All right, we're recording All right, here we go three two one It's a green and gold review as we take a look back at the Packers prying time victory over the Dallas Cowboys and You know, there's a lot of things we can point to that need improvement We can talk about this in a minute, but because it's a win I want to focus on the good to start guys and I know that's not much fun But I want to talk about just how well Jordan Love is playing despite
the fact that he is seeing so much pressure in the pocket.
He had well over 20 pressures last night and still delivered over 150 yards passing.
He is playing out of his mind right now.
Absolutely agreed.
He's buoying the uglier parts of the offense.
And like you said, Jimmy, we absolutely will touch on them first down run game.
We've got I've got notes on notes on notes.
I spent an ugly amount of time totaling ugly stats, but very few of them have to do it.
Jordan Love, in fact, one of the best runners for the Packers on Sunday.
It might well have just been Jordan Love himself.
I'm afraid to say
it was.
I mean, Jordan Love actually.
He's been able to use his legs when he needs to.
He's never going to be a guy that's actually just kind of straight up run the ball.
But when he needs to, he does.
And I think we saw a couple flashes of that yesterday.
And again, I think we're seeing a little bit of a continuation of what we talked about against the Bears.
They're letting him throw the ball and deep.
And that goes well, usually, for the Packers.
We saw another tick up in drops, unfortunately, this week.
A lot from Matthew Golden, cost him a couple of touchdowns, Christian Watson as well had a drop.
That's always disappointing to see, obviously, but the balls have been perfect.
I mean, I don't think I can count how many times Jordan made a perfect throw yesterday.
Well, and absolutely, even when there was one particular deep shot to Golden near the right side of the end zone into triple coverage, and I think it's the safest throw into triple coverage I've ever seen.
So just like Jimmy said, yeah, Jordan Love is absolutely maybe the one abiding bright spot.
But guys, that defense yesterday.
Parker, you touched on it gently a moment ago.
Oh my goodness, I love watching players like Evan Williams stack the box to guard against the runner to disguise the coverage, drop back and get an interception 25 yards deep past the line of scrimmage.
He was in the box.
in the beginning of that play right before the step.
And I know just dropping back from the line of scrimmage is a very basic tactic, but those basic tactics are what the best defensive coordinators are doing.
If you look at Vance Joseph, if you look at Vic Fangio, they're the guys who are creatively and in a well-timed way using those basics.
That's really the fundamental thing, though, guys.
And Parker, call me crazy or agree with me here.
It's because the safeties are playing out of their minds, they're not
scared of getting beat deep.
That lets the corners play aggressively.
And because of that, you had C.D.
Lam and George Pickens, one of the best wide receiver tandems in the NFL.
They caught 15 passes on Sunday on 29 targets.
Oh my goodness.
Dak Prescott over 50 pass attempts, fewer than five yards per attempt.
Uh, yesterday Kisha and Nixon was asked after the game about the job that the Packers did again, um, covering CD lamb and George Pickens.
And Nixon replied was, did they score?
No, we did what we were supposed to do then.
Oh,
absolutely.
Can't put it any better.
Right.
I mean, they, they were absolutely locked down.
And I think you are right.
I think that those, those safeties are so good, the corners are so good.
And we're getting to the point now that I'm actually
kind of excited about who there is on defense, who are guys that are not named Micah Parsons.
It's kind of been one of those things that every game I'm gaining confidence in this defense.
Yeah, and I mean, Mike is going to be a feature piece of the defense when he gets there, but I've never been more confident that first year defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon is going to use him effectively.
That said, I am kind of curious because he's doing so well without him.
It might be easy to overthink a little bit and maybe rely too much or too little.
Jimmy, what's your take on the current state of the Packers defense?
So what was interesting is, if you remember before the season, they were talking about how Gannon had designed essentially two defenses, one that had Micah Parsons and one that did not.
is one that did not have Micah Parsons, it's obviously balling out and having good times.
Despite all the injuries, you gotta remember, they have suffered a couple of big, big injuries on defense and they almost had another one last night with Cece with the arm, you know, so.
They have a different defensive scheme drawn up when Micah Parsons is back I'm really curious to see what adjustments happen with that But you just think about big additions to the Packers in the offseason and the things that they had to do to get better this year Obviously special teams needed some work that it's always needed work But then you look at the defense and and yeah, you talk about Micah Parsons and what he brings But you're only gonna get him for about half the season, right?
So what are they gonna do in the meantime and what they've done in the meantime?
This Dallas team
was a great offense this year.
They were top 10 offense, and the Packers absolutely
handled it.
Only one sack, but yeah, the Packers were absolutely living in the Dallas backfield all game.
Free rushers, including that huge agap blitz from Zaire Franklin.
I also love what Gannon's doing with safeties and corners right now.
Actually, safeties and corners doing no better rushing the passer than they are for Green Bay right now.
I think the Packers are arguably, and I think there's some stats to back that up.
I'm afraid I don't have them handy, that state that the defensive backs
rushing the passer, not necessarily a common thing, though it's more common now than it used to be.
I think the Packers are doing it just about as well as anybody at all.
But yeah, to your point, Brandon Ceasey left the game last night with what turned out to be a stinger that was affecting his arm.
I saw a look on his face as he was walking to the sideline.
I thought, ooh.
That doesn't look good, but he talked to reporters after the game and reporting says that he said that he's okay.
I don't have any more concrete info than that about any missed time, but it sounds like there's no major injury concern there.
Also, it was Tucker Kraft and Marshawn Lloyd leaving the game for shorter stretches.
Both of them returned later on.
I wonder if Cece might have if he hadn't been injured so late, but guys, I don't know how long we can avoid.
Talking about the bugaboos the things that still I I spent a chunk of this morning I actually looked at every single play the Packers ran on first down Are you guys ready for one of the ugliest stat lines that anybody's put together this year?
Oh boy,
so the Packers actually had on first down it I believe 18 plays on first down
Oh my goodness.
Oh, no, I'm looking at third down stats.
Forgive me.
Let me get that let me get that sorted for you So in the first half the Packers were oh Okay, eight yards rushing on eight runs and one touchdown and and on 11 passes they had 13 yards and just about nothing doing and that carried through for the whole game The whole game stat line is this let me back it up and put it this way game total
On first down, 16 runs and 13 passes, okay?
26 yards and one touchdown rushing.
three of 11 for 13 yards passing.
And the other two passing plays were a sack and a scramble to clean up the crumbs on that one.
I don't know if LaFleur just has to completely scrap his first down playbook or what the case may be.
At this point, I haven't even looked at the tape because it was a terrifying stat line and I didn't frankly have the time before we jumped in today.
But what do the Packers need to do to make first down possible?
Because it's why third down has been so tough going into that game.
They need to go north-south.
I mean, a lot of the runs you saw in the game on Sunday night, you would see a running back try to bounce the outside.
You'd see a swing pass where the Packers are trying to find something out on the field side and try to turn it up.
And that just wasn't working.
The Dallas defense had enough speed to counter it.
And you saw it over and over again any time the Packers were going on first down.
And it seemed like it would be an apparent run.
Dallas had that had it called it was like they knew it was coming And and they would be on that side of the defense and just flow right to it The Packers did their best to try to change with a running back, but that's about it They swung a lot of passes to save me on Williams to try to give themselves some room just not a lot happening Dallas for whatever reason on first down had the Packers figured out.
I don't know if that changes I think one of the most interesting stat lines was that
It's the first time in something like 80 years, and the Packers are the only other team to do this, by the way, where they've made it to four and two record with no games with anybody rushing for more than 50 yards, which is crazy to me, but the Packers in six games haven't figured out a 50
yard rusher.
Jimmy, you highlighted the speed there.
Do you think it's speed specifically?
I almost wonder if it's a lack of vision in the standard zone running scheme that Matt LaFleur is kind of famous for running and it's, you know, it's that kind of improvisational running style when it comes to picking which gap and it is, it's a read kind of like a quarterback reads passes, but there's still a decision to be made.
Are the Packers just making the wrong ones every running play?
I would I watched a little bit of you know the replays and things like that and a couple of the plays that were called out on social media this morning and the cutback lanes that exist are so far behind the play but I don't think it's that that's the design for it I think the design to where they're pointing the arrow to yeah you get a choice of maybe three gaps five if you're an elite back but some of these things were coming where they're running to the left they're trying to run something maybe off tackle left and then the hole opens up off tackle right so I don't know if it's a blocking thing or or what
it is, but it's very clear that things are out of sorts right now.
Maybe not as out of sorts as the fact that the Packers apparently forgot to invest and stick them because I saw some passes last night that were just right on the dot.
And I saw the ball bouncing to the, I mean, the Spire works went off on one of them because it seems so apparent.
And I couldn't believe what I was watching.
Just these perfect passes hitting professionally paid pass catchers in the hands.
And then falling to the
ground.
I couldn't believe it.
Well, and not just not just guys who catch football for a living, you know, it's it's Christian Watson and Matthew Golden climbing the ranks in a lot of in a lot of rankers lists of some of the best wide receiver duos in the league right now.
People who are expected to at least be capable.
And yeah, I know Matthew Golden underperformed his early draft status last year and is coming along and he's already eclipsed last year's totals.
But it's Christian Watson.
It's it's Mr. Hands.
It's a
It's the people we absolutely expect to be reliable.
And when you've got guys like Tucker Kraft underperforming, I think he caught five catches for 30 some yards on, I believe, eight targets.
You know, there's just, you need people to be performing at that extra high level to make the offense work.
When you've got guys like Marshawn Lloyd finishing with 10 net yards on eight carries, Pierre Strong with 28 yards on 11 carries.
Honestly, the most effective we've seen a running back was.
Pierre Strong against the Cowboys as a pass catcher.
Five receptions for 39 yards.
At this point, we're going to go old school West Coast and just do Dink and Dunk passing instead of rushing.
It's going to be like, hey, where is Eddie Lacey all of a sudden?
I'm getting these weird shades of the 2013 Packers and not in a good way.
Well, it sounds like the Packers might be getting Josh Jacobs back this week.
I believe he's allowed to start practicing today.
Per the league, I don't know if I've seen anything from the team that's going to say that, yes, he's practicing for sure now.
But that'll be something that we'll have to follow.
I want to go back to the how well Golden and Watson are doing really quick here.
They're the only duo in the league right now that has 500 yards each guy.
There are no other teams in the league that have two wide receivers with 500 receiving yards.
That is just kind of an attestiment to how good Jordan Love has been.
And also, I think it's an attestiment to how bad the running game has been as well, right?
Because that means they've got to throw the ball that much.
Not what you want to hear, but at least they're figuring out some way to get the offense to be working.
Exactly.
That's kind of what I'm thinking.
I wish they didn't have to, but I'm glad they're pulling off what they do have to do.
One thing I do want to highlight as a major improvement, at least in the first half against Dallas, 9 of 10 on third down.
in spite of these ridiculous first down stats that are just absolutely, the closer you look at those first downs I was tallying off, they're just awful.
But 9 of 10 in the first half, that's a 90% conversion rate compared to just 27% game by game going into the game.
Now, they got figured out a little bit though in the second half.
And part of it's of course, because Matt LaFleur tends to play incredibly conservative when he's in the second half with a lead, which has caused its own problem.
It was actually two of eight.
The Packers were just two of eight on third down in the second
half but again it didn't matter much because they held the well they basically held Dallas to zero points for for most of the game in general but that second half just had a completely different tone to it so a total of 11 of 18 on third down throughout the game still far better than that 27% mark that said I think it's gonna have to be the first down has to improve I didn't even look at second down because I didn't want to take another hit to the heart like that but frankly I don't think it's much better it honestly just seems like the beginning of a drive
is currently a problem.
And thankfully, Jordan Love, Christian Watson, Matthew Golden are on the same page and have a rapport that's good enough to overcome those ridiculously slow starts.
How do you start a drive more effectively when nothing you've tried has worked?
And is Josh Jacobs the only answer for better or for worse?
Well, the Packers have at the figure it out quick is they're in a comfort in the Division where every single team is over 500 and they'll be playing one of those teams coming up on Sunday when they take on Detroit Packers and Lions four and two versus three and two Everybody trailing the Vikings in the division who are currently at five and oh they were off this week or at least they were off on Sunday and It's it's amazing when you think about the fact that it's the Vikings who are one of the
final remaining undefeated teams in the NFL and the fact that everybody's looking up at them right now in the NFC along with 49ers.
That is really weird to think about.
I've started calling the Vikings Heisenberg.
And I'll give you two seconds.
You can probably think of why it's because they can't keep getting away with it.
And then they do.
And then they absolutely do.
I just don't understand it.
It's to the point now where the Vikings, I believe it's week 10, we see them a second time.
They're going to be what I consider to be the real test because the Packers stood up against Kenny Clark and Quinn and Williams.
And that's a competent duo.
That's a competent defense from Dallas.
But right now, I don't see anybody between Dallas and the Vikings who
will really have me saying yes the Packers can stand up to a postseason run right now unless they can at least look mediocre against Minnesota when we meet them again in week 10.
Well the Packers play twice next week and we'll talk all about it coming up on Make the Call this weekend as they get ready for Detroit on Sunday and then Carolina on Thursday games that are conveniently spaced in between Brewers World Series appearances.
This is Make the Call Green and Gold Review.