Packers-Buccaneers Pregame Show!!!

0:00Kitchen and bathroom professionals know what goes behind the tile matters. That's why TradePros trust Fiber-Sement Party Backer Board to keep tile firmly in place, resist cracking, and help block moisture. Chosen in over 40 million Kitchen's and bathrooms, Party Backer Board, what the best build on. Shop now at participating Home Depot, Lowe's, and floor into core stores. For more information, visit JamesHearty.com slash HeartyBacker. What's going on Packers fans? Happy Packers, game day welcome into an all-new episode of the Pack-A-Day podcast. I'm your host, Andy Herman. You can follow me on social media at Andy Herman NFL, the podcast at Pack-A-Day podcast. Hope your Packers game day is going well. We have a new and

1:03kickoff central time between the Green Bay Packers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In the Battle of the Bays, in the Battle of teams that are trying to keep their seasons alive, of coaches who are trying to stay off the hot seat or stave off the hot seat for as long as possible. This is going to be an interesting one. We're going to dive into all of it. I am still getting over Brewers and Padres from yesterday. I'm not going to go into it in great detail because this is a Packers podcast. We've got a game day to discuss. But for those who are not aware, the ending saw a potential home run ball for the Padres, a likely game winning home run by the Padres hit the roof of American Family Field or the formerly named Miller Park. It fell down and the Brewers caught it and it was considered an out. Just really quick, I wish that we could understand that a couple things can be true. As Brewers fans, if we were in Padres fan shoes, we would be livid. Just absolutely livid. We would be so pissed off. Just thinking the Wisconsin

2:07sports gods of struck us down again or the sports gods of struck Wisconsin sports fans down again with a new devastating way to lose in the playoffs. We would be furious. I would also say to the you know, Padres fans that there doesn't also have to be some large conspiracy here that major league baseball or the Brewers are trying to screw over the Padres. You got incredibly unlucky. I assume it was going to be a home run. I think it was probably going to be a home run. Some say it was going to go foul. Apparently the stat cast said it wasn't even going to go out. Anyway, it certainly looked like it was going to go out. Either way, an incredibly unlucky series of events for the Padres, a very lucky series of events for the Brewers, but it doesn't have to be some grand conspiracy. The rules have been in place since the stadium was built. Maybe some things could have been different with those rules, but they've been the same way forever. It has happened, I think twice, maybe in the history of the stadium that a ball has actually hit the roof and fallen down. It just a crazy series of events and very unlucky for the Padres. Wisconsin sports fans finally catch

3:11a break on that one. But we don't need to jump immediately to major league baseball and powers that be in the Brewers are screwing over the Padres. No, it's just an incredibly unlucky play and it sucks. It sucks when that stuff happens. Wisconsin sports fans have certainly been there in different scenarios in the past, but yeah, crazy, crazy game. I can't believe after the Packers game, there's going to be another one of those as well. So going to be a crazy Sunday in Wisconsin sports. All right, let's talk about Packers bucks, though. Probably a little bit of a quicker one today, just because I am reporting this early in the morning on Sunday and it's a new game. So soon as this launches, there's not going to be a huge timeline on it. So we're going to jump it everything right away here. I do want to mention or remind you that we do have a 1030 AM live pregame show coming up on the YouTube channel. See you guys over there of proceeding the game for the pregame show and then immediately following the game as soon as the game is done. I'll be going live on the YouTube channel as well for a live post game show. So again, check those out over on YouTube.

4:14We did have some Packers news from Saturday. Warren Brinson was placed on injured reserve. There was no other move to take his spot. This makes sense. Just in case you all the sun gets healthy sooner. It starts that four week time period, right? So you at least want to start the clock as quickly as possible. Didn't really need a corresponding move for now. Next week, some players might be able to come back like a saving a Williams where you need that roster spot, but Warren Brinson placed on IR. Also, we got the news that Edgerton Cooper is going to be good to go. He cleared concussion protocol. He's no longer on the injury report and he is going to be able to play and start in this game for your green Bay Packers. Now, as far as that injury report goes out for green Bay, Aaron Banks, Anthony Campbell and Jacob Monk. Remember Warren Brinson placed on IR and then questionable is Jager Burton. It's noteworthy that there were no practice squad call ups on Saturday for green Bay. So this makes the inactive pretty frickin simple. It's a 52 man roster right now. You've got to get down to 48. Only foreign active are going to need to take place because again,

5:17you did not call up anyone from the practice squad. And three, we know Aaron Banks, Jacob Monk and Anthony Campbell are all out for this game, which leaves one inactive and that one inactive will come on the offensive line. And it's probably one of three players. The first is Kevin Zitler. If they just don't think Zitler is quite ready yet and are not going to play him in this game, don't want to risk any sort of injury. Want to get him ready for Chicago. It is possible that Kevin Zitler just gets deactivated and he's the one that doesn't go and play in this game. I don't think that's going to be the case. My guess is that Zitler does play, but that is a possibility. The second one is that Jager Burton, who is questionable, just can't play in this game. So Jager Burton ends up being the player who is inactive. And then the third one is if Burton's good to go, if Zitler's good to go, I would assume it's John Williams, who's inactive. It's Ben Williams and Glover, who have been inactive as those two offensive linemen who have been inactive every week up until this point. And apparently Travis Glover got some time with the ones this week. So I doubt it's going to be him could be him too, but I would assume it would probably be John

6:20Williams. So one of either Kevin Zitler, Jager Burton or John Williams likely to be that final inactive for Green Bay. As far as the Bucks go, their injury report out is Ruben Bain, their first round pick, co-kifed the tight end Baker Mayfield, of course, their quarterback and Benjamin Morrison, a backup corner, questionable is Servosha Dennis, Rikim Nunez Roches and Jacob Parrish. I expect all three of those players to play, but we will find out at 10 30 AM when we get the official inactive report. As far as the line for this game goes, the line has continued a little bit of a disturbing trend as of late where the Packers line moves in the wrong direction right before game time. This is a three and a half line for the Packers pretty much all week. As recording this again, both 3 AM on game day on Sunday morning, the Packers are now only a three point favorite that could change again before kickoff. It's not a major move or anything like that, but Packers now down to a three point favorite going into this game. Really quick before we get into

7:22some of the keys to this game and some other notes about this game. Ty Dunn, Go Long TD, wrote a two piece article on Mat LaFlor, goes over some of the good things about LaFlor, goes over some of the things that are causing maybe some problems with the current version of the Green Bay Packers. I don't think today is probably the episode to dive into all of that. I do think there are some interesting things that are in there. I do think it's going to be worth diving into eventually, whether that's with Justice this week or Dusty or we'll see, but I definitely want to get to it at some point. I just don't think on a game day ahead of everything is probably the right time in the place, but I would highly recommend checking out the article if you did not already or the two piece article, go long TD dot com. Tell her to does a tremendous job writing these articles. I think there are some things that he maybe paints as a negative that I don't think are always negative. I think there's a lot of things that he paints as positive as well. I think there are things that he paints as negative that are very, very clearly negatives,

8:24but we'll dive into all of that in another episode, but highly, highly recommend checking out that article from Ty. We might be able to have Ty on at some point to go into that in a little bit greater detail. Ty is somebody that's been on the show numerous times in the past. All right, Packers, Buck and Ears. The first thing I just want to go over is this a must win game for Green Bay? The answer is yes, but I don't even think we need to get into must wins or things like that, because that wouldn't basically imply that it's a must win to get into the playoffs. We're so far away from that right now. Just find a way to go into Tampa and get a win. In some way, shape or form, this is a must win game for Green Bay. It's a must win game for Tampa as well. If they want to keep the season alive, I don't know what you're contending status for either of these teams are. It's not great at the moment, but it does feel, it would certainly feels like an elimination game for Tampa, and it feels like things are going to continue to spiral in a pretty bad way if Green Bay can't

9:25pick up this win. So it does feel like a must win, but I don't even think you need to go into it in that direction. This is just a win that, you know, not even considering playoffs seating or hot seat conversations or things like that, you've just got to find a way to bounce back against a undrafted free agent rookie quarterback, making his first start in Tampa Bay against the No one three team. Yeah, however you wanted to find it, Green Bay needs to come away with a win in this one. Let's go over the keys to this game or maybe more importantly, or more appropriately put what I'm watching for in this game. I'm going to start by, of course, watching the Packers offensive line. I do want to address something I've seen a lot of people, a lot of people out there that have referred to Lake in Tomlinson as Dalvin Tomlinson. I do want to clarify for those who are confused out there for some reason. It is Lake in Tomlinson, not Dalvin. I don't know where this is coming from, but it is Lake in Tomlinson. My assumption is that Lake in Tomlinson is going to be making his first start for your Green Bay Packers at left guard. The way I truly see this is Jordan

10:30Morgan's a left tackle. I think Aaron Banks is your starting left guard. But when he can't play which is generally every week, Lake in Tomlinson will be the top back up there. Then at center, it's Sean Ryan at right guard. It's eventually going to be Kevin Zitler, whether it is him in this game or not. We don't know if it's not Zitler, my guess is the first backup there would also be Lake in Tomlinson. But if he's at left guard, then he can't back up there. My guess is after that, it's Aaron Banks. Banks is out for this game. If Zitler can't go, Tomlinson's already at left guard, Monk can't go, then in that case, it will probably be Donovan Jennings at right guard. Maybe we could see Travis Glover. I don't know, but hopefully Zitler is able to go and be effective in his debut as a Green Bay Packer. We're going to have to wait and see if Zitler is active and then be if he's starting, if he's starting, is he an opportuner rotation, or does he just play the entire game? All those things are going to be pretty big question marks. And then Anthony Belton, of course, is your right tackle. No worthy. We talked about before. No call ups. Mikaib Bechton was not called

11:34up for this game. So he is not available. He's not active. I've talked about this all week. There were three very different tiers to this. When you go out and you sign Kevin Zitler, he is clearly signed to be a starter. There was no question about that. Matt LaFlor pretty much confirmed that right away that he's the starting right guard moving forward. Lake in Tomlinson, when they picked him up off the practice squad, that is a three week guarantee. They put him on the 53 man roster. They immediately started putting him in with the starters. He's going to get opportunities and he's going to be a 53 guy. Mikaib Bechton, practice squad guy. No guarantee of anything. The same thing with Wilson, who they picked up a couple weeks ago. It's basically an extended trial, right? I think Bechton could potentially help them eventually. We'll have to kind of wait and see how that goes over the next couple weeks. But for now, Bechton is not available in this game. He is not active. He will not play for Green Bay. But certainly going to be keeping a very close eye on that Green Bay Packers offensive line. And again, just competency here. We're not looking for a jump from a historically bad offensive line to one of the best offensive

12:37lines in football or any form of that. We're just looking, can you block the right players? Can you communicate the right way? Just getting some veteran voices in that room. Just calm down that room a little bit. And yes, Anthony Belton, Sean Ryan, Jordan Morgan, those guys need to play better too. If it's down to the Jennings at right guard, there is still potentially a fatal flaw on that offensive line. So there's a lot going on a lot of moving pieces. We don't know who's going to be active and who's not going to be active. At least when it comes to Zitler and who's going to be the starting right guard. But Green Bay needs to have better answers and just better offensive line playing this game. And if they don't, they're probably going to run into the same problems. If you can't pass protect and you can't run block, it makes a very long day at the office, especially on the road. So offensive line is the biggest key. Take your eye off the ball early. Watch the trenches because the offensive line is probably going to tell you a ton about whether not Green Bay can actually, you know, just compete in this game and play at a high enough level to

13:39pick up a win. Number two is the running game on both sides. And this doesn't even really have anything to do with Tampa. I noted this earlier this week. I'll repeat it again right now. Tampa Bay's run game is nowhere near Atlanta's run game. First of all, you don't have Bajan Robinson, right? Fuck you. You're been very talented runner. Enjoy watching him play quite a bit. But he is not Bajan Robinson. There are, you know, Bajan Robinson, Jumeer Gibbs, the top two premier backs in the league. Christian McCaffrey certainly can still run at a high level. But there are not many of those type of players out there. And Tampa does not have one of them. In addition, Atlanta's offensive line was absolutely on one last week. And they played near perfect in as a run blocking unit. They're really good. Tampa as a whole, like Tristan Wurfs is fantastic, things like that. But as a whole are not on that same level as Atlanta. I'll also say this, Green Bay's run defense in weeks one and two. Pretty darn good. Breeze Hall, Aaron Jones, those guys couldn't really get anything going at all. And, you know, I think that's going to be more of the norm for this defense

14:40than what we saw against Atlanta. But I need to see it. I need to see. I'm sure Tampa picked up up on some stuff that Atlanta did against Green Bay and is probably thinking going into this game that they're going to be able to run the football too. It's going to be up to Green Bay's defense to prove that that was a fluke and that the Buccaneers are not going to be able to do that. And on the flip side, we know it's a historically bad running game so far through three games for Green Bay. I'm going to say it again, doesn't have to be a change into all the sun, a top five running game or anything like that. But they need to be significantly better and prove that the running game could do something, anything to keep the Buccaneers defense off balance. With that sort of in mind, and just knowing that Green Bay's run offense is probably not just going to take the Buccaneers by storm, right? A creative quick passing attack is also going to be very important for Green Bay. We'll be right back. Football is finally back and price picks is bringing out their best

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16:51run your game. Kitchen and bathroom professionals know what goes behind the tile matters. That's why trade pros trust fiber cement party backer board to keep tile firmly in place, resist cracking, and held block moisture. Chosen in over 40 million kitchens and bathrooms, party backer board, what the best build on shop now at participating home depot lows and floor into core stores. For more information, visit James Hardy dot com slash Hardy backer. Even with some improvements on the offensive line, we know they can't protect for long. And this run game, like I said, is probably not going to take the the bucket years by storm. So how can you come up with a quick passing game that's creative? That's an extension of the run game. Some of those quick past concepts out to the outside, you know, whether it's some quick outrouts, whatever it might be, get Jordan into a little bit of a rhythm and then give guys like Matthew golden Christian Watson and especially Tucker craft somewhere on after the catch opportunities. Those are going to be, I think paramount to green base success.

17:55You can't live in deep passing world. We know that if you can hit a couple de plays great, but that's not the world you want to live in with the way the offensive line is playing. You know, they're probably again not going to be able to run the ball efficiently. So how can you get that quick passing game going? The creativity there is going to be important, but also Tampa's not great at yards after catch and just tackling getting first guy down. So I do think this is a huge opportunity for Tucker craft to get going. He needs kind of a bounce back game after what was a really disappointing week three against Atlanta. Number four, LVN is going to be a really interesting piece for this Packers defense in Jonathan Ganon. In general, where LVN lines up is going to be right across from Tristan Worfs, which is not necessarily ideal. Tristan Worfs is one of the top offensive linemen in all football. I think LVN can get a winner to against Worfs if he goes against a mull game, but you might be better off either flipping them to the other side from time to time or more importantly or maybe more logically kicking them inside on some obvious passing

18:58downs. I don't think you just want them ramming this head against Worfs for the entirety of the game. I don't think you have to shy away from it, especially in early downs. I think LVN can still set the edge, but you're going to have to be a little bit more creative with them. Maybe use some twist and stunts and just find ways to get LVN going. That's not just hey, Beat Tristan Worfs because that is a very difficult day at the office. So very interested with Jonathan Ganon has up his sleeve for LVN in this game. Number five is how does Green Bay Game plan for Jalen Daniels? Do you want to make sure that he doesn't win with his legs? Do you want to make sure he doesn't win with his arm? Do you want to make things cloudy and confusing? Do you want to pressure him? Do you want to kind of keep him in the pocket? Not overextend so he gets out of the pocket. How do you want to attack this rookie undrafted free agent quarterback making this first start in the NFL? If it's me, I want to make things as cloudy and murky as possible, no easy reads and I want to bring pressure. You know what? If he gets a few runs, you know, 15, 20 yard runs here and there and scrambles. So be it, tip your cap. It's not a big deal

19:58to see another down. I don't think he's going to bust off an 80 yard runs. He's a four six guy, not a four three or four two guy. Like you can find ways to make it so that yeah, he has some rushing yards, but it's not catastrophic to your overall plans of winning the game. So I'm very interested to see what Jonathan Ganon does. There seem to sort of be a little bit more of a mandate from Matt LaFlor at the end of the Jeff Halfley era of, hey, do not let these quarterbacks just sit in the pocket and pick a, you know, pick green Bay apart. It was not working for green Bay, so they decided to be more aggressive and that had a lot more success. I would expect that Jonathan Ganon and company are going to be a lot more aggressive, bringing some blitz and keep a keep an eye on those corner blitzes or the if you want to consider bull or the safety off the, you know, the nickel position. Keep an eye for those. They've been very successful with those corner blitzes. I would expect that we see a decent amount of those against Jalen Daniels and Tampa Bay on Sunday. Number six, I guarantee you Todd Bulls is going to be massively aggressive in this game for a

21:02variety of reasons. His job may be on the line from here on out and I'm going to guess that he's going to go down swinging, being very aggressive coming after the quarterback just in general. The second thing is green Bay's defense has not been able to pick up blitzes with any level of consistency. Green Bay's offense, excuse me, has not been able to pick up blitzes with any level of consistency. So I'm sure they want to put Chris Brooks in the blender. I'm sure they want to put this offensive line, especially with new pieces out there and communicating and passing off some of these things. I'm sure they want to put so much stress on the play calling and the decision making and the communication up front and all of it. So I would expect Todd Bulls to be ultra aggressive. One of his higher blitz rates that we've probably seen from Todd Bulls. I would expect in this game and how does green Bay deal with that? They did not do a great job against Minnesota with a similar type of look. And we just know the offensive line is struggling right now. So Todd Bulls likely to be very aggressive. How does green Bay deal with that? Hopefully fine.

22:05Hopefully those veterans help, but it's certainly going to be a challenge. There's no question about it. Number seven. I'm so worried. We've seen this offense struggle. And then the first couple weeks, the defense was good. And then last week, the defense really let them down. Don't let the special teams be the reason this week. And I know they had the Black field goal last week. The Black field goal really didn't affect all that much in the scheme of things with a 35 to 14 final score. But don't let the special teams be the reason this week. That would be the kicker is if the offense plays better, the defense plays better. And then the special teams goes out and ruins it. Whether it's, you know, Buccaneers getting a punt or kick return for a touchdown or block kick return for touchdowns, anything. Don't let special teams be the issue in this game. Special teams is off to a pretty good start. Not a great start, but a pretty good start. Some good, some bad, but keep the special teams performance is trending forward. Please, we don't need a step in the wrong direction. And now offense and defense play well, but the special

23:06teams is the reason that you lose to the Tampa Bay Buccaneer. So big game for the special teams here. Number eight, how does Green Bay deal with the heat and the weather? Over 100 degrees is what it's going to feel like in Tampa. They've gone, they're going to have the big heavy green jerseys on and they're going to have to find a way to manage this. You know, Green Bay right now on Saturday. If you woke up in Green Bay, Wisconsin early in the morning, it was in the 30s. It was in the 30s. Now by the end of the day or mid mid day, it was in the 60s. It was like a 30 degree increase in temperatures. But yeah, early early Saturday morning in the Green Bay area was 37 38 39 degrees. And now you're going to 100 degrees. There's going to be a little bit of a difference there. So how Green Bay handles that and manages that is going to be huge for this game as well. Number nine, simply put the Packers best players have to be better. Jordan loved and not play great a week ago. Understandably because of the offensive line stuff, but Jordan love needs to be better. Christian Watson, Matthew Golden, Tucker Kraft. We've all seen

24:08them have some drops. Tucker Kraft that are really rough week a week ago. Watson and Kraft have not been good enough as blockers. Golden's had some drops. And Watson and Golden bed probably they're two best players on offense. So I'm not saying that they're all bad, but they they all collectively need to play better on defense. Edtryn Cooper is coming off his worst game in a long time. He needs to play better. We haven't seen Peaks Aver McKinney yet. He needs to play better. Like their best players need to guide them in this game. They've got to find a way to pull out a win. And they're if they're going to do so, the best of the best of that group has to be at their best. No excuses. That's the reason you're paying those top players to want to why it hasn't really shown up yet in three weeks. He needs to play better. Big time game for the big time players. They need to step up in a very significant way. And then last but not least number 10. What does this mean to you? Your your season probably is on the line to some extent here. If you go one in three, lose to Jalen Daniels and the O and three Buccaneers, it's going to get way worse.

25:11It's going to get way louder. It's going to get probably out of hand. And it's going to spiral probably out of control. You worked all off season on so many different things. You've put this roster together. You have a lot of talented players. You lose this one. And it might all be for not already. It might already be no matter what. But this might be a very early dagger to the Green Bay Packers. So how much does this mean? How much a fight do they have? And can they just go in and find a way and say we're not losing this game? And this is again going back to my previous point of the best players have to will this seem to a victory by heller high water. So what does this mean? Can Green Bay just no matter what? No matter what? Any means necessary find a way to get a win in Tampa. Get back to Green Bay. Try to get this season back on track. That's what I'm watching for in this game. The offensive line and Lake in Thompson. The running game on both sides. Creative

26:14quick passing attack from out the floor. How do they utilize LVN? How are they going to attack Jalen Daniels? Are they going to attack them? Are they going to let them pass? Are they going to or what's what's the game plan there? How do they manage Todd Bulls being super aggressive? Assuming that he is super aggressive. Special teams can't make any big errors. How do they handle the heat in the weather? Packers best players need to be at their best and how much does this mean to this group of players, this team, this coaching staff, etc. We're about to find out a lot about the 2026 Green Bay Packers. Earlier this week with Paul Farenton, I predicted the bucket years of win 1716. I've gone back and forth all week. My final prediction. I'm going to flip it. Packers win 1716. I don't feel great about it. I'm going to be honest. I do not think that just Lagan Tomlinson can fix this. If Zitler is out there too, I feel a little bit better about it. But you're asking a lot from 35 and a 36 year old offensive lineman to come

27:22in and fix an offensive lin on the fly with very little practice time. I still think that that offensive line might be too much to overcome. But you're going to get sent on drafted free as your rookie quarterback. I'm begrudgingly almost going to say Packer 1716 just because I do have some concerns going into this one. But Green Bay gets the lifeline due to the backup quarterback. If it were Baker, I would certainly be taking Tampa on this one. But Green Bay finds a way to win 1716 final answer. Lock it in. That's all I got for you guys today. Reminder pre and post game show coming up 10 30 AM Central time. And then as soon as the game is done over on the YouTube channel, I'm looking forward to it. Should be a ton of fun. Hopefully we can come away with the Packers win. Hopefully we can come away with a big brewers win going up to nothing in the series. Should be hopefully knock on wood a great day of sports. I cannot wait for it. I will see you guys at 10 30 AM Central time for that live pregame show. Shout out to our Hall of Fame members. PJ

28:26Win Brandon Poletta, Peter Attaka, Jason Roman, Puerto Rican Packer, Donald Lee, the Gabel Storm, John D Metropolis, John Mark Leidel, Donald Decker, Colorado, Imperium Collectables, Mosade, Chicago, Kevin Coolie, senior, my ballsets, Jason Helgerson, invincible 1265, the Jager Gibson, Freddie Barnes, and Mimosa on X. I'll see you guys for the live pregame show. But until next time, and as always, go pack go. Kitchin and Bathroom professionals know what goes behind the tile matters. That's why trade pros

29:38trust Fiber cement, party backer board to keep tile firmly in place, resist cracking, and help block moisture. Chosen over 40 million Kitchins and Bathrooms, party backer board, what the best build on. Shop now at participating Home Depot, Lowe's, and floor into core stores. For more information, visit JamesHearty.com slash Hearty Backer.