Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Checking on the Packers but actually still talking about the Vikings' future with Jason Wilde

Episode Date: October 28, 2020

Matthew Coller and ESPNWisconsin's Jason Wilde begin the episode talking about the Packers as contenders and how they might be a bit of a paper tiger but they end up discussing comparisons between the McCarthy era in Green Bay and where the Vikings are right now with Mike Zimmer. Plus what happens if the Vikings beat the Packers on Sunday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Ring Bay Packers reporter, Jason Wildey. What is up, Jason? I should be asking you that. In the words of the great Vince Lombardi, what the hell's going on up there? Where do you want to start?? Where do you want to start? What questions do you want to ask? I mean, look, I'll give you the short synopsis because, of course, our podcast listeners have heard this every day pretty much.

Here's the synopsis. They guessed wrong. They guessed that everything would click into place and go right, and it all went wrong, and now they're 1-5. But, you know, you people in Green Bay don't deal with this very often. Only if a quarterback gets hurt once every two decades. That's true. I'm just going to miss the Yannick and Gawkway era. It was such halcyon days that I'm just disappointed that it's over after five weeks.

It is funny how many times in sports the most exciting day of a trade or a new player joining a team is the day that they make the trade. It's like, oh, this is really exciting. Let's talk about everything else. Then the guy gets on the field and you go, oh, he's really not that exciting to watch play. So, okay. And then they trade him away.

And that was the end. It's like, what was your favorite moment of the Yannick Ngakwe era? to watch play. So, okay. And then they trade him away. And that was the end. Like, what was your favorite moment of the Yannick Ngakwe era? Like, the time that he registered a sack when Indianapolis' tackle didn't know the snap count? And then, that's one of my favorite things, is people asking, like, why did they trade their leader in sacks? Like, well, some of those sacks were about you know five seconds in or you know whatever so yeah that uh that's kind of a cherry on top to everything else jason well who are we to judge i

mean we've got uh the green bay packers sitting their first round pick behind a guy who's playing like he's turned back the clock and he's going to be spending the next four years playing at this level so we all make mistakes no that's true you know this is what i wanted to talk about because breaking down the matchup just doesn't feel right when the vikings are one and five it's like who's starting at left guard who cares right so i want to talk about um rogers and jordan love and all the stuff that we talked about because we had a 30 minute discussion a couple of months ago on how the Packers had just left Aaron Rodgers out to dry and you know what Jason I regret nothing

about that conversation imagine if the Packers had Justin Jefferson right now and you know they've played against some mediocre opponents that they've ripped apart the Bucks game was not very good for them when they had to face a good defense. And I don't take any of it back. I think that they've just overcome some of that stuff. But they did not do the right things to put Rodgers in a place to succeed this year. They just have. I would love to take anything back that I can, but I can't either. I mean, I look back on the draft, and it just worked out great.

They're 5-1. Now, we also know that there have been plenty of teams over the years that have started strong and then hit the skids. I'm not saying that's going to happen with this team because, frankly, there are a lot of bad to mediocre teams in the NFL that they are going to be better than. But are they good enough to win when the money's on the table against a really good team i'm not sure because the evidence we have so far is a pathetic performance in tampa

bay a couple of weeks ago so look i know uh our friend courtney cronin made a bold prediction before the season that justin jefferson was going to be r Moss-like. And I chuckled at her. And she's been, well, I don't know if he'll put up the same numbers that I remember from 1998 when I was covering the Packers and the Vikings game on Monday night at Lambeau Field on October 5th. And she was probably eight or nine years old. I've been so impressed by him and you know who else was impressed by him coming out of college aaron rogers he loved justin jefferson and so look

i'm looking at the packers wide receiving core and they're coming off of a game where they could have been even more productive against houston who I thought was better than its record, but clearly isn't. But Aaron Rodgers completed 23 passes against Houston. Thirteen of them went to Devontae Adams as the Texans inexplicably thought, you know what, we'll just cover this guy one-on-one. What's the worst that could happen? But his other ten receptions, or other ten completions, four went to Jamal Williams, the running back.

Two went to tight end Robert Tanyan. And then two went to another wide receiver, Malik Taylor, and two catches for six yards. They've been without Alan Lazard for a couple of weeks now after having core muscle surgery. He had had a big game in New Orleans and suffered the injury that night look they don't have enough weapons for you to feel good about them if they're missing guys and I understand they played two games without Devontae Adams they were

able to win both games but they have three of their five wins over teams that have one victory each. And so I think if there's some skepticism about this team, it's still valid. Doesn't mean that what they've accomplished isn't great. Doesn't mean that they didn't beat the teams that were on the schedule when they were scheduled to play them, which is what you have to do. Doesn't mean that they haven't beaten some teams, like Aaron Rodgers likes to say, that they're supposed to beat if they believe themselves to be a championship contender. But I need to see more before I'm going to apologize in any way for saying that they didn't make any mistakes by not getting Rodgers more pass-catching weapons. Right. And when we look back at what they did in the draft, it's not just the first round. It's anywhere did

they add any receiving talent at any point but when we look at the first round and you talk about these older quarterbacks who have had so much success in the NFL Tom Brady still looks great Drew Brees had a little bit of a dip there and then he looked good we've seen lots of quarterbacks go into their 40s even that are of this ilk, of the Aaron Rodgers ilk, and still be able to win in their late 30s and 40s. And I think that the conversation was always, why would you not push the chips to the middle of the table when this guy is still your quarterback and is coming off of a season in which they went 13-3? And I know that there's the statistics, and I think that they'll bear out still as we go

down the stretch here maybe some tougher opponents not this week but you know that that he was not the same quarterback as he was say in 2013-2014 in that range but at the same time still one of the 10 best players at the position in the NFL and I think that part of his regression was people aren't open he He doesn't have extra receivers because the last time he had Jordy Nelson, he was still great. So that was always the argument. Why wouldn't you just get him more weapons and try to prop him up as much as you can if he is regressing? And drafting Jordan Love did absolutely nothing for that. Well, and this scheme, quite frankly, is designed to scheme guys open.

Mike McCarthy's offense, and I think we talked about this the last time, was predicated on guys winning their one-on-one matchups. And Rodgers, being so good at going through his progression, he could get to his fourth receiver in the progression before some quarterbacks would get to their second. And if your fourth guy is better than their fourth cover guy, he's going to be open. And so I always think back to that Sports Illustrated cover with Rodgers on the cover with Jennings and Driver and Jones and Cobb

and Nelson and Jermichael Finley. And that was the first year he won his MVP award of two. And they just out-talented teams. Last year, they won a bunch of close games. It's still remarkable to me that they were 13-3, but more importantly this year, I think that the scheme is really working for Rodgers, and it is scheming open guys that weren't able to get open in this kind of transitional version of the offense where they were segueing from McCarthy's offense

to a true LeFleur offense. So Rodgers has talked about it multiple times that, you know, when we ask him why he's getting the ball out of his hand quicker, the first thing he says is guys are open quicker. And again, that's where if you're able to do that with guys of lesser talent, what can guys of terrific talent do in that same scheme? And it's the same with the quarterback position because this is an offense where you don't have to be a great quarterback to be productive in it. But when you have this offense and you have that great quarterback

and you add some weaponry, you know, you can really do some things against both not-so-good teams and against the good teams. And again, we want to see, if you're a Packers fan, you want to see this team do it against a really good defense. And at 5-1, they haven't had to do it yet, or in the one opportunity that they did have, they failed to do it. And how funny is it that this week is not the test? I mean, normally you would have been saying, OK, here it is, you know, Rodgers versus Zimmer.

That's what it's been since Zimmer arrived here. That's been the matchup is Rodgers versus Zimmer that you're putting on the marquee. And that is just not the case here. I mean, it's still Rodgers-Zimmer, but it's Rodgers versus cornerbacks who have no idea what they're doing and still, as of last week, don't even know how to use their safety as leverage and just give up easy touchdowns to Julio Jones. Like, it has been incredibly poor play by the cornerbacks,

and I think that that probably continues even though they're coming out of the bye. So if the Packers do end up six and one and beat the Vikings I mean where would you put them in terms of NFC contenders are you putting them you can't go above the Bucs because you lost to the Bucs but aside from that is it just in the second bundle or do you have them below somebody else I don't know what to make of what happened with Seattle and Arizona on Sunday night. I really did feel, and they have their defensive shortcomings too, and they're not exactly chock full of weaponry either, although DK Metcalf is a really good player.

But Russell Wilson does it with Lockett and Metcalf and then some other guys. And that's kind of the way the Rodgers era has been the last few years. Look, again, I don't want you to tailor our conversation to filling me in on the Vikings. That's why people subscribe to listen to it all the time. But it is baffling to me that a team that has been so good defensively and still has star player pieces, right, whether it's Kendricks, et cetera, that they are at a point where they went from, okay, our corners got old or ineffective, so we're going to start over.

And now we've got young guys who just are ineffective. They're not old. They're just ineffective. And Rodgers versus Zimmer, as you said, has been such a terrific cat and mouse game. Now, you know, Rodgers got the better of it in the opener. He got the better of it in Lambeau Field last year. I'm not sure that he really got the better of it. They won the game. But it wasn't like they lit the world on fire at U.S. Bank Stadium late in the season on Christmas Eve last year.

They ran the ball really well in that game. So, you know, how that has happened is a little baffling to me. But against Aaron Rodgers and with Devontae Adams going like he is right now, that creates quite the matchup concern. I'm eager to see what Mike Zimmer, who I really like. I've never had to cover him and been scolded for any of my questions by him, but I do know this. He is a really smart defensive coach, and whether it's losing Hunter or Ngakwe not being the player

that you thought he was going to be as the missing piece, I just know that I would never feel all that confident against a Mike Zimmer defense that coming out of a bye week, A, there's no way he's going to let Devontae Adams beat him. He is going to force them to win the game with somebody else because there's no way that he's going to be as foolish as the Texans were. But I just can't underestimate him. And maybe it's the same principle that I have that I've struggled with this season where

I've looked at, well, they're playing on the road. You know, that's going to be a tough game. Yeah. Well, not with the stands empty. It ain't tough. And it's hard to retrain your brain to say, home field doesn't mean what it used to mean during this COVID-19 season. I have to also retrain my brain to say, maybe Mike Zimmer being the head coach and being a defensive genius

doesn't mean as much as I thought it used to mean as well. I think it only goes so far. When you have players that cannot master yet, and I think that they will eventually, but when you have guys that don't understand basic NFL technique, and then all of a sudden they face DK Metcalf and Julio Jones in back-to-back weeks, and these guys have just been overwhelmed. And even when they schemed extremely well against Seattle,

still when push came to shove at the end of the game, they couldn't pressure the quarterback good enough, and they couldn't cover good enough. A fourth down where Russell Wilson goes deep, and Cam Dantzler is trying to catch a fly ball as opposed to guarding his man, and I think we're just seeing a lot of that. And that's what, before the season, we tried to kind of warn fans a little with, hey, you know, a third-round pick having to start. This could go bad, actually. You know, we don't even know if first rounders are going to be good, much less a guy who's

picked in the third round having to play against the league's top receivers. And I agree with you that they'll do everything they can to take away Devontae Adams. But what we've seen, Jason, is the big play. And you saw it week one, but that's happened every single week, even against the Texans where they almost lost. the big play and you saw it week one but that's happened every single week even against the texans where they almost lost and i think that the nfl has really gone this way i don't know if it's been the last few years or just especially this year where everything is about how many downfield bombs can you hit how many times can you create somebody open that breaks a big play and that's the

difference maker in the game and that's the worst for rookie corners who can't cover elite receivers. Yeah, and look, the Packers offense, the development they've had has been twofold. One, Rodgers, again, because guys have gotten open off the line of scrimmage more effectively, has gotten the ball out on those underneath shallow crosses, the kind of throws that, quite frankly, you either saw him passing up or not having available to him last season because guys weren't open. So they're able to dink and dunk a little bit more than they have. And then the second part of it is their play-action game,

because their running game is effective and because their run fakes look exactly like their actual runs whereas the what we joked about during the McCarthy era was they would do play action and the fake handoff looked nothing like any of the handoffs they would actually hand the ball off so no one was fooled by those. In this offense, it's really interesting how it gives such a great illusion of complexity that they run largely the same plays, but they make them look vastly different. And the way that Rodgers, Matt Hasselbeck explained this to me better than anyone, that by the third step by the quarterback, you want the defense to not be sure if it's a run or a pass.

And in the Packers' offense's case right now, they have really mastered that. The scheme and the way Rodgers executes the play-action fakes, he bootlegged the Saints to death a couple of weeks ago, but it really is effective on freezing those linebackers and confusing the defense into thinking, okay, this may actually be a run, and then obviously then they are able to hit the downfield throws

more often than they have in the past couple of years. Go to sodastick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. If you have not seen this stuff yet and you've been listening to this podcast, what are you doing? Make sure you go check it out. A couple of my favorite designs. They've got new gritty gear after the Vikings' young superstar receiver and the Duck Duck, Gray Duck, and much, much more.

All their apparel is screen printed here in minnesota on super soft super comfy shirts and hoodies a few of which i have myself you will love it we are going to hook you up by the way with free shipping on your next order use purple insider for free shipping the promo code purple insider that's sodastick.com s-o-t-A-S-T-I-C-K Original Minnesota sports inspired goods. Code Purple Insider for free shipping. So you bring up Mike McCarthy and that's going great in Dallas. But I wonder, I want you to tell me about the end of eras though. Because I think by the time McCarthy was done, he was really done.

And nobody thought that year, or at least I'll tell you my perspective, I didn't think that they would get rid of Mike McCarthy. But eventually it got to be so bad. And I forget, you could tell me which game it was that they just no-showed entirely against the bad opponent. But I had that feeling last week against Atlanta. And I think for Mike Zimmer that this game is actually pretty important that his team shows that they have some fight and that they have some development in them

and some progress and some potential under Mike Zimmer long term because I think that it's a real thing when you get to the end of an era with a guy and you say, look, you're a great coach, but I think we've got to hit the refresh button. And I honestly don't know if that's the case with how ownership feels about this, but I know that if the Packers win 30-10, that they're going to start feeling like it, right? They care about that matchup a lot, and I think that they were infuriated. The game you mentioned last year, Week 16, that the owners of this Vikings team

were infuriated with how that looked especially getting run over the way they did and I mean I'm not saying that this might be it but this would be a huge influencing factor if they get killed by the Packers on Sunday yeah a couple things about the McCarthy era first of all like the quarterback had far more pelts on the wall in Green Bay than the guy that is currently quarterbacking Mike Zimmer's team. And so his displeasure or frustration with McCarthy carried a lot more heft than any frustration probably anybody on that roster in Minnesota can carry. Now, the game you're referring to, they lost to Arizona. Right. And Mason Crosby missed what would have been a game-tying field goal

as the Clucks. You know, you wonder, well, if he makes that kick and they go on to win 23-20 or whatever, does he get fired? Probably not. I did think that that was a little knee-jerky to fire him. They kind of tried to cover it as, yeah, we wanted to give Joe Philbin a chance to audition, which wasn't really true.

Like, they could say that, but they were never going to fire. Right, they were never going to hire Joe Philbin, who I love. I mean, he's one of my favorite coaches. He's a kind-hearted, wonderful man who probably is never going to be a head coach again after what happened in Miami. So to look at that, you know, I wouldn't use that per se as the equivalent because of Rodgers' power and because of how the Packers handled it. I don't know the Wilfs well enough to know if they would ever fire somebody

other than Chili before the season is over. Now, the other part of that, though, was early that season, the Packers beat Buffalo, and they shut them out. It was like 20-0 and 22-0, I think. And Rodgers got up on the post-game podium and basically just ripped to shreds the offensive game plan publicly and, you know, talked about how they should have beaten them by so much. And the narrative, instead of being, wow, what a great defensive performance while the offense didn't put up a lot of points was instead rogers

just committed second degree murder on mike mccarthy's career um in front of everybody in the media and i am i am intrigued by the fact that after that no one really thought McCarthy would last. I think he was emasculated by that. And as a result, it was just a matter of when, not if, that was going to be his last season. I mean, I knew it was over from the minute Rodgers walked off the podium. And I don't think anyone in Minnesota has done that, to my knowledge, said anything.

You know, McCarthy's got all this other stuff going on now in Dallas where he's being so harshly criticized and guys are talking off the record, et cetera. But I don't get – and you're closer to your team than the team that you cover than I am. But I do wonder how frustrated the locker room is with the culture, the coaching staff, et cetera, because Rodgers, I don't want to say he led a revolt,

but his frustration and him voicing it publicly allowed others to feel like they could voice their frustration publicly. And I think that then just started to sort of be a snowball rolling downhill. And that was kind of it for him. So I don't think the scenarios are exactly the same. And for that reason, I am I'm skeptical that that this will have this that the the path will be the same for the Vikings, despite their struggles. I would say, yes, that I agree that Kirk Cousins does not have the cachet of Aaron Rodgers to do something like that, at least publicly. Now, behind the scenes, maybe, because he is getting absolutely demolished.

I mean, the national media, the fans here, they have really turned on Kirk Cousins to the point where here on the show, we're doing a bit each week where we look at what the college quarterbacks did. And I get I get emails every week, every day about, hey, would the 49ers trade Garoppolo straight up for Cousins? Like, what's his contract like? How can we get out of it? I think that fans have reached a real point of frustration with Cousins, and he might look at some of these games and say, you know, I played pretty well against Tennessee,

despite your horrible offensive line that you gave me and your run-first scheme, and I played pretty well against Seattle. But, you know, you want to run the ball on fourth and one instead of putting the ball ever in my hands in that situation. And, you know, I don't know if this is a team that has a guy who would do that currently now that Stephon Diggs is in Buffalo, even though he usually did it through social media. But Diggs demanding to be traded and a bunch of other players deciding not to come back was certainly an indictment, I think, on where the culture was at under Zimmer and Kirk Cousins.

Because I think when you look at a coach, quarterback, and general manager, that's kind of like the big three of who runs a team. And I think a lot of the players turned on at least two out of the three. So you do have that element of it. And I do wonder about if Kirk Cousins feels like he was put in a situation with a coach that's obsessed with defense and running and they didn't do everything to help him uh yeah you know i think back to what was it it was fairly early in zimmer's tenure where like the defense at in a game at lambeau field like went rolled right they, right? They just decided to 2016, yep.

Not run the defense being called. Yes. And just call their own defenses for at least a period of that game. And then, look, I don't have anything against Kirk Cousins other than he and I have different philosophies on wearing a mask during a pandemic.

But, look, you can't there's two things you can't win without a really good quarterback in this league i don't care what anybody says and then second you can't win if your coach doesn't believe in your quarterback and there there is so much evidence of not believing in him, and you just mentioned a few of them. You know, that's one thing that McCarthy and Rodgers may have butted heads. They certainly did. But McCarthy never doubted what Rodgers was capable of.

McCarthy never once would have said, I don't know if I want to put the ball in his hands. Matt LaFleur definitely isn't afraid to put the ball in Rodgers' hands because, frankly, if Matt LaFleur was given some truth serum, he would probably say, I'd like to run the ball the way I did in Tennessee with Derrick Henry and be 50-50. But I have Aaron Rodgers, so I'm not going to run my offense that way. So that's, to me, the difference is that you look at great marriages

and not all of them work out, right? Eventually, even though McCarthy and Rogers stayed together for the kids, eventually they got divorced. But when those marriages work, you look at Breeze and Peyton down in New Orleans, you get a lot of production, but you also get a lot less drama. And the problem with Green Bay and Rodgers, to go back to that, was that relationship clearly had run its course. And at that point, they needed to go their separate ways. Unfortunately for Mike, he went from being married to Aaron Rodgers to being married to Jerry Jones, and I think I'd rather be married to Rodgers if I was Mike McCarthy.

Well, now married to Andy Dalton, and I just, as an aside, the, hey, maybe it's Dak's fault that they're actually losing, is not turning out to be a great take for the people that had that one. But, you know, when I look at this situation here, Jason, I think that they want to do what Green Bay did with Matt LaFleur. And I don't know if that means another coach, but they want to bounce back quickly. They want to not bottom out for two or three years. They, I don't think, want to replace Kirk Cousins or three years they i don't think want to replace kirk cousins as much as everybody else wants them to do that i think that they want to bounce right

back in 2021 and have a 13 and 3 type of season and say look it was just one down year but i think it because you have rogers and here you don't have Rodgers, it's such a different formula. The math just doesn't work like the same way when you don't have an elite quarterback in terms of how long you have to be down. And that's where I wonder how realistic they are. And I mean, I guess I wonder this, like with the Packers, if Rodgers this year has sort of bailed them out from actually looking too far down the road. And here's the Vikings maybe not looking far enough down the road. Yeah, look, I'll tell you this. Aaron Rodgers is taking the approach this season that this is his last year in Green Bay.

Now, that doesn't mean it will be his last year in Green Bay, but he was even making a comment after the game on Sunday in Houston about how much he cherishes going into road stadiums and having Packers fans take them over, even when there's only 16,000 fans in Houston, that there was still such a significant Packers presence to it. He has been very much about savoring this season. And, you know, he's talked about it, maybe not explicitly,

but it's very clear to me that he's saying, look, this could be it. They could, because the cap money actually, they still save cap money if they move on from it. They only save about $4 million on the cap if they were to move on from him this year as opposed to the following year when they would save like $20 million off the cap, not having him on their roster. But it's not like they would have all this dead money that would be much greater than what they were going to be paying him.

So his approach clearly has been that. I do wonder, and I have so many friends in the Twin Cities, and many of them are Vikings fans. I do wonder how other teams' fan bases that don't have the quarterback like Aaron Rodgers, and frankly, they probably did this at 07 when the Packers were moving on after the 07 NFC Championship game from Barb to Rodgers, saying, God, I can't imagine having that guy as a quarterback.

Now, the Vikings got to have that guy as a quarterback for two years. They came within an interception of going to a Super Bowl with him as quarterback. So I'm not saying that Rodgers is unappreciated here. I think his start has kind of reminded them of how special he is, but all you have to do is look at the have-nots, and all due respect to Kirk Cousins, who I have nothing against. You know, he's

not a have. I don't think he makes you a have-not at quarterback either. He's somewhere in that malaise in the middle, and probably at the top end of that malaise. But I just don't know when you're one of those teams that is constantly trying to find that guy and you juxtapose that with a team that has constantly had that guy for three decades between the two quarterbacks.

I just don't know if you fully appreciate how much it sucks not to have that guy. And you look at what the Vikings have had for so many years, it's always been a guy who you're trying to kind of move on from outside of Culpepper for a brief time, but then Culpepper gets hurt and you have to move on from him. Same with Teddy Bridgewater, where you feel like, oh, we've got our quarterback, this guy can win, and then he gets hurt and emerges several years later looking very good for the Carolina Panthers, but they couldn't stick with him at that time because of the injury

and where they were as a franchise. And so they go all in on Kirk Cousins who's not that much different from a lot of the rental quarterbacks that they've had through the years in terms of his actual quality but they pay him like he's Aaron Rodgers and I think that's you know builds into that frustration from fans and where they are right now in terms of trying to pay everyone but you know there's a lot of holes on the team that they can't fill. And then it goes just sort of round and round. But before we wrap up, Jason, let me ask you this. If the Vikings pull off an upset, if Zimmer has been at the ranch in Kentucky, I actually think he had to stay in Minnesota.

But if he's been in his office, let's say, 24-7 grinding the tape and he's found Matt LaFleur's offensive flaw all of a sudden and they get three picks on Rodgers. They beat the Packers. How are Packers fans going to feel at that point about the team? And does that cause some panicked moves, some trades at the deadline, which is coming up right after this game, basically? Yeah, I don't think that they will be particularly active at the trade deadline.

I mean, that just hasn't been their MO for a very long time. And so, you know, what they have done historically is move on from guys at the trade deadline. And frankly, unless they're faking it, I don't think they feel like they need to move to make a move. I really don't. I think they think they're receiving core is fine. I think they love their running backs. I think they believe that they have young players that are developing that they don't need to make anything even close to a panicked move.

Again, we're seeing a ton of injuries throughout the league. We see them every year. But the Packers last year were among the most fortunate teams when it comes to injuries that I have ever seen in 25 years of covering the NFL. Because not only did they stay stunningly healthy, that their number one receiver missed four games with turf toe. And that was literally the only major injury that they endured. And it only lasted four games.

But they also had such incredible fortune with the matchups. They're scheduled to go to Kansas City and Patrick Mahomes is out. They go to Minnesota for that big matchup. And not only was Dalvin Cook out for that game, but Alexander Madison was out for that game too. And so they didn't have to play against Stafford in one of their games against Detroit. I mean, there were so many instances of that last season

that they're six games in, so much can happen in the last 10 games they've had more injuries this year than they had by far last year and they there's the danger of you know if something happens to Adams I don't believe even though they are now six and oh in the games that he has missed with Matt LaFleur as the coach I still don't believe they can beat a really good team without him on the field. And so not only do they have to cross their fingers and hope that he stays healthy, but they also have to hope that Alan Lazard comes back healthy. Because after those two, Marquez Valdez-Scantling is just too inconsistent. You just don't know what you're going to get from him from game to game

or play to play, quite frankly. Equinemius St. Browder is a non-factor. They like Darius Shepard, the young guy from North Dakota State, but he's inconsistent at this point. I mean, they just don't have a lot at wide receiver, and they don't have the depth to endure an injury. They also don't have the depth at tight end to endure an injury. They lost their rookie, Josiah DeGuara, that they were really high on. He played really well against the Vikings in the opener. He's out for the year now.

So I don't think – if they lose to the Vikings, I don't think the Packers would panic from a personnel standpoint, but I think it would be a very disturbing omen for Packers fans that their five-in-one start is a little paper tiger-y. Even though sports took a break, your business didn't. You have to keep moving, and that means hiring is more important than ever. Indeed is here to help. Indeed.com is the number one job site in the world because Indeed gets you the best people fast.

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Don't forget to use the promo code BLUEWIRE at BetOnline.ag. That's BLUEWIRE, all one word, BetOnline, your online sportsbook experts. If they don't make moves in a year like this, where a lot of teams I think are going to be trying to dump their salaries for the future, and even someone like A.J. Green, if he wants out of Cincinnati, I mean, imagine pairing him with Aaron Rodgers. I don't know the cap situations on these things to say for sure whether you could do this or that. But if there was

any year you've got rogers playing great uh chicago i don't think we're recording this as they're playing so i don't know what's happening but i don't think chicago is truly that great the vikings are down detroit doesn't scare you uh the other quarterbacks are old even though they're playing well like you've got a real no one exists in the nfc east like you have a real shot to go to the super bowl and seattle can't pressure the quarterback any more than you and i could i mean it would be to me it would be the year that if you're gonna break traditions and you're gonna go all in on something i think that they should and then they should make a big splash move for another receiver so the packers would if they were to do that it would

be sort of like what the 49ers did with Emmanuel Sanders last year that you make that deal knowing full well you are not going to pay him when he becomes a free agent because the Packers you know you look at their upcoming free agents they have their franchise left tackle and David Bakhtiari last year of his deal they have their startingid bakhtiari last year of his deal they have their starting center cory lindsley last year of his deal they've got kevin king they're one of their two starting corners in the last year of his deal and then not only do they have aaron jones in the last year of his deal but jamal williams too so their number one and number two running backs who they see both as capable starters are both going to be

free agents and the cap's going to go down right so any moves that they make have to be purely of a rental mentality because they are certainly not going to sign a say they make a trade for a young guy who wants a big contract that's not going to fit their paradigm unless they are are going to go all in on a rebuild like rogers this is you know this is fool's gold and he's not going to be able to do this in 2021 or 2022 and they decide look we're going to go to love we're going to fight the bullet on the cap in 2021 and then we're going to be a contender again in 2022. I mean, I do think with Bakhtiari and Jones and Rodgers all being potentially either free agents or expendable, that this has got a little bit of like, I don't want to say the last dance.

I've got the recency of having watched that documentary, obviously. But, you know, does that make Brian Goodikens Jerry Krause? Like, I don't know. Kind of. Kind of. I mean, drafting Love is sort of the same kind of thing. We're like telling Phil Jackson, we're not keeping you here. Right.

So, you know, again, who knows what next week holds, much less next year. And Lord knows what we've dealt with with COVID-19. I'm just not counting my chickens on anything these days. Right. But I think the one thing that if I were a Vikings fan who lives with a Packers fan or is married to a Packers fan or works with a bunch of Packers fans I would I would think this that as great as the Packers have been for the last three decades because of Barb and Rodgers they are due to have to live how the other half has lived.

And those are the Vikings, they're the Bears, all those teams. And there's no guarantee that Jordan Love is number three in this succession after Favre and Rodgers. There's a distinct possibility that he's more Mitch Trubisky than Aaron Rodgers. And if that were to happen, then Packers fans are going to find out what their Vikings fan friends and their Bears fan friends have lived with for the last couple of decades. Jason Wildey, you could follow him on Twitter if you like Packers things, at Jason J. Wildey and ESPN Wisconsin, the Athletic Wisconsin as well for your Packers coverage. Jason, it's always fun to get together.

I am going to miss your press box food, elite, elite press box food in Lambeau. And last year, Judd Zolgat and I had the biggest slabs of meat when we were in Wisconsin that we've ever had in our lives. I have never eaten a bigger piece of meat than I did in Wisconsin. I will miss you and that this year. Well, I will miss seeing you, too. My first appearance with you on any sort of podcast was recorded like one in the morning with you and Judd in the back area. But I can tell you this.

While you may miss my smiling face behind my mask. You will not miss the PressBox food, the world-famous omelet station that we are so proud of for noon games, no longer there. Oh, no. It is, because of COVID-19, boxed sandwich lunches. Oh, the horror. It really is not worth the trip for the food or for seeing me with my nifty University of Oregon mask. 2020 is truly the worst. They have taken away Lambeau's press box food. My God.

Have mercy on all of us. All right, Jason. Well, this was really fun to catch up with you. I know that we will do it again soon. Maybe when your team is in the playoffs and the Vikings are watching the playoffs. So we'll do it then. Well, the Vikings are the seventh seed and the Packers are the second seed. They play in the first round.

I look forward to it. There's about a 2% chance of that happening, but it is the Vikings. You never really do know. All right, thanks, Jason. You got it, buddy. Take care. Be good.