1st & Goal: John Kuhn, Former Packers Fullback

The NFL season is inching closer and closer. Who are the contenders and who are the pretenders? We have four downs to figure out your team's future.

It's time now for First and Goal on the Zack Guild Show. Alrighty, go pack go! Time to preview the Green Bay Packers. We'll do so with one of our favorites, former Packers fullback, the great John Coon.

John, appreciate the time as always. How you been? I've been great, Zack, especially now that training camps have started.

It's the unofficial, I guess, end for summer for most of us that cover the NFL, but it's always a fun and exciting time, especially with a young team like the Spring Bay Packers team. Yeah, and I saw over the weekend Adam Schein, who I like and everyone's entitled to an opinion, said that Jordan Love can't play football. I don't know how you could say that yet, even though I like Adam, but how did you react when you saw that one?

How did I know this was going to be one of the questions here today? Listen, and I've always enjoyed Schein too. I like listening to him right there on Sirius. To be honest with you, you know the connection that he has with Aaron Rodgers. When Aaron Rodgers creates an affinity with the co-host or with a platform, he sticks to it. Schein was one of those guys that Aaron could go to and know that he would have a nice interview, an honest interview, an interview that he would be able to drive his narrative along with some other platforms. Schein has a relationship with Aaron. Aaron has a relationship with Schein. I don't think Schein has any idea, as most of us have very little idea, of what Jordan Love is going to be in regular season football.

I can tell you some things though. The physical skills are there. The physical talent is there, and throughout this entire training camp as QB1 for this Packer team, he's had highlights and he's had some boneheaded plays. That's exactly what you would expect out of a first-year starting quarterback.

As you said, none of us know what to expect, but at the end of the year, in realistic terms, what would make you happy when you look back and evaluate Jordan Love? I would say progress throughout the second half of the season. The Packers are fortunate enough that with the lackluster season that they had last year, they have a favorable schedule going forward, especially at the start of this football season. So it's not like he's going to come out here and face a murderer's row right off the bat. All these teams in the National Football League now, especially in September, we know with the lack of playing time that people get in the preseason, those first four games, those first five games, they're kind of your unofficial preseason and getting-ready period. So none of these teams should come out here and really blow the socks off the Packers, and that gives Jordan Love almost a soft landing into the regular season. With that said, being as young as he is, you're not going to expect him to go up there and put up old Aaron Rodgers numbers from when he was winning MVPs.

I don't think anybody is anticipating that. But as the season goes along, you would expect to start seeing that connection with him and Christian Watson to develop, the connection with he and Romeo Dobbs to develop, and then the connection with the young tight ends because they got two of them that can really run like deer in Luke Musgrave and Tucker Craft. So this team around the skill positions, they're young, they're talented, and if Jordan Love can figure out a way towards midway throughout the second half of the season to show, he's finding ways to get them the ball and get them the ball reliably, and I think everybody will be happy around here. And I think the biggest thing right now is the way that he handled the Rogers situation, which wasn't easy, got him a lot of respect in that locker room, and that's the best thing that he could control right now is the guys probably believe in him.

Yeah, that's true. This team has bonded together, and quite frankly, the entire city and the organization has bonded together throughout this process as well. I can't help but believe that what happened in 2008 with the transition from Brett Park to Aaron Rodgers, Aaron Rodgers, everybody kind of learned from that situation.

So they're having much more patience this time around. And there's really a rallying cry behind Jordan Love family night, which is just the practice just a mere practice at Lambeau Field garnered over 65,000 fans who unanimously showed great support for Jordan Love on throughout the night and and even afterwards for a postgame interview. So I would say he's got the respect and he's got the backing of not just his teammates, but all of Green Bay. Let's get to the next down.

John Coon here with us. I agree with what you said about building that chemistry with the tight ends and also the wide receivers, and we saw what Watson was able to do in the second half of the season last year, but I got to think Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon are going to be his two best friends because they should run the football a pretty good amount this year. Yeah, and Matt Lafleur's talked about that as well, that they're going to run the football when they see fit, when it's really good for them. And what he means by that is they're going to see a lot of safeties down in the box early on.

They really will. And it's going to be tough sledding for these backs. I will say this, Aaron Jones has always been that that home run hitting tight running back, but AJ Dillon has done something with his body this offseason. He's come in determined. This is a contract year for him. He is not just quadzilla in the quad father like he likes to refer to his two humongous legs, but he also has a little bit more of a burst starting training camp than what he's had these last few years. So I think they both understand what's going to be at hand here, especially early on in the season.

But in order to get that going, you're still going to need some big plate threats. So I still wouldn't be shocked to see Matt Lafleur take some shots and Jordan love to take some shots here. Even when early in the season, they really want to focus on running the football. As we talked about John Coon, there's a lot of unknown with the quarterback and then also the coach. We see them have a really good record, but that was with Aaron Rodgers. I know there's been some injuries as well and COVID with Rodgers do, but what do you think Matt Lafleur is as a head coach now without the safety blanket of one Aaron Rodgers?

Well, you know, Matt's always the first to let everybody know. You show me a good coach and I'll show you great players and he understands the fact that great players really make the job easy. And with saying that, I can tell you this has been a different training camp, at least for me to attend because it's not just the loss of Aaron Rodgers. Mercedes Lewis is not here. Randall Cobb's not here. Allen Lazard's not here.

Dean Lowry's not here. There's a plethora of different players that have moved on from this Green Bay Packard team. A lot of new faces, a lot of young faces. It's a very, very young roster. And with that, coaches can sink their teeth into it a little bit more. It's not just coaching from experience. It's coaching off the cuff to these guys on the field. And I think that brings a bit of excitement for the coaches to know that, and even though Matt Lafleur won't admit this, they might have a little bit more of an imprint on what this team looks like on the field more so than in years past because this team is not necessarily led by the veterans right now, the old veterans right now. This team is also led by the coaches because there are so many young players that do need tough coaching. We all know the importance of Rodgers, and it's not going to be easy to replace him.

But I think for a lot of those younger guys now they could exhale a little bit because those last few years it had to be distracting and you didn't want to be that younger guy that said the wrong thing. More than that, Zach, whenever Aaron Rodgers is on a roster, you've seen this happen with the New York Jets now, you're thrust into Super Bowl favorites category. And just like the Jets are this year, the Packers have been for every year that Aaron Rodgers has been the starting quarterback except for maybe 2008, they've been right there at the tops of the league for being expectations for not just playoffs, but deep playoff runs. And without those true expectations, now, if you ask Matt Lafleur, if you ask the players, if you ask all the coaches, they still have expectations to do big things. But without those true founded expectations from the outside world, I think all the players can play a little freer can can can can really go about themselves and just work on the little nuances that it takes for them to become incrementally better as individuals that collectively will make this team much better. When I look at the defense, I love Kenny Clark, Jair Alexander as well. When I had Kenny on last he talked about they had to be more consistent as a group on the defensive side of the ball. When you look at this defense, what are they capable of this season?

Yeah, very high hopes going into last season that there really was a great expectation that was not met. For all intents and purposes, they were just an average defense. They finished 17th in points, they finished 17th in yards.

But that doesn't mean they don't have an immense amount of talent around them. They did lose with Sean Gary for the last seven games of the season. What's crazy about that is, you know, the defense actually played better when Sean Gary went out to pressure rate went down, but they were able to be optimistic or opportunistic and create turnovers. I see this defense as they try and build a more aggressive identity this year, with Jair Alexander on the outside, with result Douglas on the outside, and with Sean Gary coming back off a pop just this past week. I see this defense creating a more of aggressive nature for themselves. And if they can be consistent while being aggressive, this team has eight first round draft picks on the defensive side of the football.

This team could be very, very good defensively if they can be consistent while being aggressive. Let's get to the final down. Wrap it up with John Coon. When you look at the NFC North, how do you rank those teams headed into the season one through four?

It's tough. It is such a coin flip of a division right here. You would have to say that the quarterback uncertainty with Jordan Love, you can't put them number one, albeit, I'm telling you Zach, the amount of weaponry that they have on this offense, both at the wide receiver and the tight end position. People aren't going to know these names, but they're going to know Jaden Reed by the end of the year. They're going to know Luke Musgrave by the end of the year.

They already know Christian Watson, and if they don't, then they will know Romeo Dobbs. They have some serious speed and size on this offense. They're a total wildcard. This team could finish six and 11, or this team could finish 10 wins. That's how wild of a wildcard this Green Bay Packer team is. I have to give a slight nod, just a slight nod to the Detroit Lions in this one because of how they finished last year versus the Minnesota Vikings with how they finished last year. I think both those teams are competing for the tops of that with the Packers and the Bears chasing. Would you say that the Bears are fourth headed into this year or would you put them over the Packers? The Bears need to make such a leap, such a leap to be right there into the mix. It's not, and they've revamped that team. I love some of the defensive additions that they put on that team, but I think they need to make such a leap.

I can't necessarily say they're up there into the three or the two category yet. John Kuhn, always good to catch up with you. Appreciate it. Absolutely. It's always fun talking with you Zach.