCL injury, which clearly affects him.
He misses some time. Not ready, probably when he came back, probably came back a little bit too early. A few weeks later, gets a groin injury. The end of the season gets a hand injury. Like he just was snake bit last year with injuries.
And I really felt like it sort of stopped us from being able to define exactly. Who he is as a quarterback. This is year three as a starter, year six in the NFL. And I do believe if he's healthy this year, this Jordan love that you see will ultimately define him. It might be some years that are a little better, a little worse from here on out, but I think this is the Jordan Love that you're basically going to get for the remainder of his career.
And I still think this is going to be really good, but I think he's going to have to go out and prove it on a consistent basis. He was good in camp, obviously, he had that injury on his left hand that he had to have surgery for, missed a little bit of time, but he's going to be good to go for week one. He's already practicing, taking snaps, and everything like that.
So this first game against Detroit obviously has a ton of intrigue to it. Yeah, Andy, I I know that you talk to a lot of fans. You kind of represent fans here in Green Bay.
So I know you're a fan, but the more I listen to you, the more I hear that you're fair and balanced.
So I'm curious, how do you see the NFC North this year? Yeah, yeah, and again, I think that's one of the reasons why that first game is so interesting. But at the top of it, it's still to me Detroit and Green Bay. As you saw the line move after Micah Parsons comes, they're even pretty much between those two teams. I think that's a totally fair evaluation of where they're both at.
And I think it's going to be a really fun competition between those two. But, man, you have two really interesting lottery tickets in the NFC North right now, and J.J. McCarthy and Caleb Williams, and what those two potentially become. If all of a sudden, those two are as advertised, you know, top 10 picks, obviously Caleb, number one overall, and they become exactly what they were promised to be, this division gets really intense for a really long period of time. And on the flip side, if McCarthy and Caleb just aren't as advertised and they have to start over, this might be Green Bay and Detroit fighting over this division for a while, too.
So there's a lot of intrigue in this division. I think week one, you get all of it. You get Detroit versus Green Bay as kind of the headliner on Sunday. Then Monday night football, you get Chicago, Minnesota. We get to see Caleb Williams in this Ben Johnson offense.
To see J.J. McCarthy, first time as a starter. It's a really intriguing NFC North, and we're going to get a real good taste of it week one. Uh how quickly can they get the Parsons One jerseys in the pro shop there at Packertown? Yeah, they're going to be there soon and they're going to sell out as soon as they're in there would be my guess.
Crazy thing. You know, nobody's had number one in Green Bay since Curly Lambo's had it. It's not a retired jersey. It's sort of been an unofficially retired jersey. They've never given it to anybody outside of Curly Lambo.
And apparently now Micah Parsons is going to be wearing it.
So nobody in our lifetime, like in a long time, has had any reason to have a number one jersey because Curly Lambo has been the only one to wear it. This will be very interesting to see somebody else in this case with Micah Parsons. And understandably so, why you'd maybe be willing to make an exception for that type of player. I like it. And if you're a Green Bay fan, you have to love it.
I mean, you woke up yesterday, and now you have one of the best defensive players in football playing for your team. This is a great chat, ton of fun. Andy Herman, he is the owner of Packaday Podcast, which is a Twitter handle, and a writer for Packer Report 66, which is also a Twitter handle. You can follow Andy at Andy HermanNFL. Thanks for the time, man.
Really appreciate it. Great breakdown. Appreciate it. Talk to you soon. Have fun.
Thanks so much. Appreciate it.
