Transcript of Packers are PRIMED for a Playoff Run

And they're up to the line of scrimage at first and goal. Hand off, Jacobs, blasting off the left side, fighting his way to the end zone. Touchdown. Fourteenth, the touch down of the season for Josh Jacobs, a personal best. It is 13-nothing, Green Bay. They were just getting going. Yes, the Green Bay packers authored the very first shutout of the 2024 NFL season, thanks to Josh Jacobs, 34 to nothing over the Saints on Monday Night Football as we head into the holidays. That was Wayne Larrivie of WRNW. I'm Greg Rosenthal in the garage. I'm looking at my friend nick Chook. Thank you for being with me on this thrilling game. Look, if it was going to be a blowout, at least they did it quickly. Nothing got too complicated. We got to see some excellence out of the packers.

Yeah, we did. We got to see the packers in the many ways they can beat you. We talk about the Bills in that fashion a lot. They can win in so many different ways offensively. The packers proved that tonight, starting with Josh Jacobs and the ground and pound approach where he's one of the toughest guys to bring down on first contact. He basically doesn't go down on first contact. And they rolled. They absolutely rolled with a complete team performance. Offense was rolling, defense was rolling. Packers fans are having a blast. They're tubing outside of Lambo field. It's the holiday season. What more could you want?

Well, I guess a close game, but if it was going to be a blowout, it was quick, it was decisive. Joe Buck and Troy Akeman were having a good time. Joe Buck just decided to entertain himself. They really are the best right now, and they're not griping that it's a bad game or whatever. They're enjoying it. Look, I like seeing greatness. Some blowouts are more entertaining than others. This was 21-0 before the Saints had their fourth drive of the game, three straight by the packers, and then they just cruised from there. But the way they did it to me, and the way they've done it the last two weeks is pretty telling. Josh Jacobs sits for most of the second half because they're ahead by so much, which is great because they have a big game coming up on Sunday against the Vikings. But the first drive of the game, Shook, he has six touches for 40 yards, TD. The next drive of the game, after a short Saints Drive where they got a couple of first downs but end up punting, he has seven touches for 45 yards. That drive is a 17 play, 91-yard drive.

Before those two drives were up, and at that point, yeah, Jacob already has 85 yards on 13 touches. He barely touched it the rest of the night after that. Before those two drives were over, seven different packers had run the ball, and you just felt like Matt Lafleur was just showing all the cool things he can do with all the cool players that he has.

Yeah, and that's exactly what I'm speaking about there, is that I know that he's a mad scientist offensively, and that he can scheme up so many different ways, but so many different guys were able to get involved in this offense. It didn't have to be about Jordan Love. It could be about the entire offensive unit. It could be Don Tavian Wix catching a shutdown pass with one of the greatest flop jobs I've ever seen from a defensive back in the NFL in the modern era. What was that?

Yeah, that was Amadi of the Saints. That was terrible. Yeah.

He's just searching for a flag, desperate for a flag. You had Christian Watson taking end-arounds, essentially, just like jet sweeps, that thing, around the right side and picking up positive yards. You could go down this entire list. Chris Brooks gets a breakdown carry. Emmanuel Wilson gets 11 for 52 by the time the game's over. Tucker Kraft. We love Tucker Kraft. He's had a great year. You had Reid, Dobbs, Wicks. Everybody's involved. They can just hit it from so many different angles because their coach is so creative with this play calling. It got to the point we're in the fourth quarter of this game, and I know I'm getting ahead of myself. Malik Willis completed one pass. It was a 34-yard dime to Jaden Reid down the sideline. It just occurred to me, God, he's in the perfect place. He is in the perfect place to to develop him as a quarterback. No pressure. A coach who knows exactly how to take advantage of his talents, and this entire offense is benefiting from the fact that Matt LaFleur is their coach.

So I was thinking today about the comeback player of the year, and now you're not allowed to just vote for guys for getting better. It made me think we need to have a Most Improved player. That's a more meaningful award to me. Most Improved is all about development and what you want to do as a pro. And I was Sam Darnold, that would be a nice spot for him to win that award that Gino Smith. Did Gino win it last year? I was thinking, Malik Willis, if we had the latter for Most Improved Player of the year, I'd try to sneak Malik Willis in there at five. There's no rule that says you have to play a lot because we saw what he was before, and we've seen what he is this year. Lafleur gets a lot of credit, but Malik Willis gets even more credit because some of those passes he made in the runs, obviously, he made in that early stretch. That's helped set them up for this run that they've had now where they're running the ball so well.

Yeah, it just made me consider their season in total, which is like, week one, Jordan Love gets hurt, and it's doomsday for the packers. We're on this podcast talking about, Oh, man, they lost week one. What are they going to do? Now they don't have their quarterback. They win the next two games with Malik Willis because LaFleur knows how to put him in the right spots and take advantage of his talents. I totally agree, by the way. It's our show. We could do whatever we want. Let's have a most improved player ladder. Why not?

Okay, maybe we will. I I know not that many important people are listening, but we do have an AP writer, Josh Dubot, who listens to this show. Hello, Josh. Maybe we can get him to make the most improved player a thing. I mean, NFL honors, they could use more words. We did assistant coach of the year. No hate like that, but if we're doing assistant coach of the year, I think we can have room for most improved. Yeah, Lafleur, there was one funny play early where he actually had Kool-Aid McKinistry so confused on a play fake that he was spinning like a top looking for the right receiver. I think that was on the fourth down where Love took the check down instead of going deep that Troy Akeman wanted to. And Love didn't have to do that much. I was glad he had that long throw to Jaden Reid in the second half because it felt like in the second half, Lafleur came out of halftime and was like, All year, we've been wanting a complete game. I don't think we've had a complete game, special teams, offense and defense. And certainly at halftime, you're like, This is the complete game.

It's 24-nothing. In the second half, they're not really moving the ball much for a while, and you're thinking, Oh, Lafleur is not going to feel like he gets it. But they tack on 10 points at the end with a nice deep pass from Love and Willis, and he definitely got his complete game. You can't get any more complete than gaining 400 plus yards, holding them under 200. The shutout, the passing was more than efficient enough. The offensive line has been awesome all year and is really underrated, and they should feel really good going into this Vikings And Brandon McManis hits two field goals of 40 plus yards.

Look, this is a packers team that has dealt with inconsistency at kicker since the departure and really the end of Mason Crosby. They had Andrews Carlson last year, and he was not good. And now they have consistency in the form of Brandon McManis. This may be overreaction to one blowout win, but the way the packers have played over the last five weeks, save for that narrow loss to the lines, their defense has been phenomenal. I mean, absolutely fantastic. They had a pressure rate over 50% tonight, which was crazy. Totally They should shut down the Saints offense, especially in that first half. They finished under 100 yards in the first half. Their defense has been playing phenomenally. We know what their offense can do. Now they have a reliable kicker as well. Call me crazy, Greg, but I don't think it's too far fetched to throw them among the elite contenders in the NFC right now.

No, the problem is that it's not a normal year. 11 and 4 should win you a division and get you a home game at the very least. Some years, it might have you in the mix for the one or the two seed. Instead, they have almost no chance to even be second place in their division. I shouldn't say that. It's not that far fetched. All they got to do is win their last two games. They got to beat the Vikings, and then they need the Vikings to lose against the Lions. That's not that crazy of a scenario. Then actually, they would get up to five. They would pass the Vikings. Espn put out that scenario. Now, they could fall down to seven as well if they lost down the stretch in Washington past them. I actually think it could be a meaningful difference between five, six, and seven. You get the five seed and you're playing the winner of the NFC South. That's great. If you're the six seed, right now, you'd be playing the Ram That is probably who it will wind up being. Okay, that's manageable. If you're the seventh seed, you probably have the Eagles.

Those are three different tiers. I think it does matter. I think the packers will be tempted to rest everyone in week 18 the bears and maybe care less about seeding. But that's a conversation for a week from now. I'm glad you mentioned the pressure numbers. Yeah, Van Ness had a good game, I thought. Rashaun Gary had a good game. He's been playing better. And yeah, the running game is what really stuck with me. Guess their success rate tonight. I don't know if you're like a success rate.

It was over 50% the last time I checked, which is in the fourth quarter.

It was 64%, which is just-Oh, wow, it got even higher.

I think the sales was like 35.

Anything over 50 is incredible on the ground for them to do that. Granted, everyone listening to this is like, Are you going to mention that they're playing the Saints? It's like, Yeah, okay, other teams haven't done this to the Saints. It's what you do against teams that are dead, and the Saints, they're pretty dead. They couldn't tackle anyone. I don't think we need to dive too deep into their roster that there's going to be a lot of changes. But give me just your thoughts on Spencer Rattler back in the starting lineup after a couple of games stretch earlier in the season.

I think it was pretty evident in the first half and by the third quarter that... Look, he's playing with a deck that's just not full. Alvin Kamara is not out there. The receiving core is made up of a number of guys who you may have never even heard of at this point. Juwan Johnson might be their best receiving threat at tight end right now. They don't have a lot of guys. They don't have a lot of weapons, and it's a rookie quarterback against a defense that's playing with its hair on fire. So it's going to be a challenge, especially when you face a pressure rate like he did throughout this game. I didn't think he actively hurt them. He had two turnovers. He fumbled the ball away when he got hit. He also threw an interception by not putting enough on the football. There was a window there, and he just didn't throw it hard enough. Not enough velocity. But on the play prior to that, he made a fantastic jump pass to convert a third down. I was like, There's the talent.

Yeah, but that play was crazy. That was the two-play sequence that defined Spencer Rattler as a rookie. He didn't need to jump. He just jumped for fun, for style. I've never seen anyone put that much velocity on a jump pass that went 15, 20 yards down the field. There's some starting quarterbacks in the NFL, I'm not going to name names because their fans are going to get mad, but they couldn't throw it that fast with their two feet on the ground. Spencer Rattler has got a hose, so it'd be I wanted to see him at some point in a different system. But yeah, he lost his center today, Eric McCoy. Mvs got sick on Monday. He's been their number one receiver, so he didn't even play. I mean, it was a disaster for them even before the stream.

Yeah, I Kevin Austin and Dante Pettus are the leading receivers that aren't playing tight-end. Foster Mareau and Chuan Johnson, three guys finished in two catches each. This is a low ceiling offense with just no firepower, so I can't hold it against him. I see what fuels the agenda with Spencer Rattler. It's the throw like the one we just talked about. But it's not... He's better than Dorian Thompson Robinson. I'll say that, but he's still a rookie quarterback.

I was talking to my friend Adam West, who does the Saints Block Party podcast. He was talking about, Well, you got to see what you have in Rattler down the stretch. I was like, Yes, but there's literally nothing Rattler could do in this stretch that would impact what your decision making is. That includes if he played incredible, in the next three weeks, he looked like one of the best rookie quarterbacks in the league out of somewhere. You still are taking a quarterback if you want to take a quarterback and you're still doing it for free agency. Rattler's there. He can be part of some competition. Let's move off from that because the only important takeaway, I think, from this game, from the Saints' perspective, is just I believe big nights like this, primetime, could impact Mickey Loomis' chances to keep that job. It's all I thought was important over the rest of this same season. I know locally, they've talked that Darren Rizzie could keep that job. There's no way he's going to keep that job. But I do think losing 34-nothing in primetime I think it's going to help Gail Benson, the owner, look at what has happened with this organization and make a decision that for whatever reason, locally, they don't think she's going to make and get rid of Mickey Loomis, who's been running this organization like a mob boss for 25 years.

So everyone's afraid to say anything about it. It's like Tamanee Hall, if you're a historian. And I think when she fired Dennis Allen over his wishes, that showed me Okay, she's a little more plugged in, and how this season ended would maybe affect him or not. We're seeing how it's ending, whether it's fair or not. I think he's going to be out.

That's my prediction. I'm glad you described him as a mob boss, because I wrote in the what we learned that he's Teflon strong. Because for some reason, he avoids all the bullets. He just keeps his job. This may be the low point that makes them considered. I totally agree with you. It's just that we are heading into an offseason in which who are the candidates to replace? A lot of GMs are names that you don't typically know of at the time until the interview starts.

There's plenty. He's from a whole different generation. The reason he's Teflon is because he runs the organization in a way... He is almost an acting owner. From all reports, he's very hands-off. They have the Pelicans, too, and he's involved in the business. He's involved in everything. I think it's just going to be a lot of work to replace him, but I think they need to do that work.

Yeah, there's a bit of a right-hand man thing going on there, and you go away from that security. But how How low do you sink before you decide to make a change? I think we're pretty close now.

I think we're there. I think we got there tonight, and yet we came through with energy, with professionalism, like Rashaun Gary, if you happen to see that clip of him stepping into that interview with Jordan Love and scaring the hell out of Lisa Salter. Just check that out. We couldn't get the rights to it, but if we could, I would play it right here.

We came through with energy and professionalism, and in the spirit of Christmas, we came through with a jug of eggnog right here.

Oh, okay.

This is for the YouTube audience.

We're going to fit this in. You're an eggnog drink at home guy.

To the face. No alcohol, just eggnog.

Okay. I loved it as a kid, and It's been a long time. It's been a long time since I've had it. So maybe in honor of you, I will have some.

That is creamy.

It's a little too sweet. It's like- A little sweet. I don't need all that sweet at my age. All right, that is it for the YouTube audience. Nick pointed out to me smartly, we end these YouTube videos so abruptly because we just throw a break for the audio show. It's not giving our love to the YouTube audience. We love how it's been going up lately. Like, subscribe. We've been seeing the subscriber numbers go up. We appreciate you all. Check out the audio podcast if you want to hear a little bit of our news, our captains of the week. We're also going to do our pics for Coach of the Year. We'll see you next time.