Latest / The Philadelphia Sports Table | Philly Sports News & Views / OPPOSITION TERRITORY: Green Bay Packers
Transcript
- 0:00Hey, everybody, it's Jeff. Wanted to let you know. We recorded
- 0:02this podcast episode on Tuesday, February twentieth, twenty twenty four. By the
- 0:07time you hear this, some things may have changed here there, but we
- 0:09hope you enjoy the show. All right, everybody, you are listening to
- 0:38Opposition Territory. Here at the Philadelphia Sports Table podcast show, the longest running
- 0:42weekly Philly sports podcast show in the world, over ten and a half years
- 0:46strong. Love talking the world of Philly sports, the sports world in general.
- 0:51Here at the PST podcast Show, we got a great Opposition Territory show
- 0:54coming your way this week. Specifically, we're gonna be getting into the Green
- 0:57Bay Packers. Yes, I know. Look, the Green Bay Packers had
- 1:00quite the twenty twenty three twenty twenty four season. I don't think a lot
- 1:04of us expected them to have incredible success, at least that's how I viewed
- 1:08it as incredible success given the expectations I think of the team prior to the
- 1:14season starting. But where is this team gonna go during this offseason? What
- 1:18do they need? How are they going to compete in the NFC this upcoming
- 1:22season. We're gonna get into it. We got a great guest. Let's
- 1:25do it. It is great to have back on the podcast to talk about
- 1:27this Green Bay Packers team, their offseason, what the future looks like for
- 1:32this team, and organization we have from ACME Packingcompany dot com. We have
- 1:38one of our favorites. Really, we love our Spidation sites. We love
- 1:42bringing them on board to talk about the green Bay Packers. We've got the
- 1:45one and only Evan tech Western. How you doing texts? Hey doing really
- 1:49well? Uh Man. This twenty twenty three season, I think just just
- 1:53the second half blew everybody away in Green Bay, especially with how the first
- 1:57half of the season went. And you know, we're really excited about the
- 2:01direction of this team heading forward into twenty twenty four and beyond. Well.
- 2:06I know that I had talked to you last year. You know, we've
- 2:08talked a few times of course over the year's text and I remember talking before
- 2:14the season and the expectations necessarily weren't okay, you know what, We're going
- 2:19to try to make a playoff run. Here like the honest expectations of what
- 2:23the season was. So to get into some reflections, I guessed here,
- 2:29were there any expectations that did come to fruition this past season where you can
- 2:32sit back and say, yeah, we thought that was going to happen,
- 2:36and it's something to build upon. Perhaps, what are your thoughts, Yeah,
- 2:38definitely, I think the I mean, the biggest thing that the Packers
- 2:43fans wanted to get out of the twenty three season was to figure out what
- 2:46Jordan Love was. Yeah, right, and with obviously an unproven quarterback in
- 2:51his first year as a starter, that was really the big key to really
- 2:55come out of this season at least with an answer about is Jordan of the
- 3:00yes or no? We got that answer, so full speed ahead. We're
- 3:06certainly very happy with how that turned out. So that was probably the biggest
- 3:09expectation I think in terms of you nailed it. We didn't really expect this
- 3:13team to necessarily make a playoff run, especially with the youth and just how
- 3:17incredibly young this team was, and so certainly they exceeded expectations, I think,
- 3:23especially offensively down the stretch in the second half of the season. Jordan
- 3:28loved playing at a really really high level, you know, played a huge
- 3:30part in that, but also the development of the young receivers, some young
- 3:35pieces on the offensive line. Those were really big, big things, And
- 3:38I think we also expected there would be some questions on the defense, and
- 3:43those certainly kind of came up again throughout the season at different times and eventually
- 3:49ended with Joe Berry getting fired as defensive coordinator and the Packers making a change
- 3:53there. So yeah, in a way, a lot of things did kind
- 3:57of go as hoped and expected, except the team just had more success down
- 4:02the stretch in that second half and made a playoff run that I think nobody
- 4:05really saw coming, and it was one where, you know, it felt
- 4:10like that team was the better team in their divisional game against San Francisco,
- 4:14and you know, if not for a couple of missed opportunities in that game,
- 4:17they very easily could have gone into Detroit for for an NFC championship game.
- 4:21One word that I would use to describe the Green Bay Packers, especially
- 4:26during the second half of the season, is the word resolve. They had
- 4:29so much resolve, you know, down the stretch. And I do wonder
- 4:32though, like you know, you talked about some of the expectations, but
- 4:35I think you also mentioned a few surprises in there as well. In terms
- 4:39of the young core. The young talent on this team was that the biggest
- 4:43surprise for you, or was it, Jordan Love, what was that biggest
- 4:46surprise for you of the season. Yeah, I think it really was how
- 4:49well that the young core on offense really developed down that stretch, especially with
- 4:55the first half of the season. You know, they start off three and
- 4:57six, You're sitting there after Week ten, You've got a brutal stretch coming
- 5:00up with games against the Chargers and the Lions on Thanksgiving and then the Chiefs,
- 5:05and you're thinking, man, it'd be great to get you know,
- 5:08one, maybe two of those games. Yeah, and especially with the offense
- 5:14really not playing well looking out a sank Jordan Love, you know, kind
- 5:16of missing receivers and the receivers just sort of not coming together, and then
- 5:23it just all suddenly seemed to click in that little stretch. You know,
- 5:27they won those three games back to back to back, and there was a
- 5:32totally different feel right coming out of that game against Kansas City, becoming the
- 5:38only team to put up more than twenty four points on the Chiefs all season.
- 5:41Low exactly, so Packers and certainly hang her hat on that, But
- 5:45that was and it really was such a night and day turnaround for that receiver
- 5:49group, because it seemed like so much of the issues that were plaguing this
- 5:53offense were the receivers were inconsistent. There were guys running wrong routes, there
- 5:57were mistakes, mental mistakes up and down the roster, and you just didn't
- 6:01see those in the second half of the season. And again, the whole
- 6:05receiving corps all first and second year guys. But for for that group to
- 6:12to really develop into a deep group with quality talent, you know, one
- 6:16through four, one through five, not really that superstar number one guy yet,
- 6:21we'll see where you know, we'll see where that goes the next couple
- 6:24of years maybe, but just you know, a deep group of guys who
- 6:27can contribute in different ways, get a couple of really interesting tight ends into
- 6:30the mix. It was so fun to see those guys develop into those different
- 6:35roles, and it was like a different guy was stepping up every week,
- 6:40ye down the stretch, and that was that was super fun to watch too.
- 6:43We're gonna be getting into the wide receivers and just the receiving corps in
- 6:46general in a few minutes here, and just to let the folks know that
- 6:48as well. But I wanted to talk about Jordan Love. You touched on
- 6:51him text and he started Obviously he took it, took decent amount of steps
- 6:56forward this season. I mean his pocket mobility, his pocket management, the
- 7:00overall rhythm from the pocket grew so much, especially during the second half of
- 7:04the season. As we've been noting, where do you think he grew the
- 7:08most in terms of his on the field play, And not even during the
- 7:13second half of the season where we saw success, because sometimes you have to
- 7:15take a step backward before you actually can move forward. Where did Jordan Love
- 7:20really find that success in terms of his growth this season. Yeah, I
- 7:27think it boils down very simply to accuracy. That was one of the things
- 7:32coming out of college. He was never a super super accurate pastor. He
- 7:35was a good deep ball guy. But I think down and we saw instances
- 7:43again in the first half of the season where the accuracy, especially on deeper
- 7:46throws, just kind of wasn't there. He was missing guys, He tended
- 7:51to be underthrowing a lot of a lot of his receivers on those deeper balls.
- 7:56And I'm not sure if it was a mechanical thing. If Tom Clements,
- 7:59the quarterback coach who did wonderful things with Aaron Rodgers when he was a
- 8:03young quarterback. I don't know if he managed to find something in his mechanics
- 8:07or his delivery, or if it was a matter of guys getting on the
- 8:11same page a little bit better. But those accuracy issues, especially on the
- 8:16deep balls, kind of vanished in the second half. And some of the
- 8:20throws that he made in that stretch. I mean, there's one there's one
- 8:24throw in that Tampa game that he makes to Jayden Reid in the back right
- 8:28corner of the end zone where just it's it's one of those perfect nobody else
- 8:33can catch this ball type of throws and leads his receiver for a beautiful,
- 8:37little to tap catch in the back corner. It's things like that that we
- 8:41didn't really see that much from him even in college, and we certainly didn't
- 8:46see it in the first half of the season. And so I joke,
- 8:50my wife watches all the all the Packers games with me. She's she's not
- 8:52a huge fan, but she's always kind of around and absorbing things, and
- 8:58in the first half of the season, we I mean to joke that it's
- 9:00like, you know, other than like Josh Allen guys don't really improve their
- 9:03accuracy that much, at least they tend not to. And it's see and
- 9:09and then you know, it was probably week thirteen or fourteen or something.
- 9:13So she's like, I thought you said, Jordan that quarterbacks didn't improve their
- 9:16accuracy. He looks like he's throwing really accurate balls all the time. YEA,
- 9:20yeah, I did. I did say that, And you are absolutely
- 9:24right. It is it is. It was night and day really and and
- 9:28again, I think he deserves some credit. Maybe Clements deserves some credit,
- 9:31and certainly the receivers for getting on the same page with him, and probably
- 9:37the coaching staff for for identifying some of that stuff too. So but yeah,
- 9:41he always kind of had a little bit of good pocket awareness and confidence,
- 9:48even going back to his college days. He was never afraid to you
- 9:52know, he knows he's got a big army. He's never afraid to try
- 9:54to fit a ball into a tight a tight spot. But the difference was
- 9:58he was fitting those balls into tighter spots in the second half of the season,
- 10:01and that made all the world difference. It's gonna be interesting to see
- 10:05how he continues develop. I don't necessarily think he's hit his ceiling by any
- 10:07stretch of the imagination. And you know, props to your wife too,
- 10:11man not noticing the football development I got. I love it, I absolutely
- 10:18love it. But we're talking about the wide receivers here as well, and
- 10:22just the receiving cores in general. And I do wonder if and how the
- 10:26Packers are gonna look at this receiving cores in the future, Like you said,
- 10:30a very very young receiving corps. You know, one year guys,
- 10:33two year guys here. You know, I wouldn't have described this Packers receivers
- 10:39and the receiving corps as dominant by any stretch of the imagination throughout this season.
- 10:43I mean, none of the receivers I don't think could be classified as
- 10:46having a quote great season if I'm looking at it objectively. I'm not sure
- 10:50about you, but some of the talent came up huge in big time moments
- 10:56when they needed to talked about. Read with that pass in the or the
- 11:01touchdown catch in the Tampa Bay game. You know, I saw a lot,
- 11:03especially during the playoff time, receivers making catches that they really needed to
- 11:09make to convert a third down or to make sure that they're sustaining drives here.
- 11:13So how do you see this receiving cortex and where do you see them
- 11:18heading this coming season? Of course growing and maturing, But do you think
- 11:22that dominant wide receiver is there or perhaps is there too? Yeah, it's
- 11:28it's so interesting because this is such a diverse set of skills that these guys
- 11:33have. Yeah, right, you look one through for you kind of start
- 11:35with the second of year guys. Christian Watson Romeo Dobbs. Watson is the
- 11:41hight weight speed guy. Right, He's the big body, super you know,
- 11:45super fast, super athletic, and this season he was really all you
- 11:50know, he was very limited by hamstring issues for large ports parts of this
- 11:54season. We never really got to see the Christian Watson that we saw late
- 11:58in the only twenty two season when he was a rookie Eagles fans. Yeah,
- 12:03yeah, that too, but right when he I mean, he showed
- 12:07up in that Eagles game two years ago after Thanksgiving, and he really never
- 12:11got a chance to display that he was probably at his best maybe in that
- 12:13Chiefs game. He had a really solid game there, but then he got
- 12:18injured again late and and never really got to show what he could be.
- 12:20But I think if anybody's got the opportunity and the physical tools to be that
- 12:26pure athletic, you know, dominant number one guy, it's probably Watson.
- 12:31But he really needs to figure out some of that soft tissue stuff. I
- 12:35guess he's actually going down to the University of Wisconsin and Madison to see a
- 12:39soft tissue specialist because of all these hamsterring issues that he's been having. So
- 12:43that there's there's that. Then you've got Romeo Dobbs, who really was kind
- 12:46of a forgotten guy for much of the season. He played in every game,
- 12:52but he always was sort of an afterthought and never really turned it on
- 12:56until you got to the playoffs, and then he had those two huge games
- 12:58against Dallas and Saying Francisco in the playoffs and he kind of reminded you that,
- 13:01oh yeah, this guy can play. He can you know, he
- 13:03can find the soft spot in the zone and make some explosive plays that way.
- 13:07Then you move on to the rookies, right, So you've got Jayden
- 13:11Reid, phenomenal slot receiver. I would say he had a great rookie year.
- 13:16I'm not going to say he had a great season. Four necessarily for
- 13:18a receiver, but almost eight hundred yards eight touchdowns. That's a really solid
- 13:22season out of a rookie receiver, especially a guy playing playing out of the
- 13:26slot as much as he did. And he also, I mean great speed.
- 13:30You can use him on end of rounds, you can use him as
- 13:33a as a deep ball guy. He just kind of unlocked some interesting things
- 13:39that I think Matt Lafleuur can do schematically when they're in that eleven personnel and
- 13:43have the three receivers on the field with him as a true slot guy.
- 13:48And then Dontavian Wicks, who was a fifth round pick last year, who
- 13:52I have from from draft day been a huge fan of this guy. His
- 13:56route running is so clean and so crisp. It's it's such high praise to
- 14:03compare him to a guy like DeVante Adams, but you see the same types
- 14:09of skills. He's not there yet, he's not that refined yet, but
- 14:13you see glimpses of that type of a smooth route runner who's got just these
- 14:16incredible cuts, and he made some really big physical catches down the stretch as
- 14:22well. So really one through four, you've got four different guys at that
- 14:24position who can do a lot of different things. Who all stepped up in
- 14:28big ways at different times throughout the season. I touched on the fact that
- 14:33Bo Melton came out of nowhere to be a fifth receiver for this team and
- 14:37was actually the first guy on this team to record one hundred yard receiving day
- 14:41at any game in the season. I think that was late late in the
- 14:45year. Packer's picked him off the scrap heep last year, off the practice
- 14:48squad from Seattle and turned him into a useful player down the stretch. So
- 14:52you got a fifth guy there, and then we got their tight ends too.
- 14:56We haven't talked about the two rookie tight ends from last year and Luke
- 15:00Musgrave and the second Tucker Craft and the third And that one was interesting because
- 15:03we always looked at Musgrave is going to be that like the Jimmy Graham style,
- 15:07the zach Ertz style, the big receiver, detached seam stretcher guy.
- 15:13And Kraft was the big inline tight end who's going to block you and then
- 15:16you get a bunch of yards after the catch and run over you. And
- 15:20we didn't see that from Craft until Musgrave got hurt. Musgrave got banged up
- 15:26midway through the season, like lacerated kidney or something in the Chargers game.
- 15:30Just sounds horrible. But then he missed most of the rest of the regular
- 15:33season, and Craft really came on and was a big play guy, did
- 15:37a lot of that Yak stuff and really developed quickly as a blocker too.
- 15:41And so those two guys being able to compliment one another, you know,
- 15:46both ended up with over three hundred and fifty yards receiving this season. I
- 15:48think there's going to be a really fun arsenal of tools for this team moving
- 15:54forward. Again, I don't know if they have that true dominant number one.
- 15:58Watson's probably the closest thing to it, just based on his mold and
- 16:00his his build and his skill set. But I don't know that you necessarily
- 16:04need that with how diverse a set of skills these various guys have, and
- 16:11the fact that Jordan love is, you know, does seem like he's willing
- 16:15to just find the open guy and distribute the ball to h to wherever it
- 16:18needs to go. Absolutely great analysis about the receiving core for the Green Bay
- 16:23Packers. And again, folks, we're talking to Evan Tech's Western from ACME
- 16:27Packingcompany, dot com. We love our sp nation sites and uh uh text
- 16:33where can they find you on the innerwebs out there? I know you've been
- 16:34on Twitter, you know you're you're on some other social media sites. Tell
- 16:37everybody where they can find you out there, buddy. Yeah, absolutely,
- 16:41We'll certainly start start with a site. It's Acnepackingcompany dot com, so you
- 16:45can catch everything there. We'll actually have a lot of coverage from the combine
- 16:49coming up next week, so I'll be out there in Indianapolis for for the
- 16:52whole week. So keep it at keep it an ACNE Packing Company. You
- 16:56can catch Acnpacking Co. On Twitter. That's where we do a lot of
- 17:00our stuff for the sites, and then I'm active mostly on Twitter at text
- 17:04Western do some Instagram stuff too from the combine a little bit that works out
- 17:08well, So Text Western and ACME Packing Co On Instagram and threads as well.
- 17:14All right, sounds good. Well, I want to get into the
- 17:17running back position with you. I find it to be pretty fascinating in terms
- 17:21of this packers team and just wondering what they're going to do in terms of
- 17:26in terms of Aaron Jones and aj Dillon because they appear to be on a
- 17:30bit of shaky ground if I could, If I can use that phrase,
- 17:34you know, within this Packers organization, and I think they may look to
- 17:41potentially bolster that position during the course of this offseason. Again, as we're
- 17:45looking at this offense, the left tackle and right guard positions are an area
- 17:48on the offensive line that could certainly use some help from what I understand as
- 17:52well. So what are your thoughts about how this offense might change a bit
- 17:56during the course of this upcoming off season here with these positions. Yeah,
- 18:00running back is one of the most fascinating positions on this team to see what
- 18:04it does and what the front office does at that spot. Because you've got
- 18:08Aaron Jones who's going into the last year of his contract, but he's got
- 18:12a massive cap hit. They're going to have to do something about that.
- 18:15They're going to have to either adjust that cap hit down, see if he
- 18:18can take a pay cut, or you know, kick some of that money
- 18:23out into future years with voideers and things. Because I want to say,
- 18:26his cap hit is something like sixteen million dollars or something like that much.
- 18:30Man, I thought it was like twelve or fourteen or something. It's big
- 18:34yeah, I'll have to. I'll take a look, but it's it's a
- 18:37big, big deal. And the part of the challenge with that is Aaron
- 18:41Jones proved again down the stretch that he's so damn good and so important to
- 18:48the nucleus of this offense when he's right and when he's healthy. I mean,
- 18:53that was a big certainly a huge part of that run that they went
- 18:56on down the stretch those last couple of weeks. Yeah, so I fully
- 19:02expect him to be back in some way this season. He loves Green Bay.
- 19:06They love it, you know, they love him there. And for
- 19:07as long as he's been in the league, he hasn't really had that many
- 19:11carries for a seventh or eighty year NFL running back, just because the way
- 19:17that they've used him, he's kind of been banged up here and there and
- 19:18missed some time, and so he might not have that much wear and tear
- 19:22compared to another back at his age and his experience level. And then you've
- 19:26got aj Dillon, who's the backup. Is that big physical guy. He
- 19:30got banged up this season a little bit too, but he's a free agent
- 19:33coming in this offseason. I won't be surprised if they find a way to
- 19:37bring him back, maybe on like a short one year deal, two year
- 19:40deal, something at a decent value, because he's, you know, he's
- 19:44an established commodity. He's not going to be a super explosive guy, but
- 19:48he's going to give you some decent production. But I do think that we're
- 19:52going to see them look ahead to the future and I head to a post
- 19:56Aaron Jones future and probably draft running back or two, especially on maybe the
- 20:00third day of the draft this year. They do need some new blood in
- 20:03there. I think none of the other guys on the roster are you know,
- 20:07seem like they're going to be viable long term starting running back. So
- 20:11I think they do need to find some an Aaron Jones' successor so to speak.
- 20:17Yeah, kind of in that mold, somebody to step into that role,
- 20:21maybe in twenty twenty five and beyond. Because it is tough to see.
- 20:23Even though again we love Aaron Jones in Green Bay and we really,
- 20:27you know, we're hoping that he comes back and they can work something out,
- 20:30it does feel like this is probably it and it's not likely that he's
- 20:34going to get another deal with the Packers. After twenty twenty four, so
- 20:38I expect him fully to look to invest in the running back position. There's
- 20:42there's some interesting guys I think out there in this draft class that could make
- 20:48some sense for them in you know, in Day three, which is where
- 20:51they found Aaron Jones in the first place back in twenty seventeen. I think,
- 20:53yep, it's absolutely amazing that he's been in the league this long.
- 20:57It feels like it's only been like three or four years at this point.
- 21:00But oh, I know, yeah, it's pretty incredible. But you know,
- 21:03as some of your colleagues over at ACME Packing Company, have you written
- 21:07about the Packers in terms of their defense? You know? Shifting over to
- 21:11the other side of the ball here, tech needing to bolster the safety position,
- 21:15I think is interesting because it reminds me of something the Philadelphi Eagles are
- 21:19going to need to do as well. It seems to be the number one
- 21:23need for the Packers this off season from all indications here, How do you
- 21:30think the Packers' front office is really going to address the safety position, possibly
- 21:34in free agency? With regard to the draft, how do you see it
- 21:37playing out? Yeah, Well, to give you an idea, of just
- 21:41how dire the safety position is or how bare the safety room is in Green
- 21:45Bay. They have one player under contract for next year who played more than
- 21:49one hundred snaps on defense, got safety position. Yeah, so their top
- 21:52three guys are all set to be free agents, so Darnel Savage ready four,
- 21:57Jonathan Owens, all three of those guys. So yeah, I think
- 22:02they're gonna they're gonna do what they did a couple of years ago at a
- 22:03couple of different spots and just throw everything at the wall. I fully expect
- 22:08a draft pick or two, a free agent signing or two, and maybe
- 22:12trying to bring back one of the the returning free agents on a on a
- 22:15short term deal something like that, to try to get some more bodies in
- 22:19there. Yeah, because you know they they have basically last year's seventh round
- 22:23pick, Anthony Johnson Junior, is the only guy who's who's still under contract
- 22:29moving forward. It's gonna be really interesting to Yeah, they just they just
- 22:33need bodies, right, and it's it's it's very interesting too to think about
- 22:38how safeties are going to be used moving forward in the Packers defense. The
- 22:42defensive coordinator, the new new coach, Jeff Haffley, former Boston College head
- 22:47coach. He was a defensive as coach in the NFL before he kind of
- 22:51left for for the college ranks, and he's talked about bringing kind of a
- 22:56one high safety, more of a four to three type of a defensive scheme
- 23:00to Green Bay, whereas under Joe Barry and Mike Petton it's been very much
- 23:03too high, keep both safeties up and and protect against explosive plays that way.
- 23:10Yeah, So they need to find that that high post safety somehow,
- 23:15And I again I fully anticipate that that they'll pick a lot of shots in
- 23:22every avenue of player acquisition to to try to find a guy who can who
- 23:26can play that role, because they're going to need that stopper ye down in
- 23:30the in the in the deep middle of the defense. Absolutely. I wonder
- 23:33if the Packers and the Eagles are going to be honing in and targeting some
- 23:36of the same free agents, because with Vic Fangio coming to the Philadelphia Eagles,
- 23:40man linebackers and safeties needing to cover in space, that that is what
- 23:45the Fangio defense is all about. I think the Packers and the Eagles are
- 23:48going to be honing in on some of the same type of talent for sure.
- 23:52But you know, as we're as we're kind of ending our conversation here,
- 23:56Techs and I know it's a very general question, but I think it's
- 24:00a good way to end this. Are the Packers going to be a team
- 24:03expected to make the playoffs this coming season? And are they going to be
- 24:08expected to make a deeper run? Just one based on expectations of what happened
- 24:14this season, the fact that Jordan Love is looking to and probably will continue
- 24:18to grow, the young receiving corp that we talked about really probably going to
- 24:23be growing and developing even more. It seems to be a team that is
- 24:26incredibly talented and on the rise, and we just have not seen the ceiling
- 24:32yet of this Green Bay Packers team. So do you think that expectation is
- 24:36going to be there, not only make the playoffs, but really make a
- 24:38run potentially to the NFC Championship. Yeah, you nailed it on the head
- 24:42right. The youth of this team in twenty twenty three was its calling card,
- 24:48and everybody expected them to take their lumps, to have to go through
- 24:52a rough development year and come out on the other side with Oka twenty twenty
- 24:56four then is the building block ye will be you know, a playoff team
- 25:02then and then really make the run you know in twenty twenty five. Well,
- 25:04now everything's accelerated by a year, right, They made the playoffs this
- 25:07year, those those rookies and those young players took that step earlier, I
- 25:12think than a lot of us expected. And so this is very much a
- 25:17team that will have Super Bowl aspirations, and at least around Green Bay will
- 25:22have super Bowl expectations. It's an organization that prides itself on setting those expectations
- 25:27very high, and they always have and I certainly expect that to be to
- 25:32be the case in twenty four because again, you look at this offense,
- 25:36they're basically losing nobody of consequence. If they're assuming Aaron Jones comes back,
- 25:41they're not losing anybody who was a major contributor on this offense. Next season,
- 25:47the defense, you know, certainly that's going to be the big question
- 25:49mark, as it has been in Green Bay for many years at this point,
- 25:53right, But I think the expectation there is is new coach, new
- 26:00scheme, hopefully a little bit of new blood in there, and really investing
- 26:03some some resources on that side of the football. Hopefully there'll be some some
- 26:08changes and improvements there. But again, you got Jordan Love going into his
- 26:12second year as a starting quarterback, and you know, learning from all those
- 26:17mistakes that he made in the early part of the season last year, learning
- 26:21from that development he took in the second half. Take all that, synthesize
- 26:26it over the course of an offseason. He's got his quarterbacks coach back,
- 26:29He's got his whole offensive coaching staff coming back again for a second year too,
- 26:33which is very big. And so all of that continuity on offense,
- 26:38it sets up for very high expectations. I think in twenty twenty four.
- 26:42Certainly the Lions are going to be, you know, having high expectations of
- 26:47themselves after making the NFC Championship game. But I really think it's going to
- 26:49be a dogfight for the NFC North title this season. I think so,
- 26:53And it's gonna be it's gonna be those those games as Packers' Lions games are
- 26:59going to be real fun to watch. That's that's gonna be some musty TV.
- 27:02I wouldn't be surprised if if both of those end up on primetime on
- 27:06way or another. Absolutely, and so yeah, that one. I think
- 27:10that division race is going to come down to the wire and it's it's this
- 27:15team, you know. I think will will absolutely embrace the high expectations that
- 27:19that they have for themselves and that that fans are going to put on them
- 27:22as well. You keep eating the Dallas Cowboys in the wild card round,
- 27:26I'm going to continue loving the Packers. I mean, honestly, one of
- 27:29the top three games of the season for me was that wild Guard game.
- 27:33It was our genuine pleasure. Yes, I appreciate it. Packers fans out
- 27:40there to the Green Bay Packers, we appreciate it. Here at the PSD
- 27:44podcast show again folks, Evan tex Western from ACME Packingcompany dot com. Check
- 27:49out everything they are doing over there. My friend, thank you so much
- 27:52for joining us on our Opposition Territory pod this week. I'd love to talk
- 27:56to you again down the road, my friend. Yeah, absolutely, my
- 27:59pleasure. Look forward to it again. We get I'll be out an Indie
- 28:02next week, so if you're you're curious for some updates on various prospects and
- 28:06stuff. Like you said, I'll be paying a lot of attention to safeties
- 28:08and linebackers in the middle of the week, so you can keep be sure
- 28:14that I'll have some updates on those positions and more. Look, I think
- 28:18this NFC North is very fascinating, not only during the course of this offseason,
- 28:22but what they're going to produce this coming year. Because the Detroit Lions,
- 28:26I don't think they're going away anytime soon. They were twelve and five
- 28:29this past season and as we know, just really really made their mark in
- 28:33terms of what type of team they were here in the NFL, and I
- 28:37think, you know, they're a team that's gonna be reckoned with in the
- 28:41future. Green Bay Packers. You know, as we were talking, you
- 28:44know, some surprises of course came from this team. As we were talking
- 28:47to Evan before and the Minnesota Vikings, they lost their quarterback, Kirk Cousins.
- 28:52If they did have Kirk Cousins or they had a quarterback of the future,
- 28:56what might that do for this team that ended seven and ten. Chicago
- 28:59Bears all so ended seven and ten as well, a lot of question marks
- 29:03coming to that team as they look toward that first round pick. Are they
- 29:07gonna keep justin Field's huge storyline this offseason with regard to the Bears, so
- 29:11This NFC North Division is so very interesting to me, and we're gonna follow
- 29:17it here. We're gonna follow it, and we're gonna continue to hone in
- 29:21on what the Lions, Packers, Vikings, and Bears are gonna be doing.
- 29:25We're gonna be talking to some reporters and some calmness that follow these teams.
- 29:30At some point in the future and down the road, we're certainly gonna
- 29:33be getting into these teams. So that's gonna do it for us here on
- 29:36Opposition Territory. If you are new to the show, subscribe on whatever podcast
- 29:38platform you are on. You can also head on over to Philadelphia Sports Table
- 29:41dot com. It's where we have all of our shows, and we are
- 29:45on threads as well. I know threads. People are like, what's going
- 29:48on in threads? What's going on? I don't know. My timeline is
- 29:49pretty cool, actually, frankly, it's a lot better than Twitter is at
- 29:53mister Jeff Warren. That's where you can follow me. You can follow the
- 29:56show at Philadelphia p ST. We are on Instagram as well. You can
- 30:00search us out there at Philadelphia Sports Table and we got some great content coming
- 30:04your way this week with our regular show we're gonna be getting in a lot
- 30:07of Phillies talk. I can't wait for it. So that being said,
- 30:11take care of folks. We'll catch you next time.