In this episode, Taylor Reacts to the Green Bay Packers blowout win in NFL week 17 versus the Minnesota Vikings. When he focuses on the Packers, he talks about Aaron Rodgers and the offense being more in sync, the kick returns of Keisean Nixon and his feeling on the defense going into a win and in game vs the Detroit Lions. When he switches to the Vikings, he tries to diagnose what went wrong both early and throughout the game, addresses the injuries to the offensive line, And talks about the Packers shutting down the connection between Kirk Cousins and Justin Jefferson.
In this episode, Taylor Reacts to the Green Bay Packers blowout win in NFL week 17 versus the Minnesota Vikings. When he focuses on the Packers, he talks about Aaron Rodgers and the offense being more in sync, the kick returns of Keisean Nixon and his feeling on the defense going into a win and in game vs the Detroit Lions. When he switches to the Vikings, he tries to diagnose what went wrong both early and throughout the game, addresses the injuries to the offensive line, And talks about the Packers shutting down the connection between Kirk Cousins and Justin Jefferson.
Taylor: What's up, everybody? It's the round table sports podcast. My name is Taylor McLean and we're on to game number three for this week, which is the Green Bay Packers big winner in over the Minnesota Vikings. First, let's give a shout out to the podcast sponsor, Evergreen Power Solutions. They're a concierge power company. Going to go in there, shop around and get you the best possible rate for your power needs now. So save you money in the short term and then in the long term go back in, renegotiate your rate. If they can get you a lower rate, they will. If not, they're going to keep your rate the same. That way you don't have to participate in rising energy costs. If that's what happens, give them a call at 8886-6586, use prompt number two and tell them that Taylor McClain and the Roundtable Sports Podcast sent you. That is only for our Texas listeners. Now let's get to the football. And this game was kind of shocking for a couple of reasons. As you probably know by now, this win puts the packers in position to play their way into the playoffs next week. This team was four and eight at one point and had like a 1% chance of making the playoffs. I got to think that the odds were pretty good if you were able to lay down that bet at that time. It's certainly the definition of buying low and selling high. Now they haven't made the playoffs yet. They still have to beat the Detroit Lions, who have also had an improbable run after their start to the season to put themselves in position. And unlike Green Bay, Detroit would need some help, right? They would need Seattle to lose earlier in the day and then go into their matchup with Green Bay, hopefully with a chance to make the playoffs. There was a little talk on the Internet that this was an advantage for the packers in that Detroit might not have anything to play for come game time. If Seattle is able to take care of their business earlier in the day. I don't think that a Dan Campbell led team would actually do that necessarily. They would be more prone to go out there and fight anyway. I mean, it is the packers after all. It's one of your division rivals that's been giving it to you for some time with Brett Farv and Aaron Rogers running back to back in this scenario. So I imagine they've had a snoop full of Green Bay Packers and would like to take them out of the playoffs even if they're not going to make it. But still, inherently these guys are human and it would affect them, I would think, if Seattle would win and would take them out of contention. But still, I wouldn't buy my tickets quite yet if I was a Green Bay Packers fan at this time. Still, to have this in your control is pretty impressive from where you came from. And then, of course, to have done it in such fashion to blow out the Vikings the way that you did. It was also quite shocking in this game. We're going to talk about it a little later, but the Vikings had a ton of stuff go wrong for them and work against them. And if that's the case, then the inverse must be true, right? A lot of things went Green Bay's way, but they also ended up making a lot of these plays that got them this win and kind of embarrassed the Vikings a little bit. It's not the first time this has happened to the Vikings. The Cowboys were also able to pull off this kind of feat. And of course, the backpackers beat said Cowboys and have beat said Cowboys in the playoffs before to get themselves to this point. So I think that would lend itself to a bunch of teams not wanting to see this team in the playoffs. Quarterbacks are scary like that. I think that the Cowboys are going to face Tom Brady and the Buccaneers. And despite the Buccaneers kind of having an off season, for the most part, they seem to get things right last week, and then they also have beat the Cowboys too. So a lot of problems when it comes to Cowboys in the playoffs, and packers could absolutely be one of them. And it's games like today when, yes, Green Bay was able to run the ball, but it wasn't really all that domineering. There was a lot on Aaron Rogers shoulders today that he had to go in there and make plays for the offense. Whether it was with his legs avoiding pressure or just delivering the ball on time to his receivers. He had that going on. It seemed like there was a lot more synchronicity to their passing game, and that's been the case for the last couple of weeks at the very least. Having Rando Cobb out there kind of gave them a little bit more of a stabilizing presence. Even though he wasn't out there for the majority of the snaps, it certainly didn't hurt to have him out there. Alan Lazard was catching slants and made some nice plays as well. And then Christian Watson seems to be open a lot, but he still has a tougher time than some of the receivers with the contested catches. Luckily, he's really fast and he's able to get himself open a good deal. But still, I think that's something to watch as far as how often do they go to him in pressure situations going down the line here. He creates a lot of mismatches, though with that speed. It's 100% legit that he's one of the faster guys on the field, and that's something that the packers absolutely need. So they've been giving him the snaps even though he's not quite as reliable as the other guys. It also looks like Ryan Tunyan looks pretty healthy out there. I like the way he was rumbling and stumbling out there. And of course, he was able to take advantage of the blown coverage by the Vikings for that big touchdown. That was a beautifully drawn up play, and I thought Tony And ran a really good route on that one. There is one issue that I have with the way that the Green Bay Packers have been doing their snaps a bit, though, in the last couple of weeks, and I think it's in an effort to keep Aaron Jones healthy. I don't think he's had full health in the last couple of weeks, although he looked a lot better this week. I don't like the way that they're taken away from his snaps as much I like AJ. Dylan all right, but he just doesn't seem to be running quite as good as I would want to see to have him out there taking away rushes from Aaron Jones. And I get it. You need to see what you've got in him and you need to keep Aaron Jones healthy. But he just seems to be plotting a lot out there, and I think they would get a ton more out of giving Aaron Jones some more of those routes, especially the in between the tackles is one thing, but not even putting him out into routes as much and letting AJ. Try that part of it hasn't looked really good. It takes him a while to get away from the line of scrimmage because he doesn't have as much acceleration. And that time is super critical for this offense because they've definitely been able to keep ARod clean, especially in this game. But that hasn't always been the case, and I don't really like the way that Minnesota has been rushing to pass her as of late. So it's definitely a little column A and column B when it comes to was it the packers line doing a great job pass blocking, or was it the Minnesota line that wasn't getting there, and it was that plus Green Bay keeping the Minnesota off balance with some quick passing and with the run game. So I don't want to go overboard on how good I think this offense is necessarily just by this big explosion. There was a lot of things that happened to get them there that will go over. There was a lot of things that got them there. Stopping the Minnesota Vikings to a field goal after they got their own punt blocked was a big momentum builder. And then returning the kick right after that and then after getting the stop, having the interception returned for the touchdown, missing a field goal, everything kind of piled up on itself. I mean, that's not over. There was another interception. There was a touchdown after that. There was another missed field goal. I mean, everything piled up to the point where it ended up being, you know, 41 to three before Minnesota scored a couple of touchdowns late to make it look a little bit more respectable. Although I don't know that 41 to 17 looks all that respectable at all when you're twelve and four especially, and the other team is eight and eight and you're trying to eliminate one of your biggest nemesis of all time from the playoffs, you got a lot to play for. You could have had an inside track on the first seed, you know, should Philadelphia lose next week, which doesn't look like the Giants are going to play all their guys. So that may end up not mattering because Philadelphia will probably win that game, especially if Jalen Hurts is actually going to come back, which they say he's going to. So, okay, maybe not as much to play it for. You still want to try and lock up the second seed and all of those things. So yes, you're in and the like, but you could have eliminated the packers here and taken a lot of Ard strife out of everybody else's playoff thought process here, and I don't think that heaping all the praise on Aaron Rodgers and the offense is fair at all either, and I had no intentions of doing so. It was a big turning point in the game when Kesey and Nixon was able to return that kick off for a touchdown, and it was really well drawn up and the Minnesota Vikings didn't do a very good job of covering it. AJ. Feely had a nice video kind of talking about what happened there and why everybody was kind of out of position for that return and take easy's credit. He definitely earned that return. It's not like it was just all the blocking necessarily, but any kick return, it's a fast guy and some good blocking in front of him that gets it done. So it's a symbiotic relationship, there no doubt. And it's not just this play either. He leads the league in 50 yard returns this year, and he has five, and the next closest person has two. So it's not really all that close, which kind of begs why he didn't get into the Pro Bowl, because the guy is super legit. He's fast, he's bursty, and you can see it when he's out there. And I don't know if teams are going to continue to kick to him with the way that he's been returning these balls. And it's been a big boost to Green Bay because, as I said, I don't want to give all this credit to the offense because it's been a complete group effort with this team and ARod is a big part of it and having him making decisions from the quarterback position is a big advantage. But I think having Nixon back there, too, and getting those extra yards and the special team is in those extra scores has been a big boost. And I find myself watching the Green Bay returns instead of fast forwarding through them when I'm watching the film, because he is exciting, and I'm all about exciting. Football fandom be danged. I can watch any game that has the right elements to it, and having Nixon back there definitely adds to the excitement and definitely makes me want to watch these packers games a little bit more. The other thing that you have to give credit to on the packers in this day and really throughout this run where they've gotten a lot better is their defense. A big part of this win was the Vikings couldn't really handle the front of the Green Bay defense. Green Bay had an injury. Rudy Ford got injured during the game, and that's why Darnell Savage was back there for the interception. And they don't have Rashawn Gary either. But for the most part, this is a healthy defense that has gelled over these months. And with Kenny Clark playing the way that he was against the backup center and against the interior of the line, everybody kind of fed off that. And you could really see that without the running game backing them up and giving them the ability to play action and really feed off of that, that it was a real problem, and the Vikings didn't really have an answer for that. That's part of being an incomplete team, when there's something you can't do on offense and a defense is able to take away the thing that you like to do, and you don't have, like, a secondary pitch here that turns into these games where you're getting blown out because you can't adjust in those moments. And of course, we can't gloss over Jair Alexander on Justin Jefferson. He did a good job out there. It wasn't just him. He was on Justin a lot, and you could tell that it visibly frustrated Kirk and the offense for him to do so. But they also gave him help. They mixed it up a little bit, justin and the offense just really couldn't adjust, which is really impressive because not many teams have been able to do that. Some have been able to do it in spurts and keep the Vikings down for a time, but in the end, they end up coming back. It's just in this game and in the Cowboys game, they haven't really been able to mount those comebacks. I said to the group of Minnesota people that I chat with, hey, this is usually when you all start coming back, is when you all hit rock bottom, and it has never happened in this game. So now it's on to the Detroit Lions at home. You've got your destiny in your hand. It has to seem a little unreal for your fans and for you alike, but when you've got Aaron Rogers making decisions on third down and being able to be the general of a more coherent squad on both sides of the ball can't rule them out on a given day. And it's going to make a lot of teams nervous to have A Rod out there, but good for them for being able to mount this second half comeback that they put together on the Viking side. We talked a lot about how we got here since we were just talking about it. I think it's probably the first thing we should go through for the Vikings. They got that pump block for the second week in a row, and it looked like everything was kind of going their way for that moment in time. And then they ran three not very good plays. Granted, Justin Jefferson fell down on one of them, and the two were kind of uninspired running plays. And the worst thing that could have happened in that moment seemed like it did happen. Not only did they not get the touchdown right, but they also lost their second center of the year. From that moment on, the offense was out of sorts, to say the least, and I don't want to put it all on the center by any means, but there was plenty of blame to go around. But it was a real problem. Not only the false starts and delay of game and whatnot, but he also got eaten up by Kenny Clark and was having to take a lot of the help that the running back would provide in the passing game. They really had to kind of chip and move in to give Kirk any sort of time up the middle there. And it wasn't just him either. The guards. I like Ezra Cleveland, but he didn't have a great game necessarily either. And then Ed Ingram is kind of a mess as well. So when you have three kind of lower tier guys in there at one time, that's a problem even when you have diligence on the outside, who I like. But he also gave up a sack early on that was kind of crippling. So not a great game overall for the line. And then you throw in losing your second team center and you have to turn to a guy who hasn't really played that much center at all, and then you also lose your right tackle. And both those guys, they've already come out and said are done for the year, and they hope to get Garrett Bradbury back for the playoffs, but that's not a lock at all at this point. Shotman hadn't been lighting the world on fire necessarily, but he had been serviceable, and he has center experience. Chris Reid doesn't really have much experience at all in that way, and you might just think to yourself, that's not a big deal to not have experience. It's just another position on the offensive line. But there's a lot put on the center as kind of the leader of the line and the guy responsible for calling the front. Every offensive lineman knows what to do with multiple fronts for each play, so the center calling the front what it is and calling it correctly kind of dictates what the rest of the line is going to do and how whatever play is going to get blocked. So not only are you having to rely on him to do that, that's just more on his plate. Not to mention that he also has to snap the ball. On top of that, remembering the play, remembering the snap count, playing a position you're not used to, that all seemed to get to Chris Reid in this game, and I have sympathy for him because I played center when I played football. And when you're all in your head trying to remember exactly what you're going to do, calling the front, you've got somebody over the top of you or not, just all of those things in your head, that's when I would have false starts. That's when the snap count would get messed up, when we would have all of that going on. And for someone stepping into that position on the fly like that, it's got to be tough. And it was tough to watch on this day. And like I said, there was plenty of blame to go around, but him and the rest of the interior of this line getting eat up was a big problem. And then they didn't really have O'Neill for all that long, but it wasn't quite as noticeable as it was at the center position. That's still a big problem, though, and you're going to face teams with a lot better edge presence than the Green Bay Packers. Sure, Kenny Clark ate them up in the middle, but you're going to face other teams that are going to have way bigger edge presences, and that could be a big problem if you've got a couple of Waldos out there that other teams are looking for. And if one of those guys happens to be on the outside, that's all the easier to pick out. It's a little harder to get to the guards and the centers because you can kind of team up and there's not as much space to operate in as a lineman. But for a team that is looking to run the ball, that's looking to be physical and that needs a lot of protection for their quarterback, that isn't the fastest decision maker in the whole world, and that may lead to disaster overall for a team that was not on the brink of it by any means, but has been riding the Lightning for many, many weeks to this point. Having some skin in the Vikings game recently with a bunch of new Minnesota Vikings people in my life has been harrowing to say the least. I've had a little extra eye on them and their games are so up and down. I imagine every last one of them with a shaking hand, with a cigarette in it, just the cigarette shaking. It's like they have post traumatic stress or something or we're in a car wreck and they're okay, but they're smoking a cigarette and they can barely do it. That's what these games are like for them and it's been stressful and this is not helping. Losing all this momentum, losing a game like this to your hated rivals, and in such a fashion, too. Not only are Justin Jefferson's fantasy owners devastated, but I would be pretty devastated, too. You're close to 2000 yards, you've had this great season, and then you have a couple of clunkers. As I said before, it wasn't just Jair on Justin Jefferson. There was a lot of coverages being thrown there and some help being thrown there as well. But this is the second time that somebody has a big physical corner that they put on Justin and then that throws the whole rest of the offense out of whack. We were talking about Kirk Cousins and I mentioned that he's not a fast decision maker. He's also not a great improviser when the play doesn't go to plan. He's not Jared Goff level. Jared Goff and Mitch Trubisky, a bunch of guys like that. There were way worse guys and there are way worse guys still in the league at this point. But Kirk needs his number one read open more often than not and he needs these plays to go as planned. And when you're able to take Justin out in such a way and then Adam Thielen has most definitely lost a step and would certainly be on my list of players to possibly cut if I'm looking to move things around because he's just not getting separation in the same way that he used to. And that's a big problem when someone is able to throw the type of coverage that they threw at him today that have a physical presence, that are able to get on to Justin early and often. And part of what has made Kirk better in this year is being able to rely on that, being able to rely on Justin to get open and to be his second play win. He has to say effort and throw it. He's been throwing it up to Justin Jefferson and Justin has been being the alpha up until this point and it just didn't happen today. And you're going to face some good corners like that in the playoffs and teams are going to look at this game plan that was just run against the Vikings. And if a team is able to replicate that, you're going to see these plays again. You're going to see these coverages again. And do the Vikings have another pitch to be able to take advantage of that? And other players that are able to take advantage of that? KJ Osborne and Jalen Naylor today have been stepping up in that capacity. Naylor got in a little bit later and made a couple of big plays, including a touchdown, and then you have Hawkinson over the middle. Kirk just missed Hawkinson on a couple of plays, too, and he had a fall down on one of his screens and has kind of been up and down for sure since his addition. They need him. They need KJ Osborne, and they need, apparently, Naylor to step up if the land is not able to get that done, because they're going to have to have answers, and they're going to have to have a change up pitch. You have to be able to do different things. And that's part of being a complete quarterback, is if they're able to take this away from you, then they're leaving this open, right? If they're taking the short passing away from you, then everything else should be open. If they're taking Justin Jefferson away from you, you should be able to make other reads and move the ball to other people, not just take Justin Jefferson out of it and start making other people the first read. You need to be able to process that. And Kirk is doing a lot of ball pattern and holding the ball and allowed Green Bay to get pressure on him, and they ended up getting a strip sack. They ended up tipping a couple of balls for the interceptions, and then Kirk, really badly under, threw a deep ball for another interception. So two of them were tipped still partially his fault, and one of them ended up being the touchdown that was particularly devastating. That really kind of got the game on its way to being out of hand and put more pressure on the Vikings to get out of their offense and start having to press. And that's not something they have in the bag either. Kirk the offense, it kind of needs to be flowing through Dalvin, through the running game and the play action, and then everything kind of flows together after that. The packers were able to disrupt that in the ways that we talked about, and it raised a lot of questions for a team that already had a bunch of questions. Also, I talked a lot about the offense, about Kirk. Also, I know that the running totals weren't where people would have wanted them, and I think people are going to point towards Dalvin Cook as part of the problem here. I don't see it that way when I watch them run. Dalvin was running into guys. There wasn't a lot of blocked yards for him to get today, and he still looks bursty to me and seems like he could be an explosive part of this offense. It's just they're not featuring him, not even in the same way that they used to. They need to be more balanced, and they need to get Justin involved in everything but to call Dalvin Cook. The problem at this point is not accurate. It's not accurate. And I know he has a huge number as far as you could cut him and save like, $8 million and have six or seven call it eight and a half. Six and a half? If I remember correctly, the six and a half being the dead money that you would lose or not be able to use. You could use the 8 million, though, and sign somebody. I don't think that's the problem. Alexander Madison, first of all, is a free agent, and you're not going to have him probably next year, even if you cut Dalvin. And then really, the line in the running back have to move in concert. And everything was shot in the foot today with the lineman being missing and with the other linemen outside of Dillashaw not being the highest of high quality. I like Ezra Cleveland, like I said, and the other guard is all right, but there's nothing to write home about. Ingram's definitely not anything to write home about. They're just guys. So that gives you one plus lineman. The goal is to have three, and maybe you would have had that had Bradbury been healthy, but that's still only two. Maybe Cleveland, maybe that gives you one side there that you really can rip it up on. But to call Dalvin the problem and to start trying to keep that on him doesn't feel representative. The only way that I could feel that way at all is that it's kind of on the offense and the staff to use Dalvin more. They just really haven't been able to get him the touches in a way that affects the game the way they need it to. And as one more kind of aside before we wrap it up today, this wasn't just an offensive thing either. The defense is not blameless in this kind of slip that the Vikings have been in in the last couple of weeks. And I know I said slip right there. They've won two out of four, but we've seen how they've been doing those wins if you've been watching these games. And it's been kind of harrowing in a way that I would not like if I were their fans. The Vikings do have playmakers on every level of the defense, but didn't really show up today. Having Bakhtiari back has certainly shored up the line for the packers, but they haven't been anything necessarily to write home about. And I felt super underwhelmed by the pass rush that the Vikings were able to put out there today, which is weird, because I kind of felt like the edges were the strong portion of this defense for a time. But now it seems like up the middle is where they're shored up, and they're getting attacked at the edges. At least they were today. The packers are really good at motioning guys and creating those type of angles for the offense. But when you have Danil Hunter and you have Zadaria Smith and Eric Kendricks and Jordan Hicks, you're supposed to be a lot more stout on the edges. And I'm not sure that I like Jordan Hicks and Eric Hendrix. As a combo, as linebackers either. It feels like there's a lack of speed there side to side, and it showed today in a big way. The other thing is, outside of Patrick Peterson and Duke Shelley who I like. Who I like. All right, the secondary is getting picked on a bit here, too. They said they were rotating out Harrison Smith for other guys, and the Chandler Sullivan in the slot is a problem. There's just ways to pick on the Vikings right now, and they need to be more balanced on both sides of the ball if they're going to pull this thing together. But we'll see lots of figure out right now. But the Vikings can turn it on at any given time. They just have to quit shooting themselves in the foot. I don't know if it's just them coming out slow or they're just not ready or what it is, but they've got to get it figured out, and they've got to get it figured out now. Otherwise, I don't know what's going to happen to them when it comes crunch time, because these margins that have apparently thinned up to the point that they're hurting the Vikings only get thinner in the playoffs. You got to rely on the quarterback more. You have to have higher level quarterback play at times. And you have to be able to rely on your quarterback. You have to be able to rely on your defense. And those things have been in question recently, and it's basically at the worst time possible. So just one game. But I'm going to need to see something from the Vikings or they're going to really need to step up in these next couple of weeks if they're going to make some noise like their fans hope they can. That's what I've got for this game. If you've gotten to this point and haven't done so, download the podcast. Let me know that you're here and listening and that you like my analysis. Should have more videos coming out. Just dropped a Patrick video. Should have some shorts coming out here. Definitely going to have to do one on the kick off return. And I think I'm going to do one on a rod. Nice little stutter fake to get the touchdown. So look forward to that if you're on YouTube, like and subscribe and have a great rest of your day. Key points.