Can the Packers Develop A Killer Instinct?!

0:00It is Tuesday, it is March 31st, 206th the last day of the month of March happy Easter week for everyone who celebrates. Thank you all for listening this week to the Pack of Day podcast. I'm your host, I'm Jacob Westendorf. I'm joined as I always am by Jacob more than Jacob Morley. It is pretty much draft month, very draftness and very draftness. Are we going to gather around the draftness tree and watch draft day the night before? I've been as one does right as one does my question to you is this year, do you do that on Wednesday or do you do it on Thursday?

1:01Oh, that is, this rebate, I mean, I mean, you do it on Wednesday, like trying to think of a good example of like how, you know, sometimes like Christmas day happens and you don't celebrate because families out of town or whatever until like a few days later or in this year's case, both of my kids had influenza. That was fun. TNT is still playing a Christmas story 24 hours, you know, so, so yeah, I think you have to do it the day before pick number one and because like, like that's not care ourselves. Are you really not going to watch around one? Like, of course you're watching, of course you're going to watch. I mean, what else am I going to do? Green Bay might trade up. I mean, I will print out a tweet for tonight and eat it of all this, of all the scenarios that we've talked about. That is one that like nobody really brings up.

2:02What if Green Bay did trade up around one? And I think because it is very unlikely, because like everything they've done, you know, all the TV's, everything like that would indicate like, hey, we, we put a lot of draft capital into a makeup arson's worth it, but we're going to kind of wait, 2026 out. We're not going to do anything where it's going to like jeopardize. Ryan Goodapence said the words compensatory formula when talking about the Javan Hargrave signing today. So like, they're aware, they are aware, and the league is incentivized, like, any team is incentivized to do so, right? So it makes sense, but I mean, it would have to be like the perfect, and then there isn't a player like that, like the perfect player for them to, because they probably would have to trade 52, 84, and a pick either this year or next year to move into the first round. Okay. Well, that's, we're off the rails already, and I love that.

3:03So the guy that you would do that for is like Chris Johnson from San Diego State, and who's everybody's green at 52, and I'm not saying he won't be there, he probably won't. But like that is kind of the guy where it's like, hey, if green base pick in 25 to 20, you know, to 32, which they are typically doing, that is really the guy that they probably would be targeting at the end of round one. So would you be willing to give up picks two and three to move up to 28, probably more than that even. Well, so just for example, sake, and every year's different, I understand that, but it was picked 53 and 59 to move up for Christian Watson at 34. Yeah. Right. So you add in at six picks earlier, the Packers don't have to see it's all that stuff. So that would be, that would have to be like we said, like the perfect player, and I don't even, like you mentioned, Chris Johnson. He doesn't exist. He doesn't exist. I mean, like don't get me wrong, but like that's not worth it.

4:07And even if they do that, if they do that on draft day and they end up with Chris Johnson, like, they probably ended up with a good player, but like, he probably wasn't worth it. No, no, but I mean, that's kind of the point that we'll get to today, however, is it's the owner's meetings in Arizona, I believe, and the, did you, did you go, I did not go to Arizona. We've covered this pre show where we invited as owners, um, no, no, I don't think that's how that works, but classic Roger, right, right, but whatever, Roger, I'll wait on you for that. Brian Gutekunst and Matt LaFour talk today, that is, it's the first time we've heard from Gutekunst and Gutekunst since the combine LaFour since before that. The last time LaFour talked in front of a microphone was the day after the packer season ended. So at the time, every question is about like job status, are you going to be back?

5:11Like we didn't know, right? And, and now it's like he is back, he has an extension, everything like that. We'll talk about some of that stuff, but, um, a couple of big takeaways from LaFour was he talked about needing to finish and they asked him about his grade, so he went from an A minus to a B minus from last year to this year in terms of how he was graded from a player. And the money quote in my opinion was LaFour saying like, we had guys that were unhappy with their roles. I'm paraphrasing. Guys that are unhappy about their roles and that took a toll on our football team. He would not specify as to if those players are no longer in Green Bay, I, I will not recklessly speculate by naming names, but I will say I think it is fair to read some T-leaves and fairly easy to read some T-leaves about some players that may have been upset about some of their roles for, for everything in Green Bay. But LaFour did say he had to communicate better, build relationships with the players

6:16better, and, and I'll say this, I said this after the report card came out. Is this talking point a big deal? Maybe not. If Green Bay wins and wins big next year, we're not going to be talking about it. If Green Bay has another season like the one they just had, then we're going to look back on it and go like, man, maybe, maybe LaFour lost the locker room and, you know, the top, like, because that was the big thing right after locker room clean. I was a Tucker craft, Michael Parsons, Jordan Love, some of these other guys that were just vocal and support of the head coach. And that was a big reason for those that wanted to keep him that said you have to keep him. And, and that was kind of the big thing for him. But then you get all this stuff coming out, that could, that will be a talking point if the Packers have a disappointing season this upcoming year. But any thoughts on that quote, kind of specifically, I mean, I think that's super interesting

7:17that the head coach would say something like that because he knows we're not stupid. I mean, I, I hesitate to say that because I, because we are, because he knows that or not. Well, I think there's a certain arrogance with people that get into that type of position that like what people actually can decipher from what they say. And you kind of get disconnected from the media and you get disconnected from just like normal people that are like, wait, that's weird, but you said that, that's odd because I can very easily connect the dots to the guys that just left. So let's talk about it, right? And, and that is the talking point where, okay, so who left, Romeo left, Kway left, Rashid left, Kingsley left, they brought Sean Ryan back. So what are, Rashon Gary is got, I got traded, remember, there's a fourth round pit coming

8:23in. Sorry, sorry. Thank you. It's just, oh, God bless, it was just so ingrained in my brain that he would get cut. But so yeah, you can look at that and say, well, okay, so what the hell is going on behind the scenes with these guys and it's, it's not, it's not a secret that like the best teams usually have the best chemistry and the best players, right? Green Bay has always had really good players talent is not an issue in Green Bay. It's not like say what you want to say about the Packers roster, talent is not an issue. But they had, they did have issues with finishing games. They did have issues with playing four quarters. A lot of that got pinned on that with floor and, and rightfully so he's the head coach. That's what happens. So it's interesting that he would, for two reasons, one kind of publicly state that, that there was kind of some unrest in the locker room about roles, which side tangent when

9:27people talk about, hey, that's a good problem to have. When you have got too much talent at one position, that's a good problem to have. And generally speaking, that's true. But also, this is what happens when you have too much talent in one room, guys want to play, guys want to make money, guys, guys are looking at their contracts and saying, hey, I'm due for one, this off season, please feature me. So if it's not here, it's somewhere that I can make money and I can take care of my family, I can, you know, whatever we would, and spoiler, we would all do that. I would do that. I would be very, I'd be very vocal about that. Like, hey, I've got one crack at this thing, I know I'm good, please feature me. So that's tough, and so there is like two sides of it where, and I am always team, like I am pro team, get your money, like for players, because it is like when you're 30, like there are not very many professions in the world where when you're 30 years old, like you're

10:31done. And so get as much as you can when you can, like, absolutely, I get that. But from a roster building, a team chemistry building, like construction of all that stuff, it can be tough, and I get like, okay, so like for me, when I hear that, I hear like Matt say that kind of stuff, I hear him talk about that one, and there's two ways to look at it, right? It's probably true. But like one, him publicly stating that is kind of odd because like again, one guy, a lot of head coaches don't say stuff like that, especially guys that have left the building and Lord willing, those guys have left the building, like if that's what's going on, if you're really weird, if you said that about guys that are currently on the roster. But one, that kind of looks like an excuse that you're making. And two, that's kind of your job, it's to manage that, to figure that out. So to say like, hey, we're not, you know, we had guys that weren't happy in the rules.

11:33And like to match for it, he did follow that up with saying like we need to do a better job of like, he also did say he reminds the players often, like it's kind of on them to fix it, right? I can't remember. I think he was on the show with Ryan Clark, whatever the name of Ryan Clark's podcast is. And he said like the difference between college and pro and what I tell these guys is there is no portal. So like if you're not happy with your job or you know, your role, you're not happy with this, you're not happy with that, it's kind of up to you to change it. Now, that's not all the way true. It's not like fully true that that's the case because I mean, there are qualms that we have had and we've discussed on this show a bunch about guys that weren't playing that should have or you know, just stuff like that. So it is kind of up to the coach to also recognize, hey, this guy is better than that guy or something to that effect, right? But I thought it was interesting. I do think that like you said, there's some easy dots to connect.

12:37I'm interested. I would like to think that Goudoukunst kind of took the slash burn, you know, set it on fire and let it go kind of thing for those players because if they are still here, then that challenge for Matt LaFour has gotten steeper, you know, because if the teams who win a title, like you mentioned, best players, best chemistry, so you got to have all these guys growing in one direction, they're pulling in one direction, whatever analogy it is, you want to use, but you cannot have, like you can't have, you can't be fighting to go for a championship and having a guy worry about his contract or something like that. You know, at some point, it's got to be folk and it sounds cliche, but it's true, like you've got to be focused on everybody winning a championship in one moment. Teams like that Eagles team two years ago where AJ Brown is worried about everything about getting the ball more so than maybe winning sometimes, that's where, you know, that happens, that does happen, but usually it's the best teams that have all those guys

13:39pulling everything together to try and do some of that stuff. So I love that was interesting. His comments about finishing games and everything. I do think that I give a floor credit, I guess, from the standpoint of he kind of knows the onus is on him and I would say this that I know he got a new contract. I would be absolutely floored if he were one and done with this contract. I think in order for that to happen, the packers would have to go like six and 11 next season and miss the playoffs with a relatively normal amount of injury luck, you know, like calm accord can't start eight games and then you fired the coach, right? Like that's probably not not fair to look for in that case, but if love starts all 17 and they only win six and you got some of this other stuff, like those conversations are just going to get louder, but I think the floor knows that and it's a it's a challenge for him. It's nothing that he hasn't, it's not something he hasn't waited through those waters before. I think that I've said this before on this show, but like the floor is greatest accomplishment

14:43in my opinion as a coach was always keeping everybody on the same wavelength when between the Rogers drama once love got drafted and then the drama once Rogers left because I've often said there were people in that locker room and I don't know this, but it just makes sense from a common sense standpoint. There were people in that locker room who thought Rogers should still be the quarterback when they gave the keys to Jordan love. It is hard to get everybody pulling that direction when you were three and six and saying like, no, we believe in this guy, this is our guy, we can still do this and then eventually they did. So I'm interested to see what comes out of this, but I do at least like that there's some self-reflection with Matt Laflour. I think the biggest thing is he's got to kind of just loosen up a little bit. He's so worried about every little given detail. It almost looks like at times he's trying to say and do the right thing, like the handshake

15:44with Ben Johnson just for example, he's like, no, I took the high road, we'll see him in two weeks. Okay, like, be willing to punch back, you know, that's kind of my thought with this team. So and that leads into the next point. If you've got anything you want else on this, but otherwise we can go to Javon board. We'll be right back. So we'll move on to Javon board and the bullet at a story come on our buddy Tyler Dunn published a said he wants to be the dagger among other things and talked about killer instincts and he says he wants everybody in Green Bay to know that you have to be built through your defense and some interesting stuff in the story. Go check it out. I'm not going to spoil the whole thing. Tyler is certainly worth paying for. If he does one packer story a year, it's worth the $50 that you have to pay per year.

16:44So that's that's kind of my thought and he does he does more than one packer story per season. That's the other thing to keep in mind. But Bullard talked about how against Chicago, he could see like they were ready to quit or whatever and the packers just didn't have the killer instinct to finish them off. And now that's like frustrating all over again because again, it's 21 to three. It's 28 to nine. Like you have opportunities for this team to give up kind of put them out of their misery so to speak and they just did not do it. For a bunch of different reasons, you know, and I think again, having Parsons there as your quote unquote, close or certainly something that could help. But at the same time like or talk or talk or somebody like that, but I'm defense, I would just say with Parsons. And I would say I do want to give some caution or did I get why sure. I don't remember if it was this show or if it was a different one or something, but I talked about how putting it was a different show now, I remember, but putting too much

17:47on one player's plate, Mike Shishewski when he was the coach at Duke would talk about like when his team would like get into a wall or whatever, they would be too busy J.J. watching J.J. Reddick watching or Phil Jackson would say that about like we're too busy Kobe watching instead of playing basketball and I do want Green Bay's defense to avoid the temptation to just say like, Oh, Mike has got us because he does. But you have to be able to make these plays and other guys are going to have to do it, you know, who is who and when you saw it when Parsons was out of line, who was the guy that made those plays that really wasn't anybody. So that's something worth, worth looking to and everything. It was kind of veteran Cooper and then guess what? That's got, he got hurt, he got hurt too. Yeah. Yeah, in that game, I mean, it is what it is, but like that game did completely change

18:48once Cooper was out of line up too, like no one talks about that, but that was and this is way, way off subject, but I think was it Leonard Davis that was just talking last week, who's one, you know, if you don't, is it not Leonard Davis? Who's the bucks linebacker that just retired? Levante David. Levante. Leonard Davis was an offensive lineman close enough. Anyways, what's talking about guys that he thinks are just playing really well in the NFL and one of the first guys he said was Edger and Cooper and I agree. Anyway, start it. Go ahead. Packer's not finishing games. Yeah. I mean, that just kind of seems to be the point of emphasis this year. So I do wonder, Jacob Morley, to kind of tie this back into the floor. And I guess we didn't really talk much about the Bullard story, but there was a tweet and you have several, but there was a tweet that was sent out about Matt LaFloor. And I don't remember who he talked to, but he was talking about Jordan Love. And now he's like, he thinks the sky's the limit for him.

19:49You know, as a new, he's a husband, he's going to be a father is a father. I apologize, Jordan. I don't remember if he's had his baby or not, but, you know, okay. So going into fatherhood, like everything, excuse me, everything that is like happening for love now. And your thought was kind of like the guy who's saying this is the one who's kind of holding him back. Yeah. I mean, talked about the sky's limit, talked about like how great he can be and all that stuff. There were other people talking about how Jordan goes, needs to go demand a damn football because he's really good said that. Yeah. And Joe Thomas knows the thing or two about, about football. So I think with, with that, like it, it's a really interesting talking point, though, too, because Jordan probably is not as good as he is without Matt LaFloor.

20:51But he also is probably holding him back at this point. And so what, like, they're not going to get rid of the quarterback. And so it's kind of like goes back to Matt, like, hey, man, you need to evolve. And that's not even to say he's a bad coach, like that, that is on, that's just coaching in the NFL. Like you constantly have to be evolving. And Matt is at that point in his career where he's been here long enough, can't keep doing the same stuff. You can't keep doing the same car trick. We know the secret, right? So what's next? And I think Matt knows, like, hey, he's talked about it with, hey, the guy that's pulling the trigger, like, if you don't have a guy under center that can play, like, you're not going to be long for this league, doesn't matter how good of a coach you are. And so with, with Jordan, I think it's to the point where it's no secret. If Matt had it his way, he would run the ball 50 times and win by three points. It seems like that's kind of what he wants to do.

21:51And that's why you get into situations where, hey, yeah, it's 21 to three. Bullard talked about this where it's like, he, I mean, he said like, Chicago was done playing. They're done. They, they, they lost their will to play in that game. And, and that, that one game sample size is not great either because like they tried to run the ball, they tried to do everything in that second half. None of their work, it couldn't block anybody. Yeah. And, and which is, you know, Chicago's defense give them all the credit in the world, they played really well. Yeah. And that is the point I, we've talked about this game before too, but like one of the biggest issues, if you will, was that Green Bay could not be more conservative against Chicago because they couldn't run it at all. But there are examples and plenty of others. To me, the biggest game when you talk about killer instinct for me is Dallas last year at Texas stadium because, and some of this is on Jordan love too.

22:57But maybe this is the way there's a bunch of you, you, you can't put this all on that because that last, no, no, that last sequence was terrible. And like the nonchalant, like the phrase Bill Huber used this week when he was asking like, is Jordan love an elite quarterback is kind of the premise of the story, but he was talking about that Dallas game and he was like the nonchalant approach to that last drive. But some of that is also like on mat, but it's also on Jordan is saying like, okay, like this is where the Joe Thomas idea of saying, I demand the football, give me the ball and let me win or lose the game for you basically. That's got to be part of it too, because like I remember when the Packers came out the first season after they won the Super Bowl and they were 11 personnel and it was no huddle and it was just like playing the game in dictating terms, right? Their own terms thrown a football all over the lot. Now, granted Jordan love is not MVP and Rogers, the receivers they have are not those receivers, like all that stuff. You can't quite play that same way.

23:59But their two minute drill always looks like, and I know this is a silly way to word it, content to kick a field goal. Like we get three, like our goal is to get three. Like your goal should be to get seven until you have to settle for three and on that drive specifically, it almost felt like, hey, we're content to kick a field goal as time expires to make sure Brandon Aubrey cannot beat us and we've talked about this on the show before too. But like Jordan love is part of that to where he knows the offense, he's in total control, he's in total command. Okay, then get the guys to the line of scrimmage and snap the football and let's go because the goal here is to win the game. You're playing the worst defense in the NFL and you're 25 yards away from winning the game. Like go in the game and I think that's something to it too. It's the evolution of the floor is going from Jordan love being the project quarterback that they took to Jordan love being a potential star.

24:59And I do think he was starting to do that by the end of the year, you know, the play that changed the season twofold was 2314. They get a turnover on downs or upon or something, they get the ball back and they're leading Denver by nine and the four dials up a deep ball. And you know, and then it's funny because then when he dials up a deep ball, everybody's like, oh my God, why are you doing that now? Because it got intercepted and it's just like, that's exactly the way a lot of you guys are asking him, isn't that, isn't that just the story of the Packers to 2025 season though? Like everything was right. That's what everyone would have wanted is them to go for the throw, go for the kill and there's maybe three guys, maybe three guys in the NFL that can make the play that Patrick or 10 made on that ball and he made it. And just and it just so happens, I don't know if people know this, that was his first interception of the season.

26:00And so it's just like, there is a, and this is a cop out loser answer, but that's who I am. So there is a certain level of luck that goes into some of this stuff. And it just seemed like last year the Packers just did not have that lightning in a bottle that some teams did have. For whatever reason, and you need, no, we've, no, we've talked about this before. Like there is some luck that the Packers haven't had. They also need to make their own luck. You know, that's what, sure, some of which is what they're trying, which that's kind of the point though, too, is like you're trying, you're doing that. You're throwing a deep all to your best receiver. And I'm even just throughout the year. Like again, you, you make your own luck by that game against Chicago, for example, is that Lambo field if you just take care of business against Dallas and Cleveland earlier near and you can have the same crap happening in Chicago late near and it doesn't matter, right? Like, I think we've talked about this ad nausea on this platform, but like, that's the next evolution for Jordan loves Green Bay Packers is when they play a team, especially at

27:03home, but when you play a bad team, a bad one, and Cleveland is a bad one, Dallas was a bad one. That has to be money in the bank. Like not to the point where like you're nonchalant through the game and like, okay, we can just kind of roll the balls out and win, but like, we're good. We know we're good. We're going to beat your ass and we know it kind of get at what point, at what point were the Aaron Rogers Packers at that level where it's like, and they were make no mistake. They were at that level where like where they just drumrolled through people, but even in 2011 forward, even in 2011, they lost to a terrible cheese team. They did. That is true, but I mean, you're going to have games like that almost every year, obviously, but like, especially like your home game. So the Carolina game and the Philadelphia game, Philadelphia wasn't a terrible team, but Philadelphia played like crap and they won 10 to 7. Like, that's a game you have to win. Baltimore later in the year, I know Malik Willis started, but like a game you have to win.

28:07These games where they're just kicking away, black and butter phrasing, those are the games that like again, like 2014 when Green Bay was at home, they went undefeated at home that year. The only really good team they played at home was New England and they beat them. Everyone else, they blew the doors off of like Detroit, Philadelphia wasn't that good that year. Carolina was not very good that year. Chicago was awful. They beat them. Like, that's the 42-nothing meme that you see on the internet now, like, that's kind of the thing. We'll be right back. The Packers Draft Guide, powered by Packer Report, 225 profiles, all kinds of different stuff that you can get in their features, bunch of different things that you can get you prepped in. There is ever a year where you need that draft guide. It's this year. Packers don't have a first round pick. You're going through. Yes, you'll have to read about, you know, Ruben Bain and David Bailey and some of these

29:09top tier players that are going to be nowhere near on the board when the Packers are on the clock. But we have a boatload more, guys, that will be on the board when the Packers are set to pick. And we will tell you whether or not they have traditionally been a Packer's type. So if that's somebody that Green Bay has liked in the past, we will certainly be able to get that to you. But until then, until next time, he'd take a more like, I'm Jacob Westerff. I appreciate you guys' time. We will see you next week.