Wisconsin Sports on the go with Trag
Wisconsin Sports on the go with Trag is a podcast/radio show aiming at bringing you Wisconsin sports news and opinions! Find the show Wednesdays from 5-7 pm on Sports radio 92.3 WOSQ or here next day!
Wisconsin Sports on the go with Trag
Dec 13 Show: Badgers get Thumped, Packers get ready for Broncos
We go hard at the Badgers’ 90–60 loss to Nebraska and why it was about defense, not just missed threes. Then we map a clear plan for the Packers to handle Denver’s elite pass rush and man coverage without losing their edge.
• lack of defensive identity and poor help rotations
• points in the paint trend exposing rim protection
• too much iso dribbling and not enough post touches
• bringing back swing principles to restore cutting and passing
• using free throws to stabilize cold streaks
• lineup choices driven by communication and effort
• Packers keys vs Denver’s front four and man coverage
• Jordan Love’s responses to pressure and third-down plan
• keeping run involvement and staying aggressive without forcing deep shots
“If you missed the first segment, catch the full show across podcast platforms tomorrow. Text us your thoughts at 715-990-4914.”
This is Wisconsin Sports on the go with Trade. Your place for all things Wisconsin Sports. Now, your host, Trade.
SPEAKER_01:How are we doing, everybody? And welcome in to Wisconsin Sports on the Go with Trage. I'm your host, Trage, as we're coming in here on this Saturday. I hope you guys are enjoying your Saturday. I hope you guys have enjoyed your weekend so far. It's been a good weekend for myself there. The bitter, it's bitterly cold out there. Holy crap, it is bad. But, but we get to stay inside, we watch some sports, we feel better about it. It's okay, right? It's okay. The Packers, they're traveling out to Mile High. They're being taken on the Denver Broncos coming up this weekend. We're going to talk about that game today here on the show. Later on in the show, we're going to talk Packers, talk about what the Packers have to do against that. Very good defense in the Broncos. I'm excited to see this game because I think we're going to learn a lot about the Green Bay Packers in this one, especially Jordan Love's ability. We've seen it all season now to handle the blitz. We've seen his with pressure to handle pressure. And especially him against man coverage. He's been very good against man coverage. The Broncos love to play man coverage. How do the Packers look in a game like that? How do they look against a really good Denver Broncos team? The Packers haven't beat a team like the Denver Broncos. Well, they haven't beat a defense like the Denver Broncos yet. So we are. I'm excited to talk about that game here. I'm excited to watch that game and see what the Packers can do in that one. So we have that to talk about. And then the big one where I want to start with the Badgers. And no, not Badger Volleyball. Badger volleyball got the huge win against Stanford there, though. So that's awesome there. They're going to be heading on to the Elite Eight. But no, we sadly have to talk about what we witnessed on Wednesday against Nebraska. The 90 to 60. Embarrassing. That's the one word I could come up with. I was listening to the countdown, right? The awesome, the awesome uh countdown we have for the show here. Our intro. And I was thinking to myself, how do you describe what we witnessed on Wednesday? And the only thing I could I could come up with my ad was that was embarrassing to watch. How do you I mean John Blackwell, Nick Boyd, Nolan Winter, some of the veterans on this team, Andrew Rhody, how do you think they feel? That'd be embarrassing for themselves. But they did it to themselves. Sadly, I'm re-watching the game right now on that uh Big Ten Big Ten Network has the Big Ten in 60 minutes or whatever. They condense the game. I'm sadly watching it for a second time, and I'm seeing the same things I saw the first time. Embarrassing, ugly, nothing good. And the biggest thing, and I said that's why I said is that this team only has have they only have themselves to blame. And we can sit here and we can blame Greg Gard, right? We can say Guard needs to be better at adapting this offense and getting his defense uh more of an emphasis on the defense, blah, blah, blah. That's not where I'm most frustrated with this team coming off this game. My biggest frustrations with this team, my biggest problem that I have right now with this team is the lack of intensity that they're playing with. The lack of fire. Zero physicality. The focus, the mental focus. It's not so much the shooting that's worrying me. Because, right, because you're gonna you're gonna have hot, cold nights. I get that, right? You go on the the road in the Big Ten. Especially against a good Nebraska. Like, I don't want to take away, as you know, you listen to coaches say it too, but like I don't want to take away from what Nebraska is because they're a good basketball team, they're a very good basketball team. But the Wisconsin team that we watched, it's it's a consistency thing at this point. And the consistency, shooting's not always gonna be there, and we're gonna talk about that later on here. I think Christian is supposed to be stopping by. We'll see how that if he uh if he's able to stop by for the show here today. But if he can't, we'll talk about this anyways. But three-point shooting is a concern for me. The uh the amount of threes that they're taking in games is a concern. But shooting is not my biggest concern because that kind of consistency, you're gonna hit hot cold stretches, right? The consistency and the one thing that you can control, right, is your your attitude and effort, right? Those are the things that you hear from high school coaches. Your attitude and effort, your willingness to give. That's the one thing, those are the things that this Badger team lack at times. Last season, the thing I loved most about last year's team. And there's there was a lot of things that I loved about last year's team. But the biggest thing that I loved was how resilient they were. When they would go down, or they dug, they had a little bit of a hole that they were in, or they were struggling to shoot the ball. They found ways to battle, to do those things, to work it around, whatever, whatever they had to do it, whatever they had to work around, they found ways. This team, from what we've seen so far, I mean, yes, small sample size, right? They're only played what, 10 games so far, small sample size. But from what I've seen and what we've seen so far, in my opinion, in the games that they've lost against BYU, TCU, and Nebraska. Now, it's so because you look outside of that, okay. Campbell, Northern Illinois, Ball State, SIUE. What'd you really take out of those games? They played a bad team and they won. Providence shot the lights out of the building. Look great. Marquette, another great offensive performance. Northwestern, a little better defensively. Still second half, struggled defensively. Offense carried him in that one. But you've seen in the losses this team's intensity and the way that they play, especially on the defensive end, they don't take punches well. They don't when they get punched in the mouth, they fold. They don't have that same ability to battle back or to find that extra gear or to dig deep. That's what I've seen so far. I could be wrong. I want to hear your guys' opinion on what we saw Wednesday there, what you've seen on this Badger team so far here in the first 10 games. 715-990-4914. That is 715-990-4914. My biggest problems are that. It's the little things, the controllables. Attitude effort. Give it just looking like you give a crap. Some of these guys don't even look like they care. Is that the truth? Probably not. But with the effort that we saw against Nebraska, you could have fooled me. It's not the shooting. It's none. It's that. And I know Greg Gard went on after the game there, and they asked him kind of about the defense and their lacking of lack of an identity on that side of the court. And he said, we don't have a defensive identity. We haven't had one all year. So we'll search to find one and I'll find guys who want to play defense. And they asked him how you're going to do that. Sit guys on the bench. They'll find out in the next nine days. We haven't had a defensive identity all year, and everybody gets all rah-row about our offense, but it's the other end of the floor that's caused us the trouble for the most part. 100%. I heard him say that in the post-game uh press conference, and I said, Thank goodness that at least you see it. Now, maybe you're just spewing at us whatever you want at this point, but at least you're telling me that you're going to go into that locker room and you're going to find who wants to play defense. Because it's not just a lack of the ability to play defense. It's not that. It's a lack of intensity. It's a lack of wanting to play physical, getting after guys, and trying to exert some energy on that and the floor instead of just focusing on the offensive side. Like he said, everybody gets so rah-rah about the offense, it's great. And you hear so many people, well, when you play an offense like this, you're going to sacrifice on the defensive end because you're trying to outscore these teams. Okay, but what happens when you can't?
unknown:Right?
SPEAKER_01:Are you going to live and die by the three? Because as streaky as this team's been, if they try to play this game or they try to live and die just by the three, this is going to be a very long season with a lot of these talks. Where we all come in frustrated after watching one of those games and saying to ourselves, man, oh man, Greg Gard stinks. Now, the problem is that they went into the offseason and they didn't get the personnel to play defense. Their offense, their personnel last year, look who you had. Carter Gilmore, Kamari McGee, Xavier Amos played pretty good defense at times. Struggled. He was hit or miss. Offensively, probably a little bit better. You lost the guy in Elijah Gray, who was supposed to come in and be that kind of defensive guy for you. But you lost Steven Crowell. You lost Max Klesman. You lost John Tanja. All willing, able guys who gave a crap about the defensive end of the floor. Now you have a disconnect between all the guys on that end of the floor. Nobody communicates, nobody talks, and the biggest thing, nobody helps. You can watch multiple times where you had wide open cutters rolling down the lane, and there ain't nobody within an area code of them. They're so glued to their guy out on the perimeter, they have no idea what's going on. Right? It's the same on the offensive end, and we're gonna talk about the offensive end too, but movement, right? Movement without the ball, moving around. It's the same on defense. Playing good help side defense. There's no help side on half these cuts. They get beat, they get lost, it's done. Boom. Nebraska had what? 40-some points in the paint in that game? If I'm not mistaken, it was like 40-some points in the paint there. Ah, let's see here. 44 points in the paint for Nebraska. 44 points in the paint for Nebraska. We talked about it. Marquette. Marquette, all they wanted to do was get in the paint, right? That's the big spot they wanted to get to. They wanted to get in the paint area. They wanted to score. What did Marquette do with the paint area? 40 points in the paint. Compared to Wisconsin's, 30 points in the paint. You could flip through all these games for the Badgers. And where did they lose these games? I give you a shot in the dark. I'll give you a crazy shot in the dark, and you can guess where they lost games. TCU, 36 to 24. TCU won in the paint. Look over at the BYU game. I'm going to assume the same narrative in that game. The points in the paint are the killer for this Wisconsin batter team. Losing guys 32 to 30. There, they got a little bit better. It looks a little bit better. It's 32 to 30, but still give up 32 points in the paint. Now that game was a lot of free throws too for BYU announced. That was also a big contributor there. They got down low and they got fouled. They got pass guys. They're beating guys off the bounce. There's no help. There's no rim protection. All those little things are leading to what we're seeing right now from the Wisconsin Badgers. And none of it's pretty. Now, is it time to press the panic button on this team? I still like this team. I still think there's good qualities and good things about this team. But, but if they can't find something on the defensive end, this is going to be a very long season. A very long season. Because you can only rely on your offense so much. Because as we saw in this game against Nebraska, when their offense went a little bit cold, even in a game like against BYU, they shot 24% from three, scored 70 points, gave up 98 points to BYU. Now BYU is a fantastic team, so don't get me wrong. They're fantastic. But this team, what they do on the defensive end, we kind of talked about it early on in the season, where we're like, oh, they're playing some bad teams, but they're giving up buckets, right? No, they're in Illinois, 72 points. SIUE, 69. Uh, Campbell put up 64 on them. We look at these games and we say, oh, well, you know, they the the wins. Well, they put up 104 against uh Providence. Yeah, but I still didn't like what I saw on the defensive end of the floor. Now you're gonna sacrifice offense for defense. I get that. I understand that when you play a fast-paced offense, you're gonna give up a lot of long rebounds. You're gonna do all that kind of stuff because you're shooting a lot of threes. You're gonna give up, I get all that. But in a game like that where the shots aren't falling, is that just gonna be the answer then? Live and die by it. Shots aren't falling. All right, we're gonna lose. Darn it. No, you gotta have something to fall back on.
unknown:Right?
SPEAKER_01:We're gonna talk about on the offensive side of the floor here. Next up here on the show. We're gonna talk about the offensive side of the uh ball and finding ways to score when the shots aren't falling. But you can't just say, oh, well, that's just the offense we play now, so that's that's good, it's just gonna happen. It's just gonna happen. Oh, darn it, it happens. We we weren't shooting well, so we lost again. We gave up 90 points, scored 60, and we lost. If they don't find a defensive identity or an ability to slow, somewhat slow teams down on the defensive side of the game or on side of the ball and adjust themselves in game to how the game flow is going and how they're shooting and everything in between, if they don't find a way to play physical to show some kind of intensity, to show some kind of fire, to show some kind of want and focus, this is going to be a very long season. And this is a very good Big Ten with teams like Purdue and Michigan. We just watched what Michigan did to Villanova. Badgers played Villanova next. We just watched that. You play Purdue, UCLA, and Michigan back to back to back. Three big ranked opponents in a row. If you go cold in one of them games, you're gonna get curb stomped right out of it. Illinois ranked. Michigan State ranked. Maryland's a decent team. Oregon, decent team, Iowa, decent team. Just played a little, they just had a really good game against Iowa State there on Thursday. There is a lot of really good teams in the Big Ten. And if you don't find some kind of intensity fire, watch anything like that, this is gonna be a very long slate and a very hard season to watch for the Wisconsin Badgers. That's just my take on it. So I want to hear your guys' opinion. Badger basketball, moving forward, we're gonna talk to Nebraska here a little bit more. Christian's gonna stop by, we're gonna talk a little bit more about that game we watched, and then we're gonna look ahead what they got to do moving forward here, what Greg, more of what Greg Gard had to say after that game. We're gonna talk about it all. Here, when we come back here from the break on Wisconsin Sports on the Go Trades, I'd feel a little bit better, but then it reminded me of Badger football, and I got upset again. So this is Wisconsin Sports on the Go of Trades. We're back here. Christian is here today on the show. Christian, how are we doing on this Saturday?
SPEAKER_02:Good. We're good. We're good. We're uh well, I mean, don't have to watch any Wisconsin sports right now. Although volleyball, volleyball is good. Yeah, that's true. They got the win over Stanford.
SPEAKER_01:It's been a while since they beat Stanford. It's been a really I don't think they've ever actually beat them until they're gonna be able to get some now except now they got Texas on Sunday, right?
SPEAKER_02:And I think Texas, Texas swept Wisconsin at Wisconsin this year. That was like the It'll be okay.
SPEAKER_01:You know, we're good. Yeah, it'll be okay. I mean, they the way that they're playing right now. I I was talking to my sister about this. She's a huge volleyball fan. I was talking to her about it, and I'm like, the way that they're playing right now, I feel comfortable with them against just about anybody. I think I would take Nebraska right now. Now, are they gonna beat Nebraska? I don't know, but would I take Nebraska right now? Yeah, I'd take them. Like that they are playing the best volleyball they've played all season, so you might as well have them right now.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, getting hot between hot at the right time.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'm confident going into the Texas matchup there. Actually, my second favorite college team is Texas. So, you know, I always have that, I always have that dilemma. But then, you know, I'm always a Badger fan first, so it's Badgers over Texas all day long. So are you a Texas favorite team? You got to, but they're so far away, it doesn't even matter. You gotta you can't have a same. That's a good question. You can't have a the same conference, like you can't be a Minnesota fan but be okay with Wisconsin or like Michigan.
SPEAKER_02:So it's gotta be far away.
SPEAKER_01:Right, right. Oh god, can you imagine if Texas joined the uh the Big Ten? That'd be rough. That'd be rough. I mean I couldn't handle it. I couldn't handle it there. So, anyways, anyways, we gotta talk, we gotta talk some badger hoops here. I was kind of uh up in arms in the first little part of the show there talking about. If you guys missed that, make sure you listen across the podcast platforms next day. I'll have it on there for you guys. But I was kind of up in arms, Christian, talking about this loss that they had in Nebraska and kind of what we've seen in the losses for this team so far this year, even in some of the wins, we've seen some struggle along the way, especially on the defensive end. And I alluded to the lack of intensity, the lack of fire. This team sometimes just seems like they don't give a crap, all that kind of stuff. But I was asked a question by my wife. We were sitting there watching this game, and she said to me, Do you think that the the biggest problem with this this the consistency of this team and getting consistent and you know playing complimentary basketball? Do you think that's the problem because of the new guys on the roster? And I want to get your take on that because I think that's what a lot of people kind of say is okay, now you're in this world of transfer portal and everything like that. You have a lot of new faces every single year. Is that an excuse? And when does that excuse run out? Is there a certain amount of games where you got to be able to figure it out now? Like what when does that run out? Because you're in Big Ten play now. You can't be still using the excuse of, in my opinion, you can't be using the excuse of, oh, we got these new guys. Everybody does. Michigan does, and they're throttling teams right now. It's like they all got new guys on the roster. So, Christian, what do you think?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm with you. I think like you said, everyone does unless you're Marquette, and we see how that's working out, right? But everyone has has to figure it out. And they've been playing together for two months now, you know, if not longer. They've been together all summer, except for Beelieuskis. I know he just got there like literally in the end of August. Um, but outside of that, like, yeah, everyone's been together. Like, they should no, it should look better than this. And I think we were kind of talking about this too. I think it's just they're more interested in shooting threes and you know, this fast-paced offense rather than playing defense. So it's just like completely backwards from what we've we've probably grown up watching with Wisconsin basketball. You know, winning winning with by scoring 50, maybe 60 points was normal, but you'd hold the you know, you'd hold the other team to 40, 50 points. Right. So I think I don't know. I think there's this idea that like points per you know, as many possessions as you can get is like at a premium, you want to get as many possessions as you can so you can get more points per possession and you know, blah, blah, blah. But in the I understand with the analytics and stuff, like the three-point shot is like the most valuable shot, right? But I mean, when you go, what the what was it? Did we count 13, 14? I think it was 14 straight threes, and you hit what, three or four of them, maybe three, and you don't even like bother trying to work your way inside, especially like when we talked about the reps, we're a little whistle happy and we're still just settling outside, shooting threes instead of attacking and getting to the line. And like that's one of their strengths, too, is hitting free throws. Why are they not like, okay, hey, let's just let's get this thing back, you know, especially as you're trying to chip away from a big Lead. Why not just start attacking the hoop? Shit, like stop the clock, get free throws, you know, and all that, and get get the defense, you know, Nebraska defense in foul trouble. But it just felt like they were just perfectly content sitting outside shooting threes until they, you know, until they got hot. Shoot to get hot, right?
SPEAKER_01:You know, I I hate always uh talking about last season, but how did they win basketball games last season? I I find it crazy. Yeah, this was still a this was still a uh a three happy team last year. They loved to shoot the three last year, too. But how did they win basketball games? They got to the free throw line. How many I mean they led the I mean they had the best percentage in all basketball. They they were one of the better and most most free throws around for a while there because everybody got mad at Wisconsin because they were getting the whistle so often.
SPEAKER_02:Well, oh yeah, they just called what they call Tanja Free Throw Merchant. Is that what it was?
SPEAKER_01:Free throw merchant is what they kept bringing up because I mean the Arizona game, he was crazy at the free throw line, but I mean he attacked the basket, and that's something this team does not do. Nick Boyd does it, but when you're out of control when you attack the basket, the ref isn't gonna call it. Then it's gonna be player control probably in an offensive foul. They get so out of swords. When you got out of come out of this game, like we said, and it the refs were trigger happy. The badgers got in the bonus twice. I mean, they're in the bonus first second half, but I believe in the second half. I know for sure in the first half they're in the bonus, and I thought there was a decent amount of time left when they were. But when you shoot 11 free throws in the entire game, and Nolan Winter doesn't get to the line at all, not at all, but we talked about it. Why is that? Why does Nolan Winter, like he seems like he's not even involved? I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. Nick Boyd, John Blackwell, Andrew Roadie. I love them all. Very good players. Roadie's a great passer. John Blackwell and Nick Boyd, very good job of creating and making a shot and everything in between. They dribble way too much. They dribble, and I like I was telling you at the break, I said, I told this to my young kids all the time: dribble with a purpose, right? If you're gonna dribble, make it count. What are you gonna do with it? Go and use it. I don't think Nick Boyd half the time knows what he's gonna do. He just tries to beat everybody to the rim, and at times they collapse. There's three guys there. You got blocked six times in this game. There's three guys there, and what should you probably do then? Look for a kick out, find an open guy. Somebody's gotta be open out there. Nope, nope. It's like this team, and I don't know, Christian, you get to say violence team. It's like they run around with blinders on, it's like they have blinders on halftime, it's their ISO mission, and then when it's when they can't do anything, they're like, Oh, I'm gonna drive, and Nick Boyd gets cut off, then he's like, Oh, okay, what do I do now? Well, if John Blackwell dribbles the ball for 10 seconds and Roadie dribbles the ball for 10 seconds, and Boyd has it for 10 seconds, we're Lauskiss in Winter can't touch the basketball, and you're not even working into the post. That's one of my biggest problems. How did they Steven Crow? We talked about the break. Everybody's like, oh, we miss Big Steve. You know why I miss Big Steve? Is passing out of the post. They look for him, they get it down there, he can skip it across court, bam, corner three. You don't have that right now because you're not even looking at the post. You're not even trying to get it into the post for a post touch. It wasn't that Steven Crowell was a scorer in the post. It was the fact that he was a passer in the post and he demanded double teams because if he didn't, he could score. But if he doubled him, he found the shooter. This team doesn't have that, and that's why they're running into this big issue is they don't move the basketball, they don't look inside out. All they want to do is ISO, ISO, ISO, and it's driving me nuts. Christian, what do you think?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that's today's college basketball, isn't it? Isn't that like it's turning kind of into the NBA? Let's make you might have a little bit of a two-man game going, but like I at the end of the day, it feels like it's a lot of like you know, you have no, it feels like the team that has the guy, the dude, and like we had that with Tanja last year. But like, if you have the guy who can just win one-on-one with anyone, you're you know, you have pretty good, you have pretty good odds, right? Right, and we've seen that when Blackwell does really well, like he's on absolutely on fire against Marquette. Like, badgers looked so good. He looked one of 11. Is that what it was? One and one of eleven from the field.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, one for six from three. It's one short.
SPEAKER_02:And he hit that three, yeah. Yeah, he went one of eleven from the field, and like he was, I mean, let's just say it, he was awful, right? He's had a bad game, and like I think that's part of the reason they struggle because then I think Nick Boyd tries to pick up that slack too. He's like, Okay, well, if you're not doing it, then I'm gonna get mine, and like he didn't do necessarily overly well either. And like, I just you know, there's the the concept of team basketball, I feel like is just fading away, sadly. It's a lot of either like two man or just like one-on-one stuff, and that's it. So, yeah, like I don't like I get saying like there's blinders on them is absolutely an accurate statement.
SPEAKER_01:You perfectly alluded to it earlier, they're talking about the three and talking about how it's you know the new thing, right? You gotta shoot the three. It's causing the defense to also cause lapses, too, though. Is that once they're in this run and gun, so you're gonna get the long rebounds, you're gonna get the fast transition points, you're gonna be put into those positions, and this team does not yes, they're built to shoot the three, but they don't shoot it consistent enough to play that style. So now you have to adjust, and that's kind of what we're saying right now is how do you adjust? Okay, you attack the basket, you start to play more half-court stuff. You don't try to run and gun with teams. I don't know who needed to tell Wisconsin this, but running and gunning against BYU is probably not going to win you a basketball game because BYU is too good for you to run and gun against. You needed to swallow that game down to your pace, and you played to their pace. That's where that's what they want.
SPEAKER_02:That's where they thrive. They love them. They're better, they are better at it than you are.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yes, 100%. Nebraska, even in this game, they sped you up, they got you uncomfortable, they played physical with you. And the problem is that they don't even have to pack the paint against you because you can't beat them one-on-one. There was no having to help off of guys for Nebraska in this one. They just said, beat us, beat us straight up. And you couldn't. Because you don't use the post, you don't drive, you don't do any of that, you settle for shots. And when you settle for shots, when you settle for shots, is why you get blocked six times. Me, Greg Gard said at the game. They're like, You got blocked six times. He's like, Yeah, those are all bad shots. When you get blocked, it's a bad shot. 100%. If you get blocked, somebody was open, somebody else had to be open on those possessions when these guys get blocked. Yeah, nope. We're just like you said, like we're talking about blinders on, don't know what's going on. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna keep doing the same thing. It's the offense. I know we talked about in the offseason, losing Kirk Penny, right? We're like, what's gonna happen here? It's turning out to be maybe a little bit more worrisome than what we thought. Now, I believe that Greg and those guys will be able to get it sorted out, but I think they have to sort it out by saying, Okay, we need to play more intense on the defensive end. We need to put more of an emphasis on the defensive end of the floor right now because we don't have the inside presence or anything. I think, honestly, this might just bold way to fix this. I know everybody hates the swing offense. I go back to the swing offense. You don't have a post, but what involves the post in the swing offense? Rotating guys in and out, right? Fighting mismatches, John Blackwell going down there. Maybe you have Roadie get down to the post. A great passer, right? Can get you down the post. We're not looking for him to score down there. We're looking to be passing out of the post area then. Look at cutters. How many times last year did you see like a give and go from the post area with Steven Crowell or Nolan Winter when they were down there? John Tanjay would cut the lane or Blackwell or whoever. There's a give and go.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah, they're they're just good at cutting off the ball. They pass and they've cut, cut like it's just constant. 100. I think you're right. This offense stay is stagnant. Everyone wants to stand around the three-point line and get a three.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. And you need to find a way to incorporate the post. And the only way that I can think to do it, well, there's probably a million other ways, right? Just utilize it. But the swing offense, I'm just like, I'm thinking like running a variation of it where you do utilize like a Blackwell or a Roadie or somebody else in that post area and allow them to be the passer that you're looking for. Because Winter ain't gonna go down there. Winter's not good in the post, but Yalauskis is a young fella. He's not playing, he's playing as good as he can down in the post, but he's not built to play in the post yet. He's not doesn't have the skill set to be down there consistently at this point because he's kind of forced into this role because the guy that you brought in to be your quote unquote big guy, Austin Rapp, isn't anywhere near a post area player. He's more of a four-two. So you have two fours with Winter and Rap. You might as well. I sometimes I'm like, why do they run two bigs at times? I'm like, why don't you just play a smaller lineup at this point and just try to run and gun.
SPEAKER_02:Just have Roadie be the four. Just have Roadie be the four. Or bring Carrington, Roadie, Guard, or Boyd, uh, Blackwell, and Winter. Or, you know. 100. Maybe Garlock, maybe Garlock. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:At this point, at this point, I'm with Guard. You have to go in these next nine days. You're gonna figure out who wants to be there and who wants to play. And that's all you can go off of. Who wants to who wants the ball out for me? Who's gonna give me their all? Because you guys should all be embarrassed from what just happened there against Nebraska. It's one thing to lose on the road in the Big Ten. It's another thing to look like that. So, Christian, I gotta run here. Let the people know where to find you out there across social media.
SPEAKER_02:As always, you can find me at Christian Borman or all my uh writing work at thebadgerbacker.com.
SPEAKER_01:Make sure you guys check him out. He's keeping track of that transfer portal for the football. He's keeping track of what recruits will probably leave. Who knows at this point here with college football how that's all gonna happen. So he's keeping track of everything there at the Badgerbackers. Just make sure you guys check him out there. We're gonna come back here after a quick commercial break. We're gonna talk some Packers versus Broncos. When we come back here from the break, we'll be right back in the Scott's on the go with Trage. I'm your host, Trage. We come back here on this Saturday edition of the show here. And we got Ummer stopping by next. We're gonna talk a little Packers here. Ummer, how are we doing? It's Saturday. Packers, Broncos up tomorrow here. But how are you doing on this Saturday?
SPEAKER_03:I'm good, man. I'm good. I can't complain. I'm ready for the weekend. The weekend's been pretty good so far. I got my uncle's 60th birthday tonight, so I'm really looking forward to that. And then I'm looking, I'm very, very excited for the game tomorrow. Um, but honestly, um, just happy, man. I'm just it's it was a long week, but a good week, and just really enjoying the weekend. How about you, man? How are you doing?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I'm doing good, I am doing fantastic. I we I yelled about the badgers to start the show today here, but the Packers, Broncos, I'm excited for that. So I can't wait to talk about that here today on the show. But the weekend's been going great for me. It's just frigid cold here in the state of Wisconsin. Goodness, they're talking like negative 20, negative 30 wind chills coming up over the next couple days here this weekend. So wow, is it cold? But we're gonna get through it. We're gonna get through it. That's what we do. The white, the white, terrible stuff shows up, you know, the snow out there, and then we get this cold, and it's just uh, it's just it's that time of year. We we we that's why we live in Wisconsin because we love the cold. But Albert, he got fancy for me today here on the show, too. I mean, you guys can't see it because we're on the radio, but he dyed the beard, he died, everything's died, so it's no gray anymore. It's all it's all that jet black now. So, I mean, that's hey, hey, well, that looked knocked off like 14 years, man. Knocked off 14 years. That's what he's saying, knocked on. He's like, knocked off 14 years. Like, who is on my who's on my thing right now? This is like this is kid? Like, I don't even know what I'm looking at right now. Speaking of, speaking of this, it's gonna be a good uh I gotta give myself a dynamite transition here. Speaking of old, we got Philip Rivers coming back to play with the Colts. Is that just something that's developed over now? I didn't want to call you old there, Albert, but it's going. We're just talking about gray hair and all that kind of stuff. So I was just like, I'll just transition right into it. Philip Rivers, just an interesting story that we've seen develop this week here. I just want to get your take on it. Philip Rivers coming back to play football. Now we've heard from many people who've said like he stayed in shape, he's been ready to go since he left. It's just, you know, he left because of his family, because he wanted to spend more time with them and everything like that. So that's why he kind of walked away from the game. And now he's he's they there's a lot of people who actually feel like he's physically ready to go. He's bigger, but they feel like he's physically ready to play the game again. I mean, I'm what are your thoughts on the Colts bringing back Phillip Rivers after they get the news of Daniel Jones and Riley Leonard is banged up too? So they're kind of they're out of options, anyways. What are your thoughts on Philip Rivers coming back here?
SPEAKER_03:I don't know, man. It sounds kind of crazy to me. He's like literally a semifinalist for Hall of Fame next year. And that'll reset if he's on a lot, if he's on an active roster come Sunday. I think that his experience with Shane Steichen, being uh that he played with him when he was his quarterback coach, I believe, when he was with the Chargers, he's he has history there, so he knows the offense. Um, and also he's been out of the game for five years. So who knows what he's been doing. Um, I'm not gonna say he's on TRT or HRT or anything like that, but if he's on the good stuff this whole time, got him stuff right, got him stuff healthy, and he's out there zinging it. I think it's crazy. I think it's pretty wild that a 44-year-old is out there, but then Tom Brady was still playing at 45. So end of the day, he is going to an offense that just needs a quarterback that can game game manage. He doesn't need somebody that's gonna win them games, he just needs someone that's not gonna lose them games. And I think Phillip Rivers, um, his whole career, I mean, for the most part, he's had some really good football teams, but they just weren't able to get over the hump. The Colts are still in it, they're throwing the division, but they're one game out for first place. So for me, I think it's crazy, but I still think it makes a little bit of sense. I think there was probably other quarterbacks out there that they could have probably brought in. Um, I mean, heck, you could you could have uh even seen that the if the Bengals would have cut Joe Flacco and brought him back because he used to be there for a little bit too, right? But end of the day, I think it's kind of crazy. I think there's a lot of other quarterbacks out there that are currently retired and younger than uh Phil Rivers who feel like, hey, why aren't you calling me? And yeah, so it's wild, but I think you know, again, you got a quarterback out there who watching some of the practice tape, he looks like he still has a little zip-on ball. Uh, I would love to see if he plays and how he acts after getting hit for the first time. That's gonna be what's gonna be interesting to me. What do you think? How do you feel about Mr. Rivers? Make and also everybody that says they want to go home and spend time more time with their family, they spend more time with their family, and look how quickly they try to get back to NFL. Tom Brady did it. Now Rivers is got 10 kids and a grandkid already.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, that man is yeah, we're got nothing else to prove off the field. He had to get back on the field to prove something again. There, it's just it's crazy how many stats, like the the passing yards leader and everything like that, that he can slowly try to get you know, gain ground in or get ahead of guys, re-ahead of guys, and stuff like that. It's crazy to see him being able to come back and do that. Um, I you know what I'm actually hoping he does good. I am because I want him to make poo-pooing on it, yeah. I want I'm a supporter. I I I like Rivers. He's a he's he's a cool dude. Like I just want to make all these analysts just look like they don't know what they're talking about. Ryan Clark today was yelling about and he's like, they don't know what they're doing, blah blah blah. And then Cam Newton's complaining because they didn't call him and it's like, Cam, you weren't good when you left. Do you really expect them to make a phone call to you? They should have probably gone with somebody off a practice squad or some young guy, but they decided to go with Philip Rivers. You weren't a better option. I just I'm just gonna say that I don't think Cam Newton was a better option than Philip Rivers. I don't think Philip Rivers is the best option in the world, but I don't think he's worth like Cam Newton was a better option because I'm gonna be honest with you, outside of the Carolina Panther days of Cam Newton, there wasn't a whole lot of good there. And you want to talk about Cam Newton giving, I'm just gonna say this before we got to get Packers Broncos about Cam Newton. The other day he was giving Jordan Love crap about big games. What happened to you when you played against the Broncos in a big game? You kind of laid down and didn't even go after the fumbles that you had. So, anyways, that's enough of my rant about Cam Newton and everything.
SPEAKER_03:Brother, you were 100% right. Like Cam, his last few years in in New England were not that great. He is a physical specimen, but those injuries did take a toll on him. Rivers also had a lot of injuries, but thing is his injuries were different. He had the torn ACL, he had some other stuff, but he didn't take the kind of pounding that Cam did. You know, Cam was the Josh Allen before Josh Allen, right? And I'm with you, bro. Like Cam's uh analysis is hit or miss a lot to say the least, and then him being in that offense, I hate to say it, but he would be just like Anthony Richardson. I'm a big Richardson guy, but Richardson still hasn't shown development. Unfortunately, he can't stay on the field to show to develop in general. So um part of me does want to see him succeed just because I think it'll be a crazy story. Uh, but yeah, it's it's it's a wild NFL is wild right now this year, man.
SPEAKER_01:There's so many things that have gone over to the storylines and everything of this season have just been fun. The the up and downs of teams, the Kansas City Chiefs, they still have a path, and it's like so it's just crazy to follow along the storylines. But there's been a crazy storyline to follow for the Packers, too. I mean, the Packers, beginning of the year, looked good, kind of uh after that, kind of got some people up in arms. What the heck's going on with this team? And then they found their stride again. Christian Watson comes back, they found their stride. Tucker Kraft got hurt, that didn't help with the the mojo of this team. But Christian Watson comes back, we get Jaden Reed back. Let's start with this question right here. If the Packers, because we talked about this Packers game against the Broncos, there it's a it's a huge matchup. We're gonna learn a lot about the Packers. If the Packers win in Denver, would you does that make them more of a legitimate Super Bowl contender in your eyes? If they win against the Broncos in Denver, does that make them more of a legitimate Super Bowl contender in your eyes? I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts out there too. Anybody listening to the show today, text us. 715-990-4914. That is 715-990-4914. I'd love to hear your thoughts. If the Packers win in Denver, does that make them more of a legitimate Super Bowl contender in your eyes?
SPEAKER_03:I think that yes. I feel like that team, you're going against one of the best teams in AFC right now, best record in AFC. I think uh McKinney probably said it best that this is playoff football. And this is probably gonna be one of the best defenses they're gonna play probably for the remainder of the year. Yep. Because Denver is defense, is probably one of the top three, if not top two, defenses in the league, right up under Houston. And it is an atmosphere in Denver where high altitude against a Super Bowl-winning coach who has been able to win a chip in the past and has taken this team and rebuilt it pretty quickly after the Russell Wilson debacle. And it shows where you stand, right? Because last year we couldn't uh we were barely one and five in the division, right? And we were able to beat the teams that we should have beaten, but we couldn't beat any of the any of the contenders, right? And then this year we're uh undefeated in the division, and honestly, minus uh a couple of special team gaffes and Zach Tom getting hurt in a couple games, we're probably sitting, we're probably away from probably having maybe just one loss uh on our record, maybe zero losses to be. I sound that sounds kind of crazy, right? But I mean, truth be told, like special teams didn't gaff in Cleveland and in Dallas, those are two wins right there, right? And then Carolina, if we just had a again, we were trying to adjust without Elton, we were trying to adjust without you know Zach Tom was still banging. I just there was a lot of things that went wrong in that game. But again, like I I feel like this is a great test for us, and it's again like we are going into the schedule where it's gonna show us who we're really about because the Packers have been saying it too. Like, this is the time for them to start playing good football, and this is when the floors excel because like last year I felt like he didn't, but I think a lot of things were going against him in that because mostly in December, he's pretty good in December. Last year was probably his worst year. Um, but I I feel like this is gonna show us where we actually do stand because our defense is legit. Like, I have no questions about I know Homer went on a tirade about our defense and was busting him up, but the truth of the matter is uh you know the defense as a whole is probably a top-tier defense offensively. We're hearing our stride. Jordan is doing Tayothon, he's on a heater, he's playing amazing football. He made one mistake and he bounced back from it and threw three touchdowns. So for me, uh it's a great test for the team as a whole. Our offense to see if the offense is legit and the defense to be able to take an offense on the other side that isn't very consistent, but if they can actually dictate turns right, right.
SPEAKER_01:And you know, the big thing you were just mentioning the defense there for the Bronco. The big thing is that they have not beat a defense like the Broncos yet. They had another shot against the top 10 defense in the Eagles. Look what happened there. We don't even remember what happened in the Eagles game, but we haven't the Packers have not beat a top 10 defense to this point. But this is a top 10 defense. So to answer the question of would it make me feel like they're a legitimate Super Bowl contender? Yeah, because this is one of the better teams in the AFC. And you go into their house and you beat them on the road in a game that they could use and a game that you need to. I I don't I don't take anything away from that. And it's going to be a slug fest. So if you can win a slug fest on the road, that's even better. That makes you feel even better about this team. And I think it's going to be a lot on, I think there's a lot of things that, a lot of variables that make me feel good coming off of this, right? It's not an ugly, like a super ugly win, right? Jordan Love throws four interceptions, but the Packers still win the game. Like I don't know if that makes me feel better. But Jordan Love throws a couple touchdowns, Josh Jacobs, they get the run game going. They do a good job of keeping the pocket clean against this really good front four. They do a good job attacking that man coverage that we know they're going to run, that single high safety that they love to run there in Denver. We see them do a good job of handling that. It makes me feel good. Like that makes me feel really good about this team moving forward. But if it's like an ugly, and it has to be really ugly for me to feel super bad about it. Because you winning ugly is okay too. Like there's okay winning ugly. Yeah, absolutely. Especially in a game like this where you know they want to win ugly. Like that's how they've been winning football games all season long, is ugly. So like it's not, it's not a uh uh completely like kill the whole thing if it is an ugly game. It's just what led me to that point is gonna be the thing that's gonna kind of be the judgment for me there. So, I mean, before we we're gonna hit a quick break here, we're gonna keep the Packer talk going. But before we get there, I mean, let's just start with our key matchups that we have to talk about this one. And I mean, we're starting talking about the defense. How do the Packers attack this defense for the Broncos? Being that their front four is so good and so good again home early, and that's why they can get away with playing some man so often because nobody actually throws deep on them because they can't. They don't have time to throw deep on them. Umer, how do you think this Packers team has to attack them in this game here to try and beat that up? Because you know they're gonna be bringing four, you know they're gonna be dropping into man coverage, teams have not been able to get the deep ball on them. Jordan Love's been loving to throw the deep ball. How do you think the Packers are gonna attack them in this game?
SPEAKER_03:I think they have to play smart. They have to take the gimme's. Jordan cannot go big game hunting like he did in Carolina. Like, I don't know. Like Vance Joseph is a very good defensive coordinator. I feel like he needs to take what the defense gives him. Sometimes he tries to bite off more than he can chew, which he did in a Carolina game. These last few games, he's literally been just playing very good smart football. He needs to keep that up, plain simple. He needs to continue taking the gimme's, taking the check downs, taking 10-12 drive, 12, 10-12 play drives down the field, scoring. Uh I need Josh Jacobs because Josh Jacobs has played pretty consistently well against Denver, even though they have never played against this Denver defense. But I need Josh Jacobs back. Hopefully he can play someday. If not, it might be Emmanuel Wilson revenge game because Emmanuel Wilson was actually picked up by the Denver Broncos when he first came into the league and then got cut. Um, I saw that the Broncos cut Mercedes Lewis, so maybe we can bring him back and have him as a seventh offensive lineman. I don't care. Uh, but no, I think that um this is gonna be a good test for the offense. Like we have based on the injury report, it seems that we're gonna have our full compliment of weapons. You know, Heath is no longer with us. Hopefully, the best of luck to him with that Atlanta Falcons team that just won yesterday. And you know, with with uh Watson, Reed, Dobbs, Golden, you know, all these weapons we have, he has a great opportunity to just really take advantage of that defense. Because as good as that defense is, Passertain had injuries this year, so he's he's still a top-tier corner, probably top three, but he's still like, you know, he's had his moments. Riley Moss, good corner out of Iowa, but he is one that's been exposed the most on the other side. So definitely gotta take advantage of that because you know there are holes in that defense, right? But you gotta play smart. And I want I'm looking forward to seeing that.
SPEAKER_01:Setting yourself up with third and manageable is gonna be my third and distances, that's where I think they're gonna run into problems because Jordan Love has been very good on third and fourth downs this year. But getting into the third and manageable, I think, is gonna be key in this one because then you can get away with some little short crossers, some little short route there, especially against man coverage, where we watched a week ago Jordan Love's so good pre-snap, setting up in man coverage, getting his hot ruts out there, up, you know, upping his protection if he needed it there, all those little things, being able to do that in this game by being comfortable third down, keeping him upright, right? You're facing a Broncos defense, has the most sacks in the league, and you have a quarterback who's only been sacked 18 times. He's not used to being sacked. So, can you keep him upright in this game? Keep him clean. He's been very good against the blitz. We know that he's been very good against the blitz as of late. How does he respond in this game? And I think something I'm watching for is when he does get hit, because he's going to get hit. When he does get hit, how does he respond the next play? Absolutely. That's my question is how does he respond the next play? So we're gonna hit a quick break, we're gonna come back, we're gonna continue the Packer Talk as we wrap up the show for the day. We're gonna continue the Packer talk on the back side of the eye break. Go with Trage. I'm your host, Trage, as we're wrapping it up here on this Saturday. And Hummer is back here. We're gonna continue the Packer Talk that we had. And if you guys have missed any portion of the show, if you guys missed Wednesday's show, make sure you guys are listening across all podcast platforms. Next day, we upload the show there. We also got TikToks and YouTube shorts or whatever they call them and on Twitter and everywhere else. So make sure you're checking out our shorts from the show all across there. So we were talking about the offense a little bit, what the offense a little bit, what they have to do against this very good Broncos defense. And a big thing that you key in on in this one is the Broncos' run defense has been fantastic this season. 89 yards per game. They're basically virtually, you can't run against them. The only team that's actually better run defense is the Jaguars, which is actually it's surprising, but they've been fantastic. The Broncos have been very good this season, a stop and run. I think the Packers can't abandon the run just because of how good they are. I think you have to find ways to incorporate Josh Jacobs, whether it's getting him on the edge, whatever you have to do, finding there's no there's no weak points in this entire Broncos defense, to be honest with you. Like when you look at it, you can't like pinpoint one area and say we have to attack here. Like, there's certain things that you can do. Like, I can't remember what corner it is, but he's very, if you throw deep on him, he'll get called for pass interference a lot. Like there, there's guys like that in there, but outside they're very good cover corners, very good linebackers, very good defensive line. Like it's very, very hard to find the holes out there, but you still can't abandon what you want to do. And we talk about that that with Matt LaFleur every single week. We're like, just because a team's gonna play you like this, don't abandon being aggressive, don't abandon your complete run game, don't abandon your playmakers. You still have to get Josh Jacobs involved in that game. And I think that's the one thing I want to hammer home with that is just whatever they have to do in this game to get Josh Jacobs involved, you got to do it. He's been fantastic against the Broncos in the past. Continue that trend, get him involved a little bit, can the ball off on first down, second down, go to the run. Don't I hate those drives where it's pass, pass, pass, punt. I hate those drives. Get Josh Jacobs involved, let him rumble ahead for two, three yards. Set yourself up a little bit better for second down, third down. That's all I'm looking for in this game. So let's flip over. Defensive side of the uh football armor. This offense for the Broncos, they're not, it's like a they're a fourth quarter team, it seems like at times. They just love to just hang around for a while. And then the fourth quarter, they love to take off, but they're not an offense that you can you can like push over. They're not they're not a terrible offense, they're a good offense all the way around. What are some of the things you're looking for from the Packers defensively to try and slow down this offense for the Broncos and do what they're gonna do with the Packers, which is try to make this a slug fest? How do you expect the Packers defense to keep that trend?
SPEAKER_03:I think that uh for the defense, I saw that Mike McGlenchy, which is their right tackle, he actually popped up on the injury report today with a knee injury, and he's questionable for the game. So if he doesn't play, they have a backup right tackle out there, and I would put Parsons on that side the whole freaking game, and I would find a way to uh really attack Bo Nicks because he has been very inconsistent, but you have to be careful with Bo Nicks because he is a running quarterback, he has he has good speed, he has good legs, he makes good decisions in the sense of like getting out of the pocket and running for first downs, just like Cale Boyd was there for most of the game just last on Sunday. I think that uh defensively they have good weapons, you know, Marvin Mims, Cortland Sutton, you know, Adam Troutman. Uh, of course, uh they have the rookie uh Troy Franklin as well, too. Pat Pat Bryan, who's uh a guy they like a lot, not gonna play to that tomorrow on uh Sunday, so that kind of helps us. Um we have to be able to kind of uh uh send pressure and take advantage of Bo Nick's inability to be consistent from a game-to-game basis, right? And he has shown that that is something that he has struggled with. And if people have said that they put him in the in the category of Caleb Williams, who both are very talented, but they're not consistent. And Bo Nicks is unfortunately in that situation, and he they have been winning games not because of him. Again, it's like the whole Phil Purpose thing. We don't need you to lose the game, we don't need you to win the game, we just need you just to be milked toast, right? Just you know, average, right?
SPEAKER_01:Mid Broncos love to do that, especially like when they're with Peyton Manning, like right on defense as far as you can get. One percent. I just wanted to mention a stat because you were mentioning Bo Nick's. I just want to just just uh I didn't mean to cut you off, just dive in real 44.5 percent of passes where Bo Nicks is rushed. And he's completing, he's completing 45 or 44.5% of passes when he's rushed. So that's telling you what a a pass rush from Green Bay could do to him is when you put pressure on him, he's not even completing half of his passes. So that that's something to keep an eye on there, like you're saying, is to get after him, make him make those bad mistakes. Only 44%, basically, when you put the heat on him. So there you go.
SPEAKER_03:So I I think one of the things where if you see that, right, and you know Jeff Halfway is gonna try to really send the pressure to him, and the fact that Lucas Van Ness got some practice in this week. Um, also Brendan Cox full participation, but he's out. I think they're gonna give him another week, which I think is pretty cool. Uh, I feel like on defense, this is a chance just for Halfway to kind of gain his bag a little bit and really take it to them because Sean Payton has had our number, honestly. Like he's he's kind of had our number against the floor here recently. Uh, and you know, I remember that game against the Saints when they had Jameis Winston and they went for like five touchdowns, and Joe Barry just looked absolutely lost, and Rodgers didn't help the situation at all in 2021. Uh, but the Packers were able to find their footing afterwards. But that's one of those things where Sean Payton, you know, he he has for the most part had really against he's really had our number, and this is a great opportunity for the floor to see if he can get past that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, I completely agree in this one here, and I'm excited. Like you said, Lucas Vanessa is listed as questionable for this game. Uh Savion Williams listed as questionable for this game here. Josh Jacobs, questionable, and uh, but I expect Josh Jacobs to play. Uh, outside of that, Christian Welch is questionable, but everybody else, Marshawn Lloyd is out, Colin Oliver is out for this one, and Brenton Cox are out. Everybody else is in, ready to go. I mean, Bullard off there, Aaron Banks, Angabare. You got Golden, everybody. So I'm excited to see that against this stingy Broncos team. One last thing I just wanted a quick hit, and because we talked about how big this game is and what it's going to do for our perspective of the Packers moving forward, I think it's going to give us a big perspective of Jordan Love. Absolutely. Because, like we said, he hasn't faced a defense like this yet in the Broncos, where they have a really good secondary, very good front four that's going to get home like that. So they're able to drop back, you know, seven in the coverage. It's just you're going to have how does Jordan Love respond? And like I said earlier, how does he respond to getting hit? Because he's going to get hit. How does he respond? Those are the things that I'm kind of looking for in this one from Jordan Love is the response from him. On drives where they don't go right, how does he do it? And how does Matt LaFleur call this game? I'm really interested in that. I don't want to see him go conservative because it's like, oh, this is going to be a slug fest. Oh boy. It's like, okay, I'm in with that because you want you want to play to the game what's going on in the game. I can understand that. But at the same time, don't lose your aggressive edge. Go after them. Get after this team. Because if you can put it, don't let them hang around until the fourth quarter. Because if you let this team hang around until the fourth quarter, that's when the Broncos win football games, is in the fourth quarter. They run it all season long. You can't let them hang around until the fourth quarter because otherwise, scary times, right? So, Almer, any last thoughts on this game coming up here? Packers, Broncos on Sunday.
SPEAKER_03:I feel like it's going to be a revenge game for Brandon McManus. He's going to go off in his old home where he actually won a Super Bowl, where he was drafted the whole nine yards. I think Daniel Wheelan is going to bounce back from a really mid to average game that he had against Chicago last week. Um, and honestly, like I think that one thing I want to leave us with is that you would always see Aaron Rodgers have a little bit of a struggle against number one defenses in the league. Like he would, you know, we win games because you know he'd play okay, the defense and special teams would kind of make up for him, right? Yeah, he struggled there. I think I would love to see Jordan be able to take it to the next level and be able to surpass these situations, right? Because when he played a number one defense in the playoffs against the Cowboys, he eviscerated them, right? And before Zach Tom went out, he was kind of giving his business to the 489ers. I think I want to see that same type of action against this Denver Bronx. Because I'm gonna tell you right now, if the Eagles make the playoffs, any of these other teams make the playoffs, they're gonna their defense is gonna be not as good as Denver, we're gonna be up there, yeah, right? And we have to be able to play with the best of the best, and this is his opportunity to shine because if he wants, you know, he's an MVP conversation, so this is your chance to really put your foot on it, right?
SPEAKER_01:100, 100 exploit this Denver defense that gets called for a lot of penalties, too. They lose the league in pass interference calls, 17th. So get after him there, try to get your point makers involved in this. Yep, yep. That's I think that's what I was talking about before. When you blow a top off him, he gets called for pass interference a lot. Yep. You have a lot of weapons on your field on your team that can blow a top off a defense. So, Ummer, we got to get out of here for the day. Let the people know where to find you out there across social media.
SPEAKER_03:Appreciate you, Traig, man. Uh, you can find me at uh Twitter, um AMAR3455. Uh, that's my main thing for everything Packers related. Catch us on there. Um, and looking forward to the game on Sunday, man.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I am excited for some Packers Broncos. This is gonna be a good game coming up. We got Packers Broncos coming up this weekend. Next week, when we're back here on the show, we'll recap that game. We'll talk badgers next week. We have a whole boatload of things, brewers, everything we want to dive into next week, Wednesday here on the show from five to seven, right here on 923 WSQ. But until then, we got to get out of here for the day. I hope you guys enjoy the rest of your Saturday. I hope you guys enjoy the rest of your weekend. But until we talk to you guys again next Wednesday, see ya.