Wisconsin Sports on the go with Trag
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Wisconsin Sports on the go with Trag
Packers wrap up, Badgers survive Ohio State – Wisconsin Sports on the Go
how we doing everybody and welcome into wisconsin sports on the go with trage. I'm your host. Trage. It is a snowy blistery. I don't even know what to say anymore. Like holy crap. It has been frigid cold in the state of wisconsin. I am getting over it at this point here. I mean we've been dealing with it for a couple days now. Now I saw next monday they're talking like it's supposed to be negative six for a high, negative six for a high. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 2:We were cheering today because it got to four degrees. I was like my guy, I with he's like global warming all over again right now. Four degrees outside. We're getting too hot out there. He's like we doubled what we were yesterday. We were only two out there. I mean it's just, it's madness right now. It's madness. It's blistery, cold, but hey, we may get through. We're warm, we tuning in. Hey, if you're tuning in tonight, make sure you guys are letting us know what you think. Badgers, Packers, Bucks we want to talk about it all. You guys got something you want to talk about? Mention it to us. We'll get into it here on the show tonight here. But I got Aaron with me tonight, on this Wednesday. Aaron, how are we doing tonight?
Speaker 3:Not bad. Not bad. I mean I think it's cold here, but you guys have it rougher. I'm not gonna lie to you, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it like today. It's like one of those days you walk outside it does hit you in the face, though around here like it's like, yes, wow, like this is not it. You know it was cold, but it was like manageable before. This is like you don't want to be out more than you know. 15, 20 minutes is like pushing it really. I mean it's only what. Let me see right now. It's only they're saying okay, so it feels it's going to be 14 tonight. So I mean you know it's felt like you know teens all day with the windchill, stuff like that you know, just around there. So I mean, like I said, you guys have it worse, but it's not exactly Florida over here either. It's not fun. I'm like you said, I'm kind of over it too. I do like snow, but it's, it's frigid. I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it.
Speaker 2:I'm not. This chair is just kicking my pants over here. It's not going well. I got the duck dynasty rug down below me and the chair's getting stuck trying to roll in. I'm just not having it not having it right now it happens.
Speaker 2:So I was watching. Have you ever seen a guy cook a beaver? Before you ever seen a guy cook a beaver? Before you ever seen a guy cook a bee? I was watching a video today and this guy he's got three Miller light cans and he's got a beaver getting smoked on top of it and I was like I don't even know, that doesn't look good. I don't even look good Like I'm watching this guy cook it. I'm like this doesn't even look good right now. Alaskan Bush people. I went through a weird kick where I was watching. I still do. Every once in a while I'll watch Alaskan Bush people and have you ever watched it? Have you ever watched Alaskan?
Speaker 3:Bush people, it sounds like.
Speaker 2:I would, though they're different. They're different. That is about, as I don't even know, hillbilly as it gets right there, and the one guy said that they got so hungry once that they shot a beaver and they ate it. And apparently beaver is really high in iron, like it gives you double of what you actually need in one day with iron. So he said that their port-a-potty or the can got really used that day because the beaver was. I was like, oh man, like I don't even want to hear that, but apparently beaver is supposed to be good. That's what I'm hearing. It's supposed to be good. This guy was smoking it. He said it was pretty good. So I guess I guess there. But Alaskan Bush people, you got to check it out sometime. It's like I don't even know how to describe it Like you get an episode where, like, their goal is to like they're going to build a I the one was a.
Speaker 2:They're building like a windmill out in Alaska and they were building out of these, these poles. They're sticking them up in the ground there and they're going to put this windmill at the top to give themselves power on this random island that they're on. And then they get a cow and they're like scared of bears out there. So then they get a cow and they're like, oh yeah, we get milk now, but now the cow attracts bears so it's like I don't even know, like they're wild that is. That is definitely one of the craziest shows I've watched and it gets. I mean, at the end you're just like now. Then they were living in washington. At one point they get shot off of one land and then they moved to why?
Speaker 2:It's just a different kind of show, but I'd recommend it. I recommend checking it out there. So we got lots to get into. We got lots to get into tonight, more than just alaskan bush people, even though it's a great show. Great show would recommend it there. Like I said before, if you're tuning in, make sure you guys get in the comment section. Let us know what you're thinking. Badgers uh, I don't know. Bucks, packers whatever you want to talk about tonight, we'd love to get into it. Get into the comment section and let us know there. Let us know how you're feeling. Packer fans out there, because I mean, we're feeling one way. We probably know how you guys are feeling. So we'd love to hear it tonight here on the show. But, aaron, I want to start right away.
Speaker 2:The international signing period for the MLB went up today here and the Brewers had a good amount of money to spend I believe it was like they had a fair chunk and they went out there. They grabbed some pretty decent prospects. They got a couple outfielders, kenny, a couple notables, I guess you could say Kenny Fenelon, the number 36 prospect there in the international signing pool, and then they got Braylon Anunitz these names are going to kick my butt the whole time there but the number 42 prospect there in outfield there also. And then Christopher Acosta, the shortstop number 45 on the list there in the international signing pool. They I mean, they went through, I believe it, what? It was the total like 29 guys that they ended up signing in total there.
Speaker 2:The Brewers did, as a total, like 29 guys that they ended up signing in total there the brewers did, yeah, 29 international prospects that they signed today here and three of them were in the top 50 of that prospect list. So that's impressive. I mean, aaron, you were going to google up there. What did you find anything about like where the, the number one prospect internationally went? Did he sign anywhere?
Speaker 3:um, so then the absolute number one uh, rokey. I'm gonna butcher, this completely too, but rokey saskaki, uh, oh, the big name, that's that big name guy. The pitcher, yeah, right hand pitcher, he Number one, rokey, I'm going to butcher this completely too.
Speaker 2:But Rokey Saskaki, oh, the big name, that's that big name guy, the pitcher.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right-hand pitcher, he's not. I don't think he's signed, I don't know if he's in talks, I just he's number one and there's no team beside him. So, like you know, let's just move on to number two. The Giants got him Another, another complicated name there, but a shortstop out. Uh Hozar, first name. Uh, shortstop out of the Dominican Republic. And then the Mets Tigers, I mean the, the. It's so funny. The Mets, um, it looks like they spent the most money on one individual player, uh, elian Pena, a shortstop from the Dominican Republic, but he's getting five mil and those other guys are getting like three and some change. So I mean typical Mets Steve Cohen thing to do. Right, just flex the wallet there, just because you can. I mean why not, right, I guess? But oh, let me get up. Don't know what happened there. Shoot, sorry about that.
Speaker 2:You're good, you're good, you're still here.
Speaker 3:Hold on, there we go. Stupid MLBcom got me on an ad there, um, but yeah, that was uh, yeah, that you know, um, it seems like a lot of I I didn't realize how many teams like I mean they they're spenders. You know, like this is one of those things where I mean every team I was seeing like baltimore was six million brewers. You know, right around there as well, six, seven, like everybody's in the six to seven um, if not more, area. So, um, I totally forgot this existed. I'll be honest, it makes me sound like I don't know what's going on a little bit, but I forgot this was like a thing.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. Prospects are, I mean nobody international yeah, nobody cares, right, nobody cares.
Speaker 2:But when you look at, like the brewers, I mean look at what they got out of venez. Jackson Churrio like he's your number one prospect, he's the dude right now Came out of Venezuela and then they also got. I believe Jefferson Cuero came from down there, luis Lara came from there and so did Jorge Quintana. So you got four guys out of Venezuela there who are currently in your top 30 in your prospect list. So that I mean that speaks volumes to what you can do in this international signing pool that you would normally not be able to touch right, venezuela, the Brewers I mean they go down there. They scout very well down there. I mean there's a lot of teams who struggle internationally scouting the Brewers. They have facilities all over the place. I know a lot of teams do, but they have facilities all over the place and they get these guys, they see these guys all year round and they do a heck of a job on finding talent down there. So I love these signings so far. We're going to do more digging on these guys. If we're going to learn anything, there's only so much that you can find out on these guys. At the moment there's still a word out there that they think Jackson Churio isn't actually as young as what they say he is. People believe that, you know, he's like the guy off of this. Uh, what is it? The bench warmers with the green crayon that says I am 12, like that's how they think jack centurio's showing up to baseball games sometimes. So I mean, that's just, that's just the way it goes, that's just the way it goes. But brewers sign up three guys in the top 50 in the prospect pool. There's some good stuff there out of the brewers.
Speaker 2:But, aaron, I want to get over to the packers, because we didn't. We got into the indiscretions and, uh, how we were feeling about the packers coming off of, you know, that game against the eagles. It felt like in that last, I would say almost month, right, did we really have a lot of good things to say? Right, were we really talking about the packers and saying, realistically, this team had a shot to go to the super bowl? I didn't think so. I really didn't think so. I really didn't think so At the beginning of the year.
Speaker 2:Yes, halfway through the year I thought they could turn it around and figure it out. But when you got to week 15, week 16, week 17,. And it was the same things. It was the same mistakes. The silly crab that we went over week after week and it didn't change. It didn't improve. The offense wasn't getting better, the slow starts were still there, the pre-snap penalties, everything in between was still there and it just came to the point where it was like how can you go on the road realistically for three straight games and get to the Super Bowl with all these problems? With all these problems, you can't just flip a light switch. You know you can't just flip a light switch in the postseason. You can do it midseason.
Speaker 2:Right, we talk about the Packers from two seasons ago, not this last season, but two seasons ago. Well, we're talking last season as this season now. But when they went down to Dallas, when that second half of the season, when Jordan Love and the offense turned it on right, we can talk about that. When that happened we felt good about this team. We're like the offense is rolling right now If the defense can take a step up. I odds, I like the odds of this team. They went to San Fran. They played well in San Fran, I mean, besides a couple of boneheaded mistakes. Maybe they walk out of San Fran with a win and they go to Detroit, like we're talking about a completely different narrative coming off of that season.
Speaker 2:But I think what hurt the most off of this season was why it never got off the ground running, right, you know, it's like we were like a plane right, you're thinking about a plane there and it never came off the runway. It tried it, tried it, sure as heck tried, right it was. It was nose up a couple times. It was nose up a couple times, but then it would just sink back down and it just it never seemed like once. Once it seemed like everything was starting to flow, it dropped back and there was some, some mistake, some silly thing that dropped this team back down to where they just were, down at ground level. And it's like, why did they never take that step?
Speaker 2:And what hurt the most with it was we saw this team take that next step last season. We saw it. We saw it when they went to Dallas and I know Dallas, dallas is Dallas, right, everybody will say that Dallas is Dallas. I'm still impressed that they went down there and they put on the performance that they did in Dallas. And then they went to San Fran and I gotta be honest with you. I mean, you look skill position to skill position. I San Fran from last season with Christian McCaffrey, debo Samuel on that team, I get it. Brock Purdy Everybody's like, ah, he's not that good of a quarterback.
Speaker 2:Well, guess what? When you have all them playmakers, you don't need to be a great quarterback, you just need to be a good quarterback that can make it work. You look at the defense Nick Bosa, fred Warner I mean they had dogs on that team and that Packers team went in there and they had a lead. They look good. People were talking about that Packers team in that game Like, oh my God, like they're going to win, they're going to go to Detroit, they're going to win this football game right now. And then we all know what happened. But we all know what happened.
Speaker 2:But I think what makes this season worse is that you didn't progress right. You didn't take that next step, you went backwards, and that's what I kind of want to talk about here. To start Looking at this roster, because we look at the Green Bay Packers from this last season here and my biggest question was did any of these Packers progress in this season, right? So I guess I want to go through a list. I want to go through a list of guys and we're going to I mean, we're going to start at the top head and we're going to work our way down right.
Speaker 2:So my number one guy and this is the guy I want to discuss right away Jordan Love. Did Jordan Love progress from what we saw last season? Aaron, I mean, what do you think Did Jordan Love progress from what you saw last season? And I would say you know the tough part with Jordan Love is you almost split last season into two halves. Right, second half of the season that's the Jordan Love that we know he's capable of being. First half of the season was skin and tires, yeah, but then he hit that stride and it's like okay, we know the guy that he can be Now. Can he sustain that? Can he be that guy? What do you think Jordan Love? Did he progress this last season?
Speaker 3:No, I got to say he regressed. I mean we saw it kind of abundantly clear. I still like I am the last guy to make excuses for quarterback or whatnot. I do think he was. I want to say he wasn't 100%. I mean I'll put it this way you know not many people are 100% this time of year. You know you get to week 17,.
Speaker 3:Then you get to the wild card round, especially like I got to thank Josh Jacobs, saquon, derrick Henry, like those backs that get used like in excess. I can't think any of those guys are like I've heard the stories Arian Foster said on the Joe Rogan podcast a while ago, like I, as long as he's telling the truth, which I don't feel like, why would he not maybe exaggerate a little bit? But like running backs, quarterbacks, tight end, like craft Dallas Goddard, like those guys are banged up. So I'm not going to completely make an excuse, for I'll give him a little bit of grace. Only because of the elbow. You know you sustain that elbow injury against the Bears, like last week of the season, and then you know they say it was a precautionary short. It probably was, but you just don't know.
Speaker 3:But no, as a whole, I mean Jordan Love definitely took a, I would say, a substantial step back, unfortunately, just because of what we saw last year. What? What we saw down the stretch last year and then this year was just he never really wowed you. Like you know, he'd make a throw here and there and wow you, but not like for four quarters. It wasn't like wow, this guy is like dangerous for four quarters, like he would just kind of go away. It would just kind of like okay, where is? Are we ever going to find that Jordan Love again? You know. So this see, I mean going into next year, you got to think there'll be a lot of questions asked of him. How good is he? Is he really like that guy? You know he has a lot to prove. I'll put it that way because of this season, unfortunately. I mean, I'm not going to say he did horrible this year, it's just he was nothing like there was nothing to write home about. At the same time, you know.
Speaker 2:No, and my thing with Jordan Love, I'm not. No, if you're already writing the book on Jordan Love like you're done with this guy, he's nothing. I, I don't. I, I don't believe you like I, I'm not with that crowd, I'm not.
Speaker 2:Jordan Love's a good quarterback right now. He's a good quarterback. I think he's got the capability to be a I I'm not gonna say a Patrick Mahomes, I'm not gonna say a Joe Burrow, but he's got the ability to be next level. He'm not going to say a Patrick Mahomes, I'm not going to say a Joe Burrow, but he's got the ability to be next level. He's got that ability. I'm not saying that Sam Darnold is twice the quarterback than what Jordan Love is, but if you wanted to look what they did this season, you would put Sam Darnold ahead of Jordan Love. That's what we saw.
Speaker 2:Statistically, jordan Love didn't have a terrible year 63% on his completion rating, 3000 yards. I ate out of the average there 25 touchdowns, 11 interceptions. But I think you put that microscope on those 11 interceptions. I think you do because I don't. I don't know if it's just me, but when I see those interceptions, it's, it's missing guys. That was my, that was, I guess my biggest thing when I watched Jordan Love this season was, you know, everybody says the receivers didn't get open. I thought there was times where the receivers got open. I thought there was times where we saw guys get open out in the open field and it was an arid throw. It was we're going to throw, you know, the double coverage to Dobbs in that playoff game there when he had Josh Jacobs in the flat. It was the you flat. It was those little mistakes that we talk about with Jordan Love.
Speaker 2:I think those are the ones that I amplify, because I think he took a regression in his vision and I don't know if he doesn't have. We talked about it the other day. We're like what is it like between the ears? Right? That's a big question. Is it screwed on tight? What is it? Does he have the vision? Can he get past the first couple of reads? Because that's that defines a good quarterback. You got to be able to look off this guy, right? Maybe Dobbs is your first option. Look them off, right? Look at Watson. He's not there. Okay, now I, you know, I keep going back, right, but when I watch him it's like I don't know is at times he forces the issue. Then he went away from forcing the issue and then he came back to it. Look at that throw to wicks there in that, uh, playoff game. He was forcing the issue again. So it's like what is going on with jordan love and I think it's something between the years with him there.
Speaker 2:Last season I think part of it was matt lafleur simplified the offense for him, right, you talk about what we saw last season for this season. We saw a lot more play action. We saw a lot more simple stuff. We saw a lot more receivers getting wide open there due to that play action. It was those little things. This season they went away from the play action and we're going to get to that. Because matt lafleur mentioned that in his press conference. I want to talk about a few things that we saw there. But I mean went away from the play action, so changed on him. I mean it's those little things with him.
Speaker 2:So you go back to coaching. Then why? Why did his footwork get worse? You know, we look at his footwork going into this season and his footwork was terrible to start last season. And Tom Clemens, I mean he, he's going to retire now. So I mean bless his heart Great guy. I mean worked with Favre, worked with Rodgers, worked with Love Talk about a combo that this guy got to work with there. But he's going to ride off to the sunset there and retire. But I mean, I'm looking at him and I'm like why did Jordan Love not get taken back and say, hey, we got to work on this, we got to settle those feet, we got to make you more comfortable in there? Because if you look at the pass rush, he was one of the least sack quarterback in football and I know matt lafleur addresses in his thing there in his press conference and he talks about, you know, jordan, let's hard to throw a ball when you're on your back all the time and stuff like that. Jordan love was not under duress for a lot of the season.
Speaker 2:Now against the eagles yes, I believe I was looking at the. I wanted to check on that today and I was looking at the pff uh grade there. I think the eagles had 18 pressures on jordan love and 13 hurries in that game. So but but that comes back to play calling for me too, because I look at a lot of those play calls and it's like why are we sending guys, you know 50 yards deep here and trying to break off a big chunk play. Why? Why are we doing this? It just play. Calling to me was inapt at times. So I I don't know.
Speaker 2:I'm looking at jordan love and I'm like I don't want to say that you didn't take a step in the right direction. You did, you regressed. You did not take a step in the right direction. Statistically, you didn't have a terrible year, but looking at the proof in the pudding and looking at what we saw, I just I don't feel like he took the right step. And when you're not progressing, you're regressing in the like, especially in the NFL. Right, if you're not getting better, you're getting worse. You can't do one. You can't stay stagnant. You got to get better, you're going to get worse. Jordan Love, I don't think he got better. It's going to be a lot this off season the game slowing it down for yourself, Right, I always remember I saw that um the Aaron Rogers documentary.
Speaker 2:When he's talking about I, he was on the air I can't remember what episode, I think it was the first one and he's on the airplane with uh, I believe it was when he was with the jets and he was recovering and he's breaking down to the one I think it was a camera who he's breaking it down to, but the route tree. And he's like this is the percentage of, if this guy runs this route, this is the percentage he's going to be open and this is the percentage of that. And he said this is everything that goes through my head when I'm going to make that throw Like I know, like this is the percentage of this guy making this play and it's like I would have never understood that right, like that's too much to comprehend. But it's a craft, right, he works on it, he understands it, he understands where guys are supposed to be and he understands where they're going to make their breaks. Those little things, right, joe Burrow, those guys, they make those throws. Guys make their break. The throw is coming Like it's. They throw guys open, they do those little things.
Speaker 2:I don't know if Jordan Love is doing those little things. When I watch him, it's like he's throwing to the open guy. When Jaden Reed makes his cut, the ball's not there yet, but when Jaden Reed's standing in the middle of the field, the ball's coming. It's late, it seems like it's late. He's not making that read early enough, so it's like it's not processing fast enough for him. I'm not saying that Jordan Love isn't smart enough to figure this out, because I believe he can, it's just the processing speed. I believe Jordan Love has to be better going into this next season. So there's a lot of work that he has to do in this off season. I mean we could talk Josh Jacobs, but I Josh Jacobs, I mean he, he was a dog. He definitely was the right direction there.
Speaker 2:Looking down the line, let's look at the receivers, because these are, let's look at the big positions to talk about here. Right, jayden reed. All I'm going to say about jayden reed is I mean, look, 857 yards led the team in yards right, 75 targets had a boat load of targets there. The one thing I would say is the drops. He had a lot of drops. I think he the packers, I believe led the league in drops this season. So you put that into perspective. Jayden Reed had a boatload of drops.
Speaker 2:That would be my concern with him is that I don't, and I'm going to look here. Let's just put the receiving core as a whole. I don't think anybody stepped up to be that guy. Right, we talked about it going into the season. We're like maybe Dobbs will be that guy, maybe Watson will be that guy, right, but they're going to do it by committee. They got different pieces. Watson's the blow it off top guy. Dobbs is going to be the third down guy, but I don't believe anybody ever took that next step. They never. Nobody ever said I want to be the number one guy. I want to be the number one guy. I'm going to work my tail off fantastic, but he's not number one. He can't. I don't think he's gonna be like and like, maybe, maybe, just maybe, but right now what I'm seeing out of these guys is a lot of drops, wicks, reed they both had drop problems this season. Romeo dobbs, I mean, bless his heart, but two concussions on the season there. I mean I I don't know where he's gonna be at with his head head. Christian Watson I saw from his dad I follow him on Twitter there and he's always chirping around there with fans and stuff like that but he said, like week 12 was what they were expecting, with Christian Watson to be back. So Watson is going to be done and who knows if week 12 is actually going to be the time period it might be later on or whatever it is, but Christian Watson won't be back.
Speaker 2:I'm looking at the receiving core and I'm like nobody took that next step. So now I got that feeling you got to go back to the drawing board. You have to with that receiver room because you think about the quarterbacks around the league. Goff has Amon Ra right, and you look at Jalen Hurts, he has AJ Brown. You have Sam Darn go off. Um, uh, sam Darnold had Justin Jefferson.
Speaker 2:You have just you go through the list of quarterbacks Matthew Stafford, as the cool. You have all these guys. What do they have? They have that number one guy, their go-to guy for Joe Burrow, jamar chase all the time. Like they just have that go-to guy. When stuff hits, when crap hits the fan, they're going after it.
Speaker 2:I just don't see that with the Green Bay Packers right now. I don't see them with that go-to guy where we need a first down. This is my guy, this is my guy. I'm going to and we always harped on it with Aaron Rodgers, right, devontae Adams was the guy, and if Rodgers wouldn't throw another way, it'd always be Devontae. And I was always like, yeah, you know that sucks. I like that. Jordan Love spreads the ball around a little bit. You can spread the ball around a little bit, but you got to have that go to guy. And when I look at this Packers receiving core right now, I just don't believe anybody took that step forward. What do you think, aaron, did anybody in that Packers receiver core take a step forward in your eyes?
Speaker 3:No, I'm on the same wavelength as you there. Just because if you let's just take it from an opposing defensive standpoint like you're in Minnesota, you're, you're a Detroit, one of those you know next level teams at. You know well, we can talk about the Vikings not being that, but you know, throughout the regular season, right, it was one of those things where, like, if you're game planning against the Packers, yes, Receiver by committee can be a little bit like daunting, but you never feel like any of those guys is gonna like murder you. You know like none of those guys is gonna go for like a buck 25. So if you can keep, you know, if you, if you're like, if I'm Vic Fangio and the Eagles and I'm like you know what, we're gonna keep them between the 20s. You know what I mean. And then down when we get in that red zone, who are they going to go? Who are they really going to like? We don't have to stress about a Marseille Brown. We don't have to stress about, obviously, an AJ Brown, like a Mike Evans. There is no guy where it's like crap. How do we, if that guy is double teamed, like if we're going to double team Mike Evans on the box now we got to worry about, obviously when Godwin wasn't hurt, but you know, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3:But like on the Packers, it's like the. The idea is there, Like if it was receiver by committee but it worked really well, it would be great. But it's like none of those guys are like. I'm not going to say they're not good enough, it's just you need another guy, like a next-level guy, because now that would make them better. First of all, it would bring out more competitiveness in them. At practice. You're seeing this guy every day. You bring in like a I don't know who do we mention?
Speaker 2:Oh, devontae, adams, let's just take him yeah.
Speaker 3:A guy that's been there done that, like he would show these young guys like, hey, you know, let, let let an all pro show, you know, I mean like without being disrespectful, it's like let a guy that's been there done that, do it, um, because like he's better, like at the end of the day. So it's one of those. They definitely they're not bad, but did they, did they impress? Like I don't know if they, I don't know if they wowed you and and we're talking like totality, right like from week one to the playoff game, that's what you got to look at. You know they had their moments, but it's like I think, as you know, with a Packers organization moving forward, they need that number one guy because that's going to make the offense just better, like there's no way around it.
Speaker 3:If these guys were like week in, week out giving you, you know, massive production, maybe you don't go that way. But right now, especially for Jordan Lovesick I think after you know we talked about kind of his regression the receiving core didn't do him like they didn't do as much as they they could have, in my opinion, or they didn't do as much as to help him. I don't know if they could have done more like. Maybe they're limited at this is like the best they are, but I don't know if they could have done more Like. Maybe they're limited at this is like the best they are, but I don't think they were I don't think they progressed.
Speaker 2:Right, I don't think they progressed. Yeah, you know, I would almost say just bring it, like you said with Devante Adams, just bringing in that veteran presence where it's going to benefit. What these young guys watching the route, running, watching you know the little things, the mental side of it, right, because we're talking about drop passes, that's a huge thing, drop passes, the Packers leading all football in drop passes, I believe. So you talk about that, having that terrible statistic tagged to your back. You get a guy in there like Devontae Adams, great hands, right, great hands with Devontae Adams. You bring him in, he can work with these guys. He can say, hey, these are some of the little things that I worked on, right, getting confidence instilled in these guys, because it's it's confidence, it's, you know, it's paying attention. It's those little things that you know focus that are going to benefit in the receiving room, because drop passes is focus, that's that's just being, you know, sustainable, just focused on what's happening, not worried about what's going to happen, not getting ahead of yourself, those little things that sometimes I feel like this Packers receiving core, cause they're young, got away from you. Get a guy like Devante and they're an older, veteran guy. He can benefit. They can benefit from that. Jordan Love can benefit that he can have a guy in his corner there where he understands it.
Speaker 2:The fan base they would. I don't think they would hate it at all if Devontae Adams came back. I don't think there's any bad blood between Devontae and a lot of fans out there. Maybe there's a couple crazy ones out there, but outside of that nobody else really. I mean I would want him back. I'd take Devontae back. I believe he signed through 2026, so they would have to trade for him from the jets. But I mean we'll, we'll see what happens there. Maybe the jets let let him walk. I I don't know. We'll see what kind of happens there.
Speaker 2:But the one guy I would say took a step forward would be tucker craft. Tucker craft took a step forward. I I don't. I I don't believe outside of him you could save. Xavier mckinney took a step forward just because he was always good. But when he came to Bay the interception started to come. He was a ball hawk, he was all over the place. So you could say that Xavier McKinney took that step forward. But Tucker Craft would be my one guy. You talk about this guy. 14 yards on average. That was his average per catch. There was 14 yards and I believe it's yards after the catch were tops of tight ends. I mean he was downright impressive in the passing game. In the run game he was all over the place and listening to him. After it was all done, when he was talking to reporters and everything like that, he was pissed off.
Speaker 3:And I love it.
Speaker 2:I love it. He was pissed. He said there's a lot of guys in this locker room who need to wake up. He mentioned that in his press conference there. He said that he needs to be more vocal, be more of a leader and you know, all of what he said is like this is the dude who I believe is going to come back next year with some kind of fire and if somebody gets out of line or somebody isn't ready or you know some of the main crap. Maybe we're not seeing some of this crap that's happening behind the scenes. And Tucker crafts, the guy in the locker room, when he sees it and he sees that these guys need to wake up, that's the guy you want. So I love what Tucker craft said there in his in his post, his post game and when they were cleaning out lockers there. Love what he said, love the fire Now looking forward to him next season there. Um, we got one across Dexon line, uh, from Todd there. He said he could have been better with better quarterback play. I completely agree. I completely agree with that.
Speaker 2:Tucker craft, I thought was underutilized at times with this Packers offense and you know we talked about the play action game. We said why are they not utilizing the play action game more? That's where Tucker Kraft's skill set would have been there. But when I look third downs right, we're talking about third down guys, right? Tucker Kraft was one of the top tight ends in yards. After the catch, get him the football. Find a way to get Tucker Kraft the football in a third and five and let him take care of business.
Speaker 2:I just don't understand why it was this trying to draw up crafty stuff. Don't understand why it was this trying to draw up crafty stuff, trying to get so complex with it when you could go plain jane, play action and just let it ride so that it brings you back to erin. I mean, you were talking about injury before. Was this entry nagging all season for jordan love? Like why, why, why are we not utilizing the play action game? And we're gonna.
Speaker 2:I mean, like I said, it's in the uh, matliff floor press conference. We're gonna get into us what some of his answers were to those silly questions there. But yeah, I would agree. I agree 100 there, todd, with the quarterback play, it needed to be better 100. That's on the floor. I agree, I agree there. That is on the floor. The play calling I his press conference. I I don't know if anybody else you know anybody else in the comments would love to hear what you guys got to say, but I don't know if anybody else you know anybody else in the comments would love to hear what you guys got to say. But I don't know if anybody else got time to hear that, but it pissed me off.
Speaker 2:It really did it pissed me off hearing him out there because I don't truthfully believe that he cares what the fans think when I honestly, aaron, you know I know you don't like Mike Tomlin, I know you don't, but when I was listening to Mike Tomlin's press conference like he gave me the if I was a Steelers fan I felt better listening to Mike Tomlin because he gave me the truth answers he gave me we needed to be better. He gave me this. I needed to be better. He gave me all those answers.
Speaker 2:Matt LaFleur gave me the BS lines and it irritates the crap out of me because it's after every game. What is the one joke we always make? Well, I got to look back at it, right, I got to look at the film. I got to look at the film and see what happened there. I got to look at the film. I got to look at the film. How many times are you going to watch the film? That's my question. How many times are you going to watch the film before you fix it? Because these progression, a lot of these coordinators, watch Jordan Love, right, maybe they saw it last season. They're like, hey, he can't get past the second read, he can't. So then they're like, well, maybe, just maybe, we take advantage of that as a defensive side, right? So then it's on Matt LaFleur to figure that out, to fix that right well, uh, to comment on that real quick, so the that twofold thing, right?
Speaker 3:so Mike Tom, the Mike Tom thing, he can, he, he's one of those guys all all bark no bite. You know, I mean that to me. That's what that, like, I'm not trying to say. He says the wrong things, it's just he says those things, guess what? They'll go 10 and 7 next year, like like it's, it's the same.
Speaker 3:It's like James Franklin. How many times can we sit here and say, oh, he's great, he's great. What is he really? You know what I mean. So it's just, I know tom has a super bowl. I'm not trying to be like he's trash, I just the steelers fan base. I mean I, I called it like two or three years ago now. Everybody on like, if you go on x, like it's like fired mike tom, that's like the talk of the town. Everybody's like fired Mike Tomlin now. But the LeFleur thing, no, that reminds me like every week and I don't want to make it about PA sports or whatever, but it was every week Carson Wentz would be like you know, we got to look at ourselves in the mirror and take accountability and watch film. Like you said, that gets stale, right that does get like.
Speaker 3:You know how many times that cracks me up when you say this. Like, how many is he? Like, has he watched the tape? More than you know, bill Belichick's watched the tape. You know what I mean. Like to say, you know, we got to watch the tape. We got to watch it. Like, why can't? If I was a head coach I would. I mean, maybe this is just me, but Maybe this is just me.
Speaker 3:But like, when Rex Ryan would go up there like he would give it to you like raw unfit, like I'm not saying you gotta be like, you know, vulgar, but he, I mean he would say we sucked, like we, jordan love didn't play well, our O-line didn't play, like whatever it was Right. Like, why can't any? It's like this new era where it's like they don't want, they want to coddle these guys almost like why they're getting paid millions. Like you and I go to our jobs. If we don't do our jobs well, we get crapped on right. Yeah, we have to say to our boss hey, I sucked or I I need to get. But like, these guys are like babies, you know, like I just don't understand why. Like, and maybe it's a, it's a thing where you know, hey, if matt lafleur gets up on the podium and says this and that, because not to take anything away from Green Bay, green Bay is like a lore in the NFL but it's cold weather, it has its advantages and disadvantages. On why you'd want to go there, right, like a lot of, if you interview players, maybe it's like seven out of ten players want to go to the Rams because it's LA, it's SoFi, it's nice, like everything compared to the Packers, because of just the elements, right. So maybe it's one of those things like we're looking at it from a bird's eye view. It's like if you're Matt LaFleur, you've got to be nice to the media, like talking about your team, because if you want other players to come in the building, you want to have that culture too, like that Rex Ryan thing in New york. Maybe that doesn't appeal to 70 60 of players, right. And now you're, you go out and try and get guys in the offseason. You're like, oh, my goodness, I don't want, I don't want to play for that. Like imagine that guy's gonna call me or rip me a new one if I, if I, go out there and throw two or three picks. So I totally understand.
Speaker 3:From a fan base perspective. I hate it too. I, I personally do. I just when when there's coaches out there like tomlin, like some other guys that'll come out and say, oh man, well, we did the like, we didn't do, this we didn't do. But then this you see the same thing over and it's just the whatever. If matt lafleur says the crappiest things on his press conference, but they come out next year and go 13 and 4 and look completely different, then you just flush it. Now he, if they look the same or they regress, then you even hate it more, like you know what I mean. So that's how I look at that, that perspective.
Speaker 2:I don't know how we could regress anymore from what we saw this season.
Speaker 3:I don't know how, if it goes even more backwards though.
Speaker 2:No, I get it. I get it. If it goes even more backwards than what we saw this season, it could. It could lead to a firing and I think it could be early on in the season that we could see something like that go across. I Todd did say also hire a legit offensive coordinator called place I. I, I could see that too. I really could. I think Brian good A Kintz has got to call Matt LaFleur into his office and he needs to say hey, buddy, your seat's not hot yet, but it's going to be, you got an offseason.
Speaker 2:I'm going to get you pieces right, because they have a lot of cap space now. They have finally out of some contracts that have been on the books for a while. Right, they got some money to spend. So I'm going to assume Brianrian gutekens is gonna go out. He's gonna.
Speaker 2:You know, I heard josh jacobs say I'm gonna get some of my guys right. Max crosby was always in that talks. Maybe getting a guy like him, a legit pass rusher, is a main thing that we think they need. Maybe they go get a wide receiver right. We talked about davante adams. Maybe they bring him in. Maybe a guy like I don't think t higgins, but you know everybody's like, oh, hopefully tins right, maybe they go get a receiver in there. They get some of these guys. I would go, I believe.
Speaker 2:Who's that receiver from the Raiders? Oh, I can't remember his name off the top of my head right now. He's darn good. He's darn good, I think his number he's like number 12. What the heck? Jacoby Myers, jacoby Myers, with the Raiders there. Maybe they go grab a guy like him, right?
Speaker 2:Josh Jacobs knows all about these guys from the Raiders. Maybe they bring in a guy like him. He had no drop passes this last season, maybe they bring in a piece like that. They get cornerbacks there in the draft and they say, hey, okay, you got your guys, now I got you legit dudes. Can you figure it out now? Can you put it all together now?
Speaker 2:Because if Jordan Love takes more steps back, you can't have your franchise quarterback looking like this. You can't. You can't have your franchise quarterback looking like this. You can't use the excuse of we're a young football team anymore. That's done. After this season, maybe, just maybe, all the people out there who want to say it's a young football team, okay, but after this season, we're done with that. We're done with that. The excuse of young football is done. They have postseason experience now for two straight years. They've played how many games now together. This is an experienced group. They've been there, done that. They haven't been to a Super Bowl, but they've been there, done that.
Speaker 2:So now it's about taking that next step. Now it's about I don't know if it starts with winning the division. Right, that's tough to do now. You have to get ahead of the Vikings. I don't know what they're going to do with Sam Darnold. We're going to wait and see on that. But there's a lot of things, a lot of question marks that the Packers have heading into the offseason here. So we've got to get a break. We're a little over the 30-minute mark here, holy crap. We've got to get over the break here. We're going to get to our ad Badgers Holy crap. They had me on the edge of my seat last night and that end of that game took way too long. So we're going to get to the ad break. We're going to come back, we're going to talk about that Badger game and then we're going to get to more Packers here at the end of the show. But make sure, if you're in the comment section you can keep flooding it with anything you want to talk about tonight.
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Speaker 2:So, aaron, I want to get to this badger game because, man, oh man, they. Why do the badgers got to do this to me sometimes, aaron, why do they got to do it to me? Right, they go up big early in this game and I'm like, okay, right, we're gonna coast. We're gonna coast to a win here. Right, they're up 17 at the break. I'm like, there we go, it's at home. Badgers are feeling it, ohio State can't shoot. We're feeling good about ourselves. Second half got a little bit different. Right, ohio State came out in the second half, went on a 10-2 run, forced that Badgers team to do some things they didn't want to do. In this one, badgers couldn't shoot in the second half. It was one of those games. It was. It was a tale of two halves and Wisconsin narrowly hangs on 70-68 in that one.
Speaker 2:So I want to discuss this game because there's a lot of things coming out of here that I don't like, that I don't like about this Badger team. Well, I shouldn't say that I don't like about this Badger team, but that irked me a little bit, right, kind of irritate me. So, steven Crowell we talked about him a couple weeks ago and Greg guard got all over his case, told him he was sucking and said you got to be more aggressive, get after it, brother. You're seven foot, why do you have one rebound in a basketball game? And that was true. I mean we, we said it was point blank, like that was true we talked about before with Matt LaFleur holding his players accountable and being accountable himself and everything like that. Greg guard holds his guys accountable. We see that now. Right, we, we've heard it multiple times. He told us John Tonjai has got to be better. John Tonjai got better. He told us Steven Crowell needs to be more aggressive. Steven Crowell became more aggressive, got after he, went after a shot, got better in the post. He's doing those things now. So I love that. I love what I'm getting out of Greg Gardner and players being coachable.
Speaker 2:That's the biggest thing I take away from that, because we talk about the new college basketball, the new college game, when players get told something by a coach that they don't like, like, hey, you're being soft, hey, you're not doing this right. Nine times out of ten they're like I don't like you anymore, you're, you're a meanie, I'm, I'm gonna hit the road, right. That's a big thing now in college sports. Steven crowl said no, no, I. I agree, I've been sucking. I gotta be better. Right, I gotta be better for my guys here. I'm gonna improve. That's what we've seen. Steven crowl was big time in this game.
Speaker 2:But what irritated me the most is this game got close at the end and they win away from Stephen Crowell. The Badgers get to this crappy, I don't understand it. They get to this crappy ISO ball on the perimeter where they pass the ball on the perimeter, stick it out there and then, late in the shot clock, they're going to force out a bad shot consistently. I just don't understand it. You go through a game and when you're working it inside to crawl and you're working it through the post, everything looks good. Steven Crowell was playing a good game.
Speaker 2:Five from 10 from the floor in this one, four for four from the free throw line. He had 14 points, got into foul trouble, right, but outside of that was playing a solid game, but you went away from him. You go away from Crowell late and it just it blows my mind it does. It blows my mind because when it's working, why do you not go back to it late in the game? Why do you go away from it? Why do you try to play survival ball when you could go after it, attack it, do those little things that you were doing earlier in this game? Because late in this game, I mean there was Max Klezman forced up a shot from the corner there. Uh, late in the second half there, I believe I was just gonna uh double check there, but John Tonje had a miss late in this one and then John Blackwell was missing. Free throws left and right.
Speaker 2:I mean it was just the end of this game was rough on the Badgers and I thought a lot of it was the fact that they went away from the big guy they went away from. I don, I don't understand it, I don't like it. I think that they have to be better in that aspect there, because at that point you want to slow down the game. You want to slow it down, but you don't want to stick it out at the perimeter. You're not playing, keep away right. You have a what it was? A five-point lead at that point Ohio State's closing it. They Ohio State's closing it. They're hitting shots. You got to find ways to close games out better and that's utilizing working the offense as it's working right. So that's something that came away where I was kind of ticked off at this one, at this team here.
Speaker 2:But outside of that I thought defensively they played a lot better. They've been getting a lot better over the last couple of games but they were a lot better in this game. Second half got a little bit iffy there, but that first half I mean holding a team to 20 points there and terrible from the field. I liked what I saw defensively out of the Badgers, especially in that first half. There John Blackwell continues to be a dog. But John Blackwell, I think sometimes this Badger team, they get too unselfish. Right, they get too unselfish.
Speaker 2:John Blackwell started this game on a 9-0 run all by himself. He's up 9-2,. Right, it's John Blackwell against Ohio State to start this game 9-2, john Blackwell's winning. Then John Blackwell didn't take another shot after that. They kind of went away from John Blackwell. They went away from what was going on. Early on in this one Ohio State did adjust a little bit but he started to go away from it.
Speaker 2:So the Badgers what gets to me sometimes is they go away from attacking the rim, which is what John Blackwell does best. He's real good getting to the rim and he's also good in that mid-range shot. I mean, he's one of the only guys that you see really that uses the mid-range right. Nowadays it's either it's a layup or it's a three right. The mid-range is kind of a lost art. Not many guys are willing or going to pull that mid-range shot. John Blackwell is consistent in there. It's just getting there right and he's real good at getting there when the Badgers need that guy. I want to see John Blackwell take that step and be that guy. I want to see him take that next step and be the guy that the Badgers need him to be. So that's something I've seen with John Blackwell there. But when this team gets downhill and they get to the rim and create shots, create fouls, when they get down there, they are hard to beat. That's what you saw in this game. They are hard to beat Because you look at that first half, I don't think consistently throughout this game the Badgers didn't shoot the ball extremely well.
Speaker 2:Look at the 5 for 22 from 3 and the 20 for 48 from the field. In this one they didn't shoot the ball overly well, but what they did well was get to the free throw line 28 times Now 25 for 28. Two of those misses came late in the game from John Blackwell. So you know you talk about going up to that point. They were 25 for 26 at one point in this game. I mean they were shooting from the free throw line. Well, that's a big reason why they had the big lead was getting to the free throw line early in the first half, attacking the basket, attacking Ohio State players, getting them in awkward positions where they had to foul. Otherwise they were getting beat to the rim there. So that's something the Badgers did well. Second half kind of flipped on them there and the ball kind of got glued to the perimeter, which I don't like. That's something I don't like out of this Badger team when they get to the rim. This is a tough team to beat there. So I loved what I saw there. Um, carter Gilmore I I don't know what it is with this guy, but I just got to say this dude put if, if I had to look at the entire Badgers unit and you asked me like who put in the most work in the offseason?
Speaker 2:Who was that guy who, you believe, put in the most work on his game? Carter Gilmore put in the most work watching him shoot. At this point. He was two for three from the floor and one for one from downtown watching him shoot at this point. He is a confident shooter. I could not have said that about Carter Gilmore last year. He is a confident shooter now. He could not have said that about Carter Gilmore last year.
Speaker 2:He is a confident shooter Now. He has a smooth stroke from deep. He's not afraid to shoot it. I wish sometimes he'd stop with that head fake and that shot fake and he would just pull it because I'm okay with him shooting two to three a game. I really am. I'm okay with him shooting two to three a game. Sometimes I think he I don't want to say he, he doesn't want to be the guy, but he tries to share the basketball and that's where I'm talking about the selfishness. Right, I want this team to be unselfish, but I want them to take the shots when they're there and Carter Gilmore he gets some open shots and pull that baby Like I. He has got a smooth shot and when he's feeling it, he's feeling it. He's been consistent for this Badger team right now.
Speaker 2:So I love what I saw out of him in this one um free throw line best in the country. They're the best in the country for a reason right now they are shooting a free throw at a high clip and that, like I said, has a lot to do with them getting downhill, getting to the rim, doing their thing when they get there, drawing fouls. You know a lot of a lot of marquette fans I hear out there. They're like you know not all of them, but I have heard a couple of Marquette fans are like that's all they can do. That's all they can do is drop fouls. I tell you what in a Big Ten game, if you can get to the foul line and you can knock down your free throws, I'm all in with that. I am all in with that. Like that's what it takes. That's what it takes in a game like this. I'm good with that. You get to the free throw line, you do your magic. I mean good teams get to the free throw line. When you can't score, you find other ways to score. That's getting downhill, getting to the free throw line. So I love that there.
Speaker 2:Looking at this team outside of that I talked about, crowley's got to be a little bit smarter. The offensive glass in that second half got a little bit rough in the Badgers. Ohio State was able to collect some offensive rebounds in this one. They had nine and a lot of them came in that second half. They're second chance buckets, the Badgers. They were up by six. There was a missed shot. Offensive rebound put back, got points for Ohio State. It just helped the run right. It helps the momentum of Ohio State.
Speaker 2:So cleaning up that glass that's something that came away from this game for the Badgers, that they have to be a little bit better on getting guys out of there, boxing out, finding your guy, clearing them out of the lane, coming in and clearing the glass, the little things right. Were they out-rebounding this game? Yeah, out-rebounded by one, but a big part of that was the offensive glass. Nine offensive rebounds for Ohio state, that's too many. That is too many. I don't care who it is, that is too many. You go up nine offensive rebounds. That's a tough game. That is a tough game because you're asking for a lot of second chance buckets and second chance buckets hurt badly, especially when you got 20. I mean, you talk about Ohio state with what? 32 points in the paint in this game. Here they out. They outdid Wisconsin in the paint. I don't like that. I don't like that. That's the way you get beat, especially against ohio state, especially when ohio state's on the road. So second chance points. That's something that needs to be cleaned up there.
Speaker 2:Um, I would say that, yeah, like I was talking, the stagnant offense that's the big thing I came away from this one with was the stagnant offense. Late badgers kind of got glued to the perimeter. You hate to see that out of a team who, I mean their offense has been nothing but stellar this season. I mean, look at points per game, looking at their efficiency, and in this game it kind of went stale on them, which is going to happen. It's going to happen, but it's a matter of when it goes stale. What are you doing to create shots? And I thought late in the second half, when it was stale, they, late in the second half, when it was stale, they didn't do a lot to create those shots. So that's something I'm looking at. They could have easily put up if they consistently kept going through it. I think they could have actually pulled away in this game at one point there, but I think they got away from that.
Speaker 2:They were just playing survival mode, and that's something that I've harped on Greg Gard about for years. When he does it is some of his teams like to go in survival mode. They like to play iso ball, get a ball screen and then just try and create off of that. The Badgers, when they're at their best, are creating through the post. They're creating through Steven Crowell. They're creating through cutters, guys getting downhill and getting to the rim, not guys trying to create and hit a jump shot from three. That's not what the Badgers game is. They can they do it yeah, they can do it, but consistently, no. That's not where I'm looking with this team. So Badgers got that big win. I mean, aaron, was there any stats? I guess that stuck out to you coming off this Ohio State game for the Badgers.
Speaker 3:I want to say just kind of their threes right, the threes for, and you know, watching this game back, like I did know, um, like crap. Like how you said mcgee, like what mcgee right, number seven there, like, and like I want those guys pulling it too, like I watching mcgee shoot, like that's. Like like you said smooth as butter, right, like that is. Like there's guys you know you'll see guys at duke, you'll see guys that can't like the shoot like that, not to take anything away from wisconsin there at all, but I'm just saying like marquee guys you know having that sweet stroke like a poop and like he's got it. So like I would, I would let him shoot more, I would encourage. You know, like, if I'm, if I'm Wisconsin coaching staff, I'm like especially maybe not against an Ohio state caliber opponent, cause you know that's a good, that's a good basketball team. Not a great basketball team but a good basketball team. Not a great basketball team but a good basketball team, right. But yeah, I mean just Wisconsin and I'm not trying to like, only point out negatives, because I think there were.
Speaker 3:You know, obviously you beat Ohio State. It's an accomplishment any day of the week, twice on Sundays, but you know five for 22 from downtown. I mean that's a little rough right. That's not what you want to see from Wisconsin there at a 22% clip. I mean you know Ohio State shooting five for 17,. So same amount of makes just less attempts. So you know you don't know what would happen if they shot more. But yeah, I mean you know you already went over the free throws like the number one team in the nation, and they continue that. That's what you want to see. I mean you expect I don't want to say you expect, but like one of these games maybe to go not sideways but like be a little bit of a drop-off on that. But I mean, hey, if you can shoot that way all season long, that helps, that definitely doesn't hurt you. So just, I mean 25 for 28 from the free throw line. I don't know. I totally agree with you, though, in the fact that it was a game of two halves Like if with you, though, and the fact that it was a game of two halves like you if, if I'm the coaching staff, I'm kind of like, okay, boys, we got the win, but we got like, don't get complacent, right, because you can see.
Speaker 3:You see what can happen very quickly. I mean, you know, basketball in the last couple minutes comes down to free throws, this and that which favors wisconsin, like nine, you know, 10 times out of 10. But you can't, you can't let the gas off the pedal. And to your point, if something's working, I don't understand it. It's football, basketball, any sport, right. If something's working, I would not go away from it until I mean, don't be predictable, right. But basketball it's not like you're running.
Speaker 3:Football is a lot more strategic, I would say, in the fact that they can make adjustments to you. Know, they can make adjustments to you. Sure, they can make adjustments if you're pounding the paint, but it's not to the same level, right. Like, give Steven Crowell the ball. You know, dominate the paint like you were in the first half. Who knows, this might have been easier for you because, like you say, they go out to the three, they start trying to just, you know, bang everything from out there and they're not having a great shooting night from three. So just, I mean, you hope to not see that continue. But hey, you got out of there with a win Wasn't the prettiest win, but you're going to have those. But I just more look at the whole idea, right, the game plan, how it progressed in the second half. That makes you scratch your head and hope that they don't do that type of thing consistently, right, yeah, like that makes you scratch your head and hope that they don't do that type of thing consistently, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, let's say one positive, one positive here to end it. You won the game. Exactly. You were in a rock fight and you won the game. That's what it was. I mean, this was, nobody was hitting. You look at Ohio state. You look at the Wisconsin team nobody was hitting it was. Look at the wisconsin team nobody was in. It was a bad shooting night for both teams. We look at the percentages from the floor. Look at the three-point percentage. It was ugly, this was an ugly game, but you found a way and that's what matters. End of the day, you play a good team. Ohio state's a good team.
Speaker 2:You look at the record uh, 10 and 7 overall. Two and four in conference play. Yes, doesn't look great. But you look at the teams they've played. They beat texas. They got a uh close loss against Texas A&M. They lost close to Pitt by one. That was on that buzzer beater. They lost to Maryland. They have a loss or win against Rutgers there. They lost to, I mean, auburn. Everybody loses to Auburn. But you look at that game against Kentucky. They blew out Kentucky by 20 points. So I mean they have a pretty good resume already. You're talking about a pretty good ohio state team and it was in the call center.
Speaker 2:You got to take care of your business on your home court or on your home court there and the badgers found a way and at the end of the day that's what matters. You found a way. You found a way to take care of business. There's a lot of things that you come off this game like we were talking about the offense getting kind of stagnant near the end. You come away with the turnovers right. There was 11 turnovers for the Badgers. Ohio State had seven steals in this game. So that's being a little bit more careful with the basketball right, controlling the basketball out there. That's something you come away from this game looking at. But outside of that, you won the game and Nolan Winter didn't have. I don't know what was going on with Nolan Winter. I didn't get into that very much.
Speaker 2:I got Greg Gard's press conference here written up there. My wife she's too good, she's too good, she's too good at what she does she went through. She transcribed the press conferences for us here. We got all of them up in front of us here. I mean you look at, and one of the best ones I saw was the top of the press conference.
Speaker 2:They asked john blackwell, were you told to intentionally miss that last free throw? And john blackwell said, yeah, I was trying to miss it and he hit it right the free throw. And John Blackwell said, yeah, I was trying to miss it and he hit it right the free throw before this is this is what makes it even better the free throw before that. It was late in the game. The badges were up by one and John Blackwell went to the free throw line. There was like 1.5 seconds left in the game and he's, he goes and he misses the free throw. Right, it was two shots, misses the free throw.
Speaker 2:So they call out and you know, you're sitting there, you're speculating, right, will he miss on purpose? Will he try to miss on purpose? And you know, I can't remember what's, uh, what the heck's his name, I can't remember the announcer there, but he's like, you know, you're a college guy, you don't, you don't know how to miss on purpose, right? So, john blackwell, you listen to him in, uh, in the press conference and he says, yes, I was trying to miss that one, like he was trying to miss it and he made it. He was trying to make the other one and he missed it, like that's. That's the irony of what was going on in this one.
Speaker 2:Um, but they also asked Blackwell he got off to a good start. What did they switch on you? Did you notice anything different in the defense after you hit your first three? And what he said was I think they tried to stop me in transition, pick me up better, tried to close gaps, which they did. That's what we saw there in this one. Was it kind of slowed down, john Blackwell? So he kind of answered that one there, steven Crowell. They asked him up 17. Then all of a sudden, the game was close. It's one point game. What goes into keeping it together at that juncture? And he said we know it's division one basketball, you're not going to blow every team out that. You know that they are going to make a run and it's weathering that.
Speaker 2:And that's the big thing that you want to hammer home to is that the badgers had that 17 point lead and ohio state threw their haymaker and they came all the way back. They had you within one point and you weathered that. You found a way and that's the big thing we came away with was talking about was finding that way to win this one here. Uh, greg guard, he won his 200th game, so that was. That was pretty cool to see. That was his 200th win there. And Madison, they asked him what he kind of meant to him Touch on, what it's meant to you and what it means as a coach and he said I don't think I would be the player I am today. They're talking to Blackwell there and the coaches around him pushing on different ways. Throughout the years it has been fun to play for him and hopefully make a deeper run into the tournament. So that was what they had to say. On greg guard there, just I mean, yeah, we get, we have more here to talk about with the press conference, but we're not going to get through it all tonight here on the show. But I mean, all in all, like you can see in all these different talks here, a great win for the badgers.
Speaker 2:Surviving a home game right, surviving, surviving. Sometimes you just got to survive and that's big time basketball. Sometimes you just got to survive and this prepares you for a tournament game. Just think about it. You get and you know a lot of people are like, well, what do you mean? A tournament game. Right, you go up 17,. You should win that game.
Speaker 2:Ask Texas A&M I believe it was who are they playing Northern Iowa? Was that the game against Northern Iowa, where it's like a 12 point game or so with like 30 seconds left and Texas A&M came all the way back to tie it and go to overtime and win it down by 12 with 30 seconds left, like it was an improbable comeback? I think Alex Caruso was on that Texas A&M team. But that is that's what I'm saying. Is you get to March? These are the games that you remember because these are the hard-nosed, fought wins, right, sometimes you go to March, you're not playing in your home building, you're playing on the road. You might not have your best shooting half, you might have a good first half, but your second half goes cold. That other team, it's March. Right, they can get hot. We see the upsets all the time. They can get hot.
Speaker 2:It's about what team can persevere, what team can weather the storm, take the punches and find a way to win those basketball games. That's what we saw wisconsin do. So that's the big thing when you win games like this. It builds your character, it builds you up, it teaches you those little things that you need to get better at. And that's where I come back to the free throws. If you can be a good free throw shooting team, if you can find ways to get it from the line, that that's huge. That's huge especially in games like this where the consistency is not there from the outside. So not a great win. It's a good win, right? A good win for the Badgers against Ohio State. They're a good team in Ohio State, but all in all, you want to see little things right, little things improved, and the Badgers will be just fine. I mean, we're not sitting here trying to harp on them and say like they're screwed, you know, this game showed us that they're not a good basketball team. Like they're going to figure it out. They're going to figure it out, everything's fine, we can all be okay with it.
Speaker 2:Next game up USC. So they'll take on USC. That'll be on Saturday. They'll have their little West Coast road trip. They'll take on USC on Saturday, there the 18th, and then on the 21st, so that'll be next week. Tuesday they have UCLA. That'll also be on the road there. So they're gonna have a little West coast swing and then come back to Madison to take on Nebraska. So we'll get more into the badges here on Friday as we preview that game against USC.
Speaker 2:We'll talk about that USC Trojans team because I believe USC just came off of a win against oh, who do they just beat? Last night there? They just beat Iowa and they came off a win against Illinois. So this USC team, they just beat Illinois. We know it's a decent enough team to pull off some wins. So that's going to be a tough game for the Badgers, especially on the road against USC a pretty good team in USC. So, aaron, we're past the break here. Let's get you. Got me a fact of the day for the day, or you want to hit the fact of the day after the ad break?
Speaker 3:you got a fact of the day. Yeah, we'll squeeze her in real quick.
Speaker 2:There we go let's get to the fact of the day. So here's our fact of the day for january 15th now now this seems like not that long.
Speaker 3:I know you'll remember this um pretty much like the biggest story at the time. Um in 2009, us airways flight 1549 uh landed on the Hudson River. I'm sure you remember that right.
Speaker 2:Was that Sully? Is that the movie Sully?
Speaker 3:Yeah, in 2009. On this. I mean, you're going back. What 15 years now? 15 years ago I was nine years old. That seems like that could have been like five years ago no, I mean between five and ten years ago I wouldn't surprise me, well, I?
Speaker 2:think the movie came out like five years ago made it seem like it was more recent.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, no, I didn't even see the movie. I should see the movie.
Speaker 2:It's a pretty good movie. It is a pretty darn good movie, if I got to say so myself, Like I would recommend it. I would highly recommend it.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to lie, not gonna lie man, like flying gives me tremendous things. I just don't like being stuck in one place me too, hate it, hate it. I have when I don't have control, I, I hate it. So like, yeah, heights falling. I work a job where I go up on lifts every day, like the one we were up on. It was like 80 feet in the air. We were up there and like that's playing around, petrified, petrified.
Speaker 2:Like heights are not my thing. I always tell my boss I'm like I'm scared of heights and he just laughs at me Because when I, when I get up high enough, I just start bouncing, like where I think my buddy and I, one of my co-workers and I we were working. One day I think it was the Cotton Eye Joe came out and we started dancing To the Cotton Eye Joe Up on the ground there it was one of these articulators, so like a snorkel lift, so it just dropped the basket straight down. So we're just on the ground now and like after that day, yeah, I didn't want to do the cotton eye joe on the lift anymore. But after that my boss never believes me that I'm scared of heights. I tell him all the time like dude, I am deathly terrified of heights. I tell him all the time I'm like dude, I am definitely terrified of heights. He's like you're not shut up, you're fine, go, go Right. And he booms me up 80. That's one, done, done.
Speaker 3:Take anything away from you Like that that by itself is definitely like you have to be brave for.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, and for me being up, what is it? 40? I think they go to 40,000 at one point. These commercial airlines yeah, that I don't know, man. And, like you said, no control. I just don't like that. I can't get out of there. I'm a very I want to go do something. I can sit here with you do a podcast, that's fine. But if I'm stuck even if I was stuck in a classroom for six hours, I was stuck in like a classroom for six hours I start like I just get, I got to get out of here, like I just got to go, I got to see something different, I got to take a breath of fresh air. That's to me like next time I get on a plane I'm taking, I'm going to the doctor. I'm saying give me something that knocks me out, cause I don't want to, I don't want to be awake for day. I mean, don't get me wrong, they had to have been like, what are we doing?
Speaker 3:Like I know they came over loudspeaker, announced it, but like, oh, my goodness, man, my, I, my hands like I would be dripping in sweat knowing that we're about to land in the Hudson river in New York city, Like that was not part of the plan here, like that, and then, and then you got to think they got on another plane and and boof, they're off to wherever they I don't know where that flight was was gone Cause it took off in New York, from what I understand I think. I think that was the original thing.
Speaker 2:It just then took off and then I'd have to go way back. My fact of the day was nothing near that. I got my history calendar here. It was Elizabeth the first is crowned queen of England. That was my fact of the day. Crowned queen of england that was my fact of the day there. Significant, significant. It was significant. I'll tell you that. I my first time flying. Oh, we got a break here. I got before we get to the break. I my first time flying with my wife. We went down to texas there and she's like you want a window seat.
Speaker 2:I'm like no, no, no I want to be far away from that window, like I want to be. Nowhere near, though. The worst part is I couldn't drink on the flight. If I could drink a few and just be tossed back, I'd probably loosen up, but I think it's the fact that I was just drinking a Diet Coke. I'm sipping a Diet Coke. I'm over here sipping a Diet Coke. What is that doing for me? What is that doing? Nothing, absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing. I got to say, though props. Bill Michaels is what gets me through my heights, because I just turn the radio up. I listen to Bill Michaels tell me about why the Packers are doing this wrong, or what's going on with the Bucs, or whatever. I listen to Bill. Bill calms me down. He calms me down every time.
Speaker 2:So, hats off to Bill Michaels. You might never see this, but hats off to you. Thank you for getting me over my fear of heights there. What's up, kyle, we'll talk to you on the other side of the break. We'll be right back here after the ad break.
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Speaker 2:no-transcript new year. Aaron, buy, sell, get rid of that clunker. That's what you got to do. See peggy's do at century 21. That's what you got to do. So I want to get back into the packers because, like I said, my wife she's too good, too good at what she does. She produces three quarters of our show for us. We just come on here, we just talk, we have no idea what's going on. She produces the show, she writes everything. So I just wanted her to know that she does it all for us here.
Speaker 2:But I want to get into this because she wrote down some of the key things that we saw in that matt lafleur press conference. I I'm trying to figure out the legal terms of if I can use the press. I talked to the radio station. They're like you can use the, you can use the uh press conferences on your show, you can play the audio. And then I was was like how about? From where? Right? So I got to figure that one out. So we're just going to read through it. We're going to talk about some of the key points that we saw in there. So one of the ones that stuck out to me.
Speaker 2:The question was specifically on turnovers. Jordan went seven straight games without an interception. What changed in Philly? What did you change in the pick or what? What did you think about of those picks? So, first one he said the pick to slay was a heck of a play. He said slay made a heck of play on the ball. I don't want to get into that one because it was a terrible throw. I thought it was terrible.
Speaker 2:I thought he under threw wicks, throws it to the outside, it's there. Like he throws it the outside, it's there. Maybe it's not caught, maybe slay makes the play, tips it out of bounds. But if you throw it to the outside of them and over the top, I don't think Slay's able to make that play. I really don't. So I thought it was a terrible throw. But Matt LaFleur said, eh, I don't think so.
Speaker 2:Looking at, he said the second pick. And this is the one that irks me because I had to watch this. I pulled it up on my screen here. I've watched it 14 times over again and I have no idea what Matt LaFleur's looking at. So he says and this was the one to bond, this was the one over the middle bond. He says that route's got to be run at 20 yards. We were at 15. The ball should never be in that far. I saw what Jordan saw. There is an open hole in the defense. But when you are not in the right route depth, bad things happen. Then the last one if it was a prayer, he said, and that was about that one to bow, melton was just chucking it up there. I don't know what. I'm rewatching this thing 14 times over again and you can say sure done, darn did. Maybe you was the wrong route ran. Sure, that's fine. Like the wrong route was ran, I get it Like that happens. Why was the ball thrown where it was? That's what I don't understand, because I mentioned it the other day. When I watch that pick, when I'm watching it, it looks like the Braden Locke against Penn State, where that ball was just nowhere near anybody. I watched that route, I'm watching it right now here.
Speaker 2:Tucker Kraft stumbles coming out of the backfield. He tries to do a chip block stumbles. Behind him is, I believe that's Malik Heath coming across the middle there. He's covered up. Malik, he's covered up. Maybe if he breaks it off earlier, sure, but Zach, either you're telling me that Zach Bond read that thing like a book and he knew it was coming, or or just maybe Jordan love just didn't see it. He didn't see it. And if he saw, if matt lafleur saw what jordan saw, I would hope to god that jordan saw zach bond standing over the middle, because zach bond didn't move. That's the thing that irks me is, zach bond didn't move out of his position. He was there, he was standing still. He's dropped back into a zone coverage, basically just watching the backfield to see what Jordan Love decides to do. Back there, zach Bond does not stop. He moves to his left, he shuffles to the left.
Speaker 2:That ball was to nobody nobody at all. Tucker Kraft stumbled. You got to see that. You got to be able to read that quick. Tucker Kraft got back up. If you throw it to to him, you dump it off, right, he's there, but you didn't make a good throw.
Speaker 2:So I I do not agree with that one at all. I I read that I don't agree with that one at all. Um, let's see here. Uh, he said oh, this was the question. I know you would fix it if you had a solution.
Speaker 2:But these slow starts in these big games, do you have a why at least, if not a solution to why you have a chronic problem? Matt LaFleur says you got to maximize all your opportunities, so you got to execute and I can tell you, specifically because it is so fresh, in that last game we did not do a great job in the pocket, in the passing game, and then there were some runs that we had bad looks, that we ran into, and then there were some other times where we had some running lanes and we don't win in our one-on-ones, we don't win a block, and that's football. We, collectively, have got to be better. Matt LaFleur, I want to be honest with you. All I want to hear is I have to be better. I have to be better. I have to be better on scheming guys open. I have to be better at play calling. I have to be better at getting my guys ready to go. I have to be better on getting my first 15. You script the first 15 plays of the game. First 15 plays you script them. You script them.
Speaker 2:Why is it consistent? Because we're not asking about just this game. The question is why are you consistently coming out flat? Why is it against the Lions? Why is it against the Eagles week one? Why is it against the Vikings first time around? The Lions, the Lions, again, the Vikings.
Speaker 2:Why is it consistently? You come out flat Over and over and over again and the only crappy answer you can give me is well, we got to be better. We got to be better. It took you 18 weeks of football, right, 18 games to come up with that. That's your answer to me. After it's all said and done. We have to be better.
Speaker 2:Why was that not getting better? The first time you saw the Vikings and Lions, why did you not improve? Right, Because they always say it's hard to beat a team three times. But sometimes it's hard to beat a team twice. Right, look at the Eagles against the Commanders.
Speaker 2:Hard to beat a team twice. Because they get that feeling about you. They get it, they see what you're about, they see what you want to do with the football, they see what you want to do on offense, on defense. They see how they want toon-ones. What are you going to do to fix that? What are you going to draw? Nothing. That's my biggest problem. I mean, aaron, are you seeing the same thing? That is my biggest problem with it. Is that in that question, yes, you said we got to maximize opportunities. I get that, I understand that, and I do believe that, collectively, the Green Bay offense has to be better, but at the same time, matt LaFleur has to be better. He has to be better, but at the same time, matt lafora has to be better. He has to be the offense. These guys follow his tutelage, follow his leadership. They do what he wants, what he wants, what he calls in there. So why did we not see?
Speaker 3:improvement absolutely, I mean absolutely, to your first like, because I just watched that, that bond interception, like three times back and I'm thinking like I don't understand, cause you know, tucker, like you say, scott stumbles out of the backfield, but then it's still a simulation where, like he's not, he's not running.
Speaker 2:If you're standing there, he's standing there flat footed.
Speaker 3:It's not like they're running. You know you run like a double slant and Madden where like you, or well, if you, if you ever play NCAA, like if you throw it at the wrong time, if you throw it at like when the receiver's not like a second before this receiver is not breaking boom, it's picks, it like almost everything, and I know it's a video game, but like this is a situation where I almost thought he was throwing to. I forget who the other guy downfield Cause that guy was like he Keith behind him there.
Speaker 2:but he was covered up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he was like blank, like he was yeah, he had nowhere to go, like he was done for that. Unless Jordan Love scrambles around and like completely, you know he runs a different route out of that. Maybe he gets open. But right there, that's. I don't know. I mean I'm not saying throw your like, say to the media hey, jordan Love sucks, I media, hey, jordan Love sucks. I'm not saying that, but you know he can't. You say he just, he made the wrong read there. Or like hey, he, he overthrew um Tucker Kraft and like I don't understand how he can sit there and say I see the same thing during, like how, I don't understand that you both suck.
Speaker 2:That's why, if you saw that, yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm not trying to pile on the Packers here, like I'm just unbiased, like I'm like hey, jordan Love completely messed that play up, like you know, we didn't execute. He doesn't even have to say that we didn't execute that play near to what we should have. Leave it at that. Like I don't understand his evaluation there. I don't know why he's going that far with defending Jordan Love in that situation. But whatever On the situation, but whatever on on the flip side, like that whole, we need to be better, we need to like I, I hear coaches say it all the time. It's just what. Why doesn't a coach say I need to put a plan in place to make us better, I and I will do that.
Speaker 3:And like if they came out next year and you see a similar result, but they're doing different things, you wouldn't. You wouldn't be as like, you'd be like pissed, sure, but like you wouldn't be as mad as like we need to be better. And then it's the same thing over, like that is infuriating to a fan base to even, like you know, organization right, like the people above him are sitting there, like you know, explain because there's no way he, there's no way that you know he gets called into their office and he's like we need to be better, like he's not. If he gives them that answer, they're like dude, what are you a door like? Like you're, you're famous, you know saying are you, are you a doorknob like? Are you actually like, come on, like you because I know you're not supposed to give the media everything so they can run with the story but be like these vanilla and I, you know aaron boone does it on the yan Like there's so many examples of it.
Speaker 3:But like that answer has to be better, in my opinion, like the answer itself has to be something of substance. Right, we have to be better. Is like you might as well have said nothing. You know that to me is just, it's useless. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Like we're not saying that it wasn't right to say like, hey, he ran the wrong route, like that happens, right, but it also comes back to for me then can Jordan Love go off schedule if the play blows up, if the play's not right, you're telling me, just because they didn't run the right route, that Jordan Love was just gonna chuck it? Just say screw it and hum it across the middle of the field. Because if you look at that, was Malik Heath ever open? No, he wasn't open. And you got to be able to see a linebacker patrolling the center of the field there. Zach Bond didn't move that much, he threw it right in his arms. Zach Bond, I love that guy. Love Zach Bond, wisconsin guy, love him. Great linebacker. I want nothing but success for that guy. But he didn't have to do much, he just stood there, he just made the play, he threw it into his bread basket.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's just the inconsistency. That's what I would have said. It's like, hey, we got to execute, we got to be more consistent. That's a big thing. We got to be more consistent. This was with the play action. We talked about play action. This is what I want to get to. So this was a question.
Speaker 2:Can you help me understand your play action game? When you got here, we all learned about how valuable it was and how it was a great job you guys did in marrying the run Looks like an actual run. It sure looks like you guys changed your blocking scheme to accommodate a really good running back. Is that a fair statement? In coaching, you have the philosophy. This is what Matt LaFleur said. In coaching, you have the philosophy of what you want to do and the foundation of what you want to do better, and you have to be stubborn on that kind of thing and that's good coaching putting your players in the best position possible. It is interesting.
Speaker 2:When you look at the statistics, I am always curious. I see something oh, we are not doing play action enough. And then I go to our analytics people and they say oh no, you are one of the highest ranked in terms of percentage of the league. I think we are a third or something like that. I never know when it comes to these stats are coming from. To be honest with you, as far as center play action, we ran the ball more out of gun and the efficiency at which the ball was night and day difference out of shotgun than it was under center. That's why we didn't do it. I think part of, but okay, it was night and day difference. But okay, it was night and day difference. Sure, it was night and day difference to you, but going under center adds another dynamic. When you are consistently in the shotgun, you don't have that same dynamic when you have when you go under center and you turn your back to the defense.
Speaker 2:The possibilities are still there where this could go multiple different ways. Jordan Love could keep it. Jordan Love can hand it off. Jordan Love could do this. He could do that. When you're in the shotgun, all you do is hand it off.
Speaker 2:Right, you're going to look good in the run game with Josh Jacobs. You're just going to the offensive line. Looked good due to Josh Jacobs, right? They weren't the best run blocking team in the world. They're pretty good. In the past they weren't the best run blocking team in the world. They're pretty good. In the past they weren't the best run blocking team, but guess what? You had one of the best run games of football. Why you have Josh Jacobs. It's just how it works. So you're going to look good in the run game.
Speaker 2:The question is how does that transpire into that passing game, right? How does that transpire over? Okay, it says they use the play action a lot. I'm gonna call bullhookie on that because I don't see it. Watch the film, watch it back. How often did you see play action? You call the stinking game and you're telling me you believe that you like you to utilize play action enough. I don't think so. I don't. I really don't, because then why would every single person who talks Packer football be complaining that you don't utilize play action enough? Some very good minds, right? Some very good minds. Bill Michaels, one of the top football minds in the state of Wisconsin, right? Everybody listens to Bill Michaels' show every day, right? Why is Bill Michaels telling you you don't run enough play action? Why? Why is he saying he's not seeing it? But you see it, right, you call the plays, so you must see it. Is it audibles in the huddle? Is that what's changing it up? I just don't get it.
Speaker 2:Statistically, analytically, I want them to take analytics and statistics and just turn them sideways and show them straight up candy behinds. That's what I want to see out there. I'm done with that crap. Analytics. Kyle Shanahan was big for analytics, right, big on it. Ask Dan Campbell what he does with his analytics, because when you watch the commanders and lions play this weekend, and if there's a fourth and five, both coaches are going to go for it. Wherever they are, they're going to go for it. They are. I mean, look at Dan Campbell. He went for it on the 30-yard line against the Packers In his own territory. He went for it on a fourth and one. The Packers stuffed him. I think it was a fourth and two. They stuffed him, got the ball back. Packers scored. Dan Campbell didn't look at the analytics.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you have to throw analytics to the wind. Sometimes you have to throw them to the wind and do what's going to make your team successful. What made you successful in the second half of last season? The play action game. When you have a guy like Josh Jacobs, when you have a guy like Tucker Craft, when you have a guy like Jordan Love, who, when Jordan Love utilizes his skills of he can run, we know he can run, he's got that ability, but he's got a good ability to look off of defense too, and when you have those two abilities, the play-action game is good, it looks good, but when you don't utilize it and you don't utilize it enough, you get sour-tasting offenses, you get bad-looking offenses. That's what we saw. That's what we saw this season. I don't like it.
Speaker 3:I don't like it at all, aaron. I mean, yeah, it's. I don't know If they don't, you know, if you don't expect them to do anything different. Like okay, so we talk about Bill Michaels, right, like, why, if he can see it, if you can like I'm not saying that you know these guys aren't smart, but like it's the same thing.
Speaker 3:When I watch a team that I root for right, you see the same thing when I watch a team that I root for right, you see the same things over and over and like never to to deviate away from that. Or like, okay, we're always going to use analytics. Like to the analytics point. Like you have to have a feel for the game. Right, like, and I don't want to. Like I said I'm not trying to always take it back to situations that I'm watching, but like Penn state, notre Dame right, it's 10-3 coming out of half and like Notre Dame has momentum. That's a drive where, if Notre Dame's like fourth and two, fourth and three, they're probably going to go like anywhere past the 50. I know it's a different situation, but anywhere past the 50, like they're down a score, they feel like they're right in this game. Now, their backup quarterback led them to it Like. My point being is you have to have a feel for the game, right, yeah, if you're. If you're solely like, analytics doesn't factor in momentum, it doesn't factor in like the feel, the vibe of the game. Like, if you don't, if you're a coach or an organization like because some of it comes organizationally right, like yeah, we're this team, we're gonna go off analytics, that's how we operate. Our ownership says that's how we operate, so that's how we're going to operate. That's not always a good thing. I'm not saying you have to be Dan Campbell. You know where it's like fourth and eight on the 40-yard line and you're down 10 points. That game against San Fran last year, you know, out there in San Fran there were a couple of decisions. I'm like man. San Fran, there were a couple of decisions. I'm like man and I'm not.
Speaker 3:I'm not saying that that's everything. You know there's other things that lead to that. But you know you got to have a feel for, okay, we're going to trust our guys here, we're going to go, even if we don't get it right. These coaches like you can't coach to be perfect or you can't coach not to lose. If you coach not to lose, that's like playing not when you're not hurt.
Speaker 3:Like if Jalen Hurts that was out there on on Sunday and he's like I'm never gonna run the ball at all, like you know, I'm just gonna be safe. Like that doesn't win you ball games and that especially doesn't win you ball games in the postseason. So I mean, if I'm the Packers, like, like I said, maybe you don't have to go as far as what Dan Campbell does, or even Washington with Dan Quinn we've seen it kind of sometimes there too. But you've got to have a feel for it right. Like you've got to have that like okay, I trust Matt LaFleur to go for it here, because it makes sense in this situation of the game, like as the head coach, that's your job, we're going to go, we're not going to go, we're going to go, we're not going to go.
Speaker 3:And if you don't have that situational awareness, like Matt Mike McCarthy in Dallas I'm not saying so much in green Bay, but in Dallas, he kind of I think he suffered from that too Situational awareness, like okay, right, here, we probably should go for it. No, we're going to be perfect in that realm of decision-making. But when it's like, okay, man, come on, at one of these junctures you've got to make a different decision and you're not seeing it. It makes you scratch your head and it makes you think. Does Matt LaFleur? Is he like Kyle Shannon in the fact that when it's a crucial decision to be made, does he second-guess himself? Is he in his own head, right? Is he? Is he present in that moment to like say I need to do this and like, like I said, you're never going to be perfect, but hey, do make some logical sense, don't just, hey, we're gonna analytics, analytics, and it doesn't. I don't agree with that at all.
Speaker 2:I really don't yeah, no, it just irritates the crap out of me sometimes and you know what irritated the crap on me too is arguing with the reporters on what play action is. I mean, there's multiple questions where where he's explaining to us what play action is. These guys aren't idiots. They watch the game of football. They understand the concept of a play action play. I can google it and tell you what it is. They understand it. They're not asking the question for you to explain to them what play action is. We understand it. We want to know why you don't utilize it. So I mean that was just boneheaded there. We got time for one more. One more thing that he said there. I wanted to pull it up real fast here.
Speaker 2:They asked about Jordan Love and what he wanted to see with him going in. So what is the next step for Jordan Love? That was the question what is the next step for Jordan Love? There's a couple more before about Jordan Love there, but what was his next step? Right, and his answer to continue to evolve as a vocal leader. He has taken steps to get there. The locker room respects him not only as a person but as the work he puts in. He is one of the guys. When guys are not doing what they're supposed to be doing, he is willing to voice that. This is all I got to say. This is what I got to say.
Speaker 2:I don't want Matt LaFleur to come out and tell me that Jordan Love needs to fix everything, because I don't want him to completely just come off this guy. But what I want to hear is we need to work on his footwork, all right, we need to improve his footwork. We need to improve his vision, we need to improve his reads. We need to improve this right. We need to improve these things. Because when I watched and I, I we harped on it, right, we said that there doesn't, we need to see guys in that locker room step up and be a leader. We thought that we thought we needed to see guys do that in the huddle in the locker room. So I'm not going to completely discredit that. It would be nice to see jordan love step up to be that vocal leader, because this season it seemed like he was kind of distant from everybody. He was kind of on his own, he was kind of away from everybody on the sidelines and everything like that. So I, I will, I will agree with that. But there is so much more that Jordan Love needs to improve than being a vocal leader, so much more. And that's what I want to hear. That's where I guess because we're right at the end here we're getting all dang. We're right at that minute or hour 30 here we got to wrap it up here.
Speaker 2:But when I hear that, when I hear this press conference, when I looked at all the answers, these press conferences and if anybody out there hasn't looked at this press conference here, we'll probably dive into some more questions here next time on the show here but when I hear the answers that he had to a lot of these questions, that's what pisses me off even more, because I don't want the vanilla answers. I don't want to give you the bull crap answers I don't want you to give me. You know this guy didn't play that bad and this guy didn't do that bad. I want you to give me what you're going to do to fix it. Because Packer fans as much as you know Vikings fan my wife. She hates Packer fans. She thinks that we're all crazy and you know people they hate Packer fans, right? Packer fans aren't stupid. We understand the game of football. We understand what transpired. We get all that. We want to know what you're going to do to fix it. We want to know when these reporters are asking these questions, they're asking the hard questions, right, the play action. They're asking about those. They're asking you about the interception problem. They're asking you about this and this and what Jordan needs to do in the off season. When they're asking you those questions, we want to hear how you're going to improve this football team, how you're going to help this football team take that next step.
Speaker 2:I don't believe that in these questions he answered that for me. He didn't move that needle, right? Aaron? You always tell me does this coach move the needle for me? Does he move that needle? I don't believe that he moved the needle for me, which makes me even more worried heading into next year, because Mike McCarthy had people worried going into his last year in Green Bay and it took a tailspin. I'm not firing Matt LaFleur, I'm not. But what I'm saying is I don't think this guy realizes how much Packer fans care about what happens. We'll care about what's going to be fixed because they love a Packer football. I mean, there's a lot of fans out there right now who are kind of like what do I do now? Right Brewer baseball isn't back yet. We got the Badgers, we got the box, we got all that going on right now. But right now Packers are done for a while and now all we can do is just sit here and wonder what would have happened if we would have figured it out. What would have happened if we would have put it together?
Speaker 2:You're not giving us those answers and I think that's what irritates me the most, and we've got to get more into this. Like I said before and I've got to give props to my wife once again here she went through this entire press conference. She typed up all the questions for us. She typed up all the answers that he gave to those questions. She was fantastic in this. So I got to get props for one more time here, but we want to get more into this press conference on Friday.
Speaker 2:I want to talk about more of these answers, because this press conference, the more I look at it, it just irritated me. Hearing the answers, hearing the I don't know how. Basically, like I I don't know how I'm gonna fix it, I'm just gonna give you a bullcrap line and get this over with. He's giggling and he's laughing. It's like, dude, we're pissed. We're pissed right now. We're upset. We're upset with how this went.
Speaker 2:I mean, just imagine philly fans right now, right, if nick stiriani would have lost that game and he came out at his end of the press conference and he gave us these kind of answers about the play action and about, you know, his quarterback play and all that kind of stuff, philly fans would be irate, they'd want him out. They'd be like we're done with this guy. Bagger fans are like, yeah, some of them are like we're done with this guy. Some of them are like get rid of them. But other ones are like, okay, dude, you got to figure it out. So I want to get more into this press conference on Friday here. Aaron's going to look through the questions too. He's going to find ones that kind of stuck out to him and things that we're going to talk about there on Friday. But we got to get more into this because this thing irritated the crap out of me. It really did. So, aaron, I mean, we're at the end.
Speaker 3:We're a little bit ago, of course. Now I completely lost it um shoot. I don't know, I can't, I can't, you know, I can't bring it back into my, into my cortex, right, as they say.
Speaker 2:I don't know what, but it wasn't about beavers, was it? It wasn't about beavers? No, oh, oh, iron I have no idea.
Speaker 3:Well, no, not that. But for what? Like when you were saying irritating, right, like you know you kind of, that was kind of the key word there. Uh, I don't know if you've seen, and I you know nothing to do about really the phillies there, but like bryce harper's been doing these tiktoks with like coffee. Have you heard about this? It?
Speaker 3:is like the most cringe. I'm to be honest, in fairness, I was never the biggest Harper guy. I really like he's clutch Right, but he's always been like, I don't want to say like, you know, keeping it family friendly. You know what it means. He's a D bag Like I've always thought that from the get go Like this guy is just hard to fully like, embrace him to me like he just seems like that guy in high school that would like slam the shortest kid up against their locker just just to laugh at him. You know, I don't know, maybe that's a bad take, but this, this like coffee thing, like you know he comes over to the phillies. Then, you know, makes me like him a little more. But uh yeah, kyle kyle's still in here. It's looking, looked like a madman.
Speaker 3:He, he doesn't like he looks like his eyes are like like I think this guy needs randomly drugged. I hate to say it, but like maybe he needs drug. He either needs sleep or drug tested.
Speaker 2:Cause it's something that coffee's keeping them up.
Speaker 3:Well it's like and it's so. I'm sorry, but like, hey, social media is for any type of content you want to create, right, but it's so core, like I, I couldn't even hardly make it through one of them. I'm just like, what is this Like? Worry about winning a world? I mean, do this after you retire? I don't know, that's his life, I shouldn't say that, but it's just, it's a hard watch, I'll put it. It's just like what I, I don't know whatever you're into, you know if you're into cars, you're into coffee, whatever. I know it's not baseball all the time, but it's. It's weird. You might I mean I could see harper turn into the next little I want a documentary.
Speaker 2:I do elf bryce, harper. Bryce harper's documentary, just like aaron rogers. The three-part, the three-part documentary.
Speaker 3:I guarantee that guy's not as normal as you think. No, he's far out. It's something a little off there. I don't know Whatever he's into, but he don't look right.
Speaker 2:No no, he's got a lot of. He's fun, he's fun, he's a fun, fun guy. So with that, that's about all we got for today. I mean, it's a great show. Great show today. Great wednesday thank you all for tuning. In friday we got a lot to talk about. We're gonna get more into that matt lafleur press conference there. We're gonna talk about more of the packers offseason kind of things there. We're gonna look at the badgers, look at that game against usc. We gotta talk uh bucks on friday there. Kyle, maybe. Maybe kyle's gonna to be jumping on on Friday there to talk Bucs with us. Maybe, just maybe, depending on his work schedule, he might get on with us there. Who knows what we're going to talk about. Also, we're going to have exciting stuff coming up here in, possibly the next couple weeks. So stay tuned on the show here with us. So with that, for Aaron and myself this has been Wisconsin Sports on the go with Trage. Thank you all for tuning in. We'll catch you guys back here on Friday, but until then, see ya.