Keep it in the NFC North with
the bears biggest rival, who, for very unfun reasons,
you could argue had the worst week one
of anybody in the league. Not only do they lose to the
Eagles in Sao Paulo, Brazil, but Jordan Love hurts
his MCL on basically the last play of the game. I think there was one more
snap after his injury. But basically, when this
game was concluded Jordan Love goes out, MCL sprained. They did-- they dodged a
bullet enough that it looks like he's only going to miss
a few weeks, maybe even less than that. Matt LaFleur is in Green
Bay on Monday evening, saying they're going to
give him every opportunity to play on Sunday. I'm going to go ahead and say I
think that's definitely a lie. But with this new with this new
development that Jordan Love could miss some
time, a lot of people worrying that the Packers maybe
aren't a playoff team anymore. Carm, do you think that's legit,
or do you think it's a lie? I think it's a lie. I don't think they
will miss the playoffs. I still-- again,
you talked about it. And the Packers
are hoping to get Jordan Love back more on
that two to three week scale, I think. I know that Matt
LaFleur is saying that they're going to give
him every opportunity to play. I think that's just for
the opponent's sake, to make sure that
you're having to prepare for multiple different
scenarios because that makes it harder on opposing defenses. The fact that they're not
bringing in anybody else, though, really makes it-- solidifies it for
me that they really are optimistic about
Jordan Love's timetable. And I'm not going to glean
a ton off of that game, given the playing surface. But if you look at that defense,
which you were hoping you were going to be able to rely on this
year, I said it all off-season, that Green Bay
Packers were going to go as far as the
defense let them, because I'm not worried
about the offense anymore. And we saw that. Before Jordan Love got hurt,
this offense is still great. It added Josh Jacobs,
who didn't really have his footing quite yet. Quite literally, he didn't have
his footing quite yet because of the playing surface in Brazil. But you look at a guy like
Xavier McKinney, who the team acquired this off-season at a
pretty hefty price tag, that pays off almost immediately. Second third snap of the
defense is game of the night, Xavier McKinney gets
an interception. Like, this is exactly what you
wanted from this defense now led by Jeff Hafley. It's a complete scheme change
for the Green Bay Packers. They are now a 4-3 base defense
for the first time in 15 years. But it seems like
there hasn't been much. The transition
has been seamless. So I'm really hopeful that the
defense can keep them afloat. And don't forget, I
mean, this Eagles team, with the coordinator changes
they made, this is supposed to be one of the best
teams in the conference, not just, you know-- this is this is who Green
Bay is going to be going up against later in the
season to make it down the line through the playoffs. So if you did this well
against an Eagles team when your quarterback goes down
and conditions are less than ideal, I'm not worried
about the Green Bay Packers from here on out. I am going to agree with you
and say, I think this is a lie. I don't know how we can-- now
that we know Jordan Love will be back at some point relatively
soon, how can we freak out too, too much when, just last year,
the reason why the Packers are a hot team heading
into this season, it's because they dug out of a
three and six hole last year? Jordan Love averages 270 passing
yards, 18 touchdowns to one pick basically over the
second half of the season to get them into the playoffs. So I'm not worried
about them potentially digging out of a hole. But, Carm, can I
point this out to you? It all sounds well and good
when you're rallying the troops and circling the
wagons and Malik Willis and Sean Clifford are
going to be the guys. That all sounds really good. But I've seen this
song and dance before when these
backups get into games, and it's like, oh, my god. We need Jordan Love
back immediately. I know it's been a
little bit of time since Malik Willis started
for the Tennessee Titans as a rookie. We all think very highly
of what Matt LaFleur can do as a developer of talent. But last time we
saw Malik Willis, he was second to last in
the league in success rate among quarterbacks who
played at least 100 snaps, and he was dead last
in EPA per play. So, like, all I'm trying
to say is that this can go sideways very quickly. Yeah, notice I
didn't talk about how I thought the backups
were going to be able to keep this thing afloat. I talked about the
defense keeping it afloat. You did do that. I'm very well aware of the
fact that Malik Willis has not shown up into this
point that he is a viable passer in this league. I do think that with the
addition of Josh Jacobs and the fact that the Packers
should have some more continuity on the offensive line or have
figured out their offensive line starters, because that was
a big point of contention this off-season
and this preseason, you have Jordan Morgan who now
got some snaps at right guard. The Packers were also rotating. I feel like we saw
that a lot in week one, where there were
multiple teams, like, rotating their offensive
line, which is just-- it just seems like a
cardinal sin to me. I don't know why that we
keep doing these things. But that should settle in. And then you can get
the ground game going. I think Malik Willis can be
a factor in the run game, especially when you
saw what Emanuel Wilson was able to do in that
game now that AJ Dillon is hurt. So you have Josh Jacobs. You have Emanuel Wilson. You have Malik Willis now,
that kind of factors into that. This just has to
kind of turn into one of those run-the-damn-ball
type of offenses. But I think the Packers
have the personnel to do it, especially when you
include the tight ends and how much they
can block and be a factor in creating mismatches,
all that kind of stuff. So I'm not super optimistic
about Malik Willis stepping in, especially when he doesn't
really know the system. They just traded for him at
the end of the preseason. But you need to kind of lean
on the other phases of the ball if you're a Green Bay to get
you through the next couple of weeks. And hopefully, it's
only a couple of days. Which, fortunately
for the Packers, the next few weeks at
least look manageable. Colts, add Titans, Vikings-- I'm not trying to say
these are bad teams, but these are at
least teams with-- we'll call them uncertain
quarterback positions. So winnable-looking games
coming up in the next few weeks, but it does get a lot
tougher after that. So hopefully, Jordan
Love can hurry back. But I'm with you. I'm not freaking out
about the Packers yet. I'm calling this a lie.