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dies and gentlemen. Welcome once again to the Packernet Podcast. I am your host and resident panelist, as always, Ryan Schlipp. Check us out online, packernet.com Find me on Twitter, pack underscore that ad, so the OTAs for week one are officially behind us. By that, I mean today is the last day for me, and for you it's over. There's a little bit of unfortunate news that we'll get to in a little bit. Before we get there, just want to go through a couple of the news and notesy things that are floating around out there. The first one, I, I don't know, man, it's big, but it's like college football big, and it's confusing. It's going to have some implications on the NFL, but, and how deep do you want to get into this? Plus, it intersects into, like, politics, because politicians, it's bipartisan, but they're still trying to do some stuff. Bottom line, as best as I can tell, there was a Protect College Sports Act presented by Maria Cantwell, Democrat out of Washington, and Ted Cruz, Republican, out of Texas. In order to bring order to the current Wild West landscape, one of the things they're trying to do is to crack down on phony N I L money that is essentially to create a commission that tries to make sure that the money coming in is legitimate as opposed to just boosters throwing money at them through some kind of an N I L funnel, I, you know, having not spent a lot of time thinking about that or understanding it, because it's just I don't know, it's again, it's it, it kind of aligns with the NFL and impacts the NFL, but not enough that I've really dug into it a ton, but my general thought is that I don't see how this is going to hold up, because it's going to be very difficult to say yes, we think they should be paid millions of dollars, but only in this way, because if you do that way, that's a bad way. We're getting into some really arbitrary territory here to decide when it's a good thing for them to make millions and when it's a bad thing for them to make millions. I mean, we've kicked open the door and said, yes, you can make money as an athlete, so it is what it is. They're also looking at, like, a salary cap transfer restrictions. Athletes will generally be limited to one transfer during their college career without losing a year of eligibility. Sets a standard five year eligibility limit, prevents a breakaway. The bill tries to stop the wealthiest conferences, like Big 10 and SEC, from forming their own exclusive Super League by putting strict rules on conferences that make more than a billion dollars in annual revenue. I don't know. I look, I will simply say this: I think that college football has probably always been a little bit of a mess, and it's so hard to manage because there's so many different things, and that's why you find all kinds of scandals and all kinds of crazy stuff, because you set rules, and you know it's kind of like arm wrestling, if you're not cheating, you're not trying, I mean, the whole sport is just cheating, trying to gain an upper hand any way that you can, try not to get caught doing it, and so when you kick open a door the way that they have, man, it creates absolute chaos in such a massive thing that is college sports and college football, and you know, maybe, maybe things will settle on their own, it'll come to like a new natural stasis, I don't know if that's the right word, but it's also possible that it's just going to spiral out of control and continue spiraling, and so I understand the impulse to try to step in here and fix some things that have got are getting wildly out of control, or seemingly wildly out of control. I also think the government has a very low chance of actually fixing any of this, but whatever, we'll see what happens. If it ends up passing, we can take a second look at all the different components and what that could possibly mean. As of right now, it's a pretty steep uphill battle to get this passed and implemented, and everything. Also, as this is my duty, I will give you my weekly announcement that you should not get involved in media companies and journalism via Ryan Glass Spiegel. Two days ago, multiple NFL voices were laid off at Yahoo Sports this week, including Charles Robinson, who had been there over 20 years. Sources told FOS, Charles McDonald also announced he has been laid off. Charles Robinson has been around forever. I mean, they said it right there, 20 years, but I mean, that is one of the.. it's one of the guys that you.. I mean, that's a huge name in the.. in the space. Interestingly enough. Connor Orr, who is from Sports Illustrated, said Charles and Charles are dogged, creative, curious, hilarious, and original, the kinds of things we're running out of in this space. Can't wait to subscribe to wherever they land next. Why is that interesting? Because just as I was about to get started recording, I see this from Michael Rosenberg, who is a senior writer of Sports Illustrated says, this morning I had my favorite kind of meeting, a short one. I was laid off during that meeting. Goes on to say other things, but you get the idea. Adam Schefter memorialized him, said nobody better, an all-time writer. This is amongst many things disheartening. And then he says gutting the place, so Yahoo is gutting the place, and about a day or two later, Sports Illustrated starts gutting all of its people. As I've said before, these companies are purging money. They have a business model that just does not make any sense. They have massive, massive overhead, trying to compete with people that have zero, basically zero overhead. They pay for an internet connection and a freaking electric bill. There are probably very little to no other recurring costs that they have. So don't do it. Been saying this now for well over a year, it is, it is the most painful, slow death I've ever watched and experienced. By the way, I just looked, Charles Robinson was the senior NFL reporter for Yahoo, that's a pretty big layoff. It's also brand new breaking news here, Giants fear wide receiver Gunner Olazewski, who was carted off the practice field today, tore his Achilles. He will undergo additional testing to confirm the injury. It's an unfortunate thing that happens, man. You get into this time, you're all excited, and within seconds of these guys touching grass, they're getting carted off the field, and you just hope and pray that your guys are not included in that. In other news, Paris Campbell, wide receiver, is retiring from the NFL. The NFL did release a date and timeline for the NFL cut downs via Tom Pelissero. But he's changing their headers here. I don't recognize anybody anymore. Anywho, he says the NFL informed teams recently that this year's cut-down deadline to 53 players will be 6pm Eastern time on Sunday, august 30, not the following Tuesday, as it has been in recent years. Waiver claims will be due at 1pm Eastern time on Monday, August 30-first. The season kicks off September 9, so that has been added to the calendar that will be the official cut down day for the Green Bay Packers, and then the final non-Packers, non-NFC North specific news. What is this? That's basketball, and I don't.. I just think this is a good take. So I was trying to think, how do I work this into something, or whatever? I don't know that I have much to add to this. I just think it's a good take, and there's a lot of sort of, I don't know, it's hard because I don't really know the opposite views complaints specifically, but there seem to be a lot of people that are upset that things are expanding, right, more games, more this, more that, but that also goes to, we got Monday games, we got Wednesday games, we got Saturday games, we got all these stupid, and it's like, what happened to good old Sunday football, and like, I guess I kind of get it, but I think this is a little bit more the take that I appreciate. Like, I understand what's being said here, but I don't really get it. I mean, eight games sounds like music to my ears, like, what do we want 12 games on that we can't really see any of them, so we watch what two out of the 11 that are on, and we go, "Oh, I know what that those other ones, they confuse me, actually, to watching the games that I did care about, because I kept looking. I think it's awesome. I absolutely love it. I don't want seven games at 1pm I can't watch it all. There's no way. It's stupid. Like, so that's an instant. Like, are you telling me people Sundays are going to be ruined because they're gone? They're going to get home from church and go, "Oh, there's five games on at 1pm instead of seven. Oh, the days I ruined. It's ruined. I mean, I hate when there's four games at 425 I hate it. Or one's at 405 there's two at 405 and two at 425 I hate that I can't watch it. I'd like to enjoy the games, so I'm one that's not going to be, you know, complaining about this. I like the standalone games. I enjoy being able to watch one at a time. And then it's Sunday. There's nothing worse to me on a Sunday when the whole slate, and you go, "Oh my gosh, there's 13 games today, on Sunday. There's no way I can keep track of it all, and really talk about it all, and you know me, I'm sitting there writing notes, trying to keep up and do all that, but I feel like this will be better for everybody to digest, and I don't think it's going to effectively change Sundays all that much. In fact, there's a part of me that wants to argue and go, it's going to make. Better, we're all going to be tuned into the same few games and enjoying that, and be able to see it more, rather than I don't know what happened there. Hold it, he kicked the field goal. Oh, we threw a pass. I have no idea what's going on, but I saw that play, I saw that play, I saw that play, and that's where I wouldn't mind seeing eight games on Sunday. Like, and so, in summary, I can. I just say I'm starting to more and more. I don't watch their show all the time, but I'm starting to see clips, so I'm just kind of getting little glimmers here. And again, starting to really appreciate Chris Sims a little bit. I don't, for obvious reasons, really like Florio. I've never been very anti-Floria. I feel like when I used to watch this, Sims was like the whipping boy of Florio. Florio would say things, and he would just bend to the will and agree with everything he said. There was a clip I saw recently. I don't know if I ended up playing it or if I just watched it, but he went and just went at.. oh, it was over the Diana Rossini thing, where Sims was talking about the situation, and Florio was like trying to warn him, like, tread carefully, and he just was like, "What are you talking about, dude? Once you shut up and let me say what I want, like, he was something to that effect, and like, I don't know the full clip here, I don't know if if Florio took the opposite approach, but it just, I'm seeing Sims basically kind of turn into me almost with, like, you know, I think it's fricking stupid. I don't understand that, you know, and I'm watching Florio kind of squirm in his chair a little bit, like, you know, like he's taking a licking from Daddy over here, and I'm starting to appreciate, I mean, I think I like Sims's takes more, and the fact that he's found his, let's say, his manhood, and is able to kind of stand on his own feet and tell Florio to shut his face and get out of my face, is, you know, whether that's true or not, that's sort of my own little head cannon going on over here, and I appreciate it. I like it. I gotta go back and find that swear and bleep it out, but otherwise I'm in agreement with that. By the way, I don't understand the argument for I want more games on at once that I can't watch. Does it make your fantasy football more fun and enjoyable or something, or is it like red? Not red zone, maybe red zone. I know red zone is more fun with more. I don't know, I don't know what the argument could possibly be. I mean, if there's more games at different times that you don't want to watch, then don't watch it. I mean, I guess I guess I could understand the argument of I don't want, like, all I'm gonna watch is the Packers, and I don't want those on at random times. I would just want as many like noon games on Sunday as possible, but I mean, if you're an enjoyer of football, yeah, you want to spread all over the place, you can watch as many as you can. Anywho, we'll leave it at that for the non-Packers news. We'll take a break. We'll be right back. Getting into the NFC North news, here, first of all, it looks like the Brian Flores lawsuit will go forward. The NFL tried to throw that out and be like, no, no, no, look, let's, let's let us deal with this in house. We have our own mechanism for dealing with disputes, and I mean, I don't really know how all this stuff works as a layman here, but that seems like a conflict of interest, a bit like I'm.. it's kind of like the church doing an investigation on the church, you know what I mean? Like, there's some scandals going on here, like, you know what, we have an internal mechanism, we'll get to the bottom of this, yeah. No, no, you won't. I'm not going to relitigate the whole thing, I've gone through this lawsuit already. I don't remember exactly the details. I do know that Flores is not likely to get what he's after, but who knows? There may be some kind of a thing through discovery that, although he doesn't win, some things get uncovered. I don't know, frickin' drama, you know. I'll take it. As for their GM search, Vikings completed the second round of interviews for their general manager vacancy. The list of finalists includes Vikings' executive advice, right? We went through the list already. The second round is done, so you would assume that the final decision will come very soon. It seems as though the what everybody is expecting is that Rob Brzezinski will get the job. He is already their interim GM, the executive VP of football operations. So, there have been some outside guys, many of them, as we talked about, kind of turned away from the job, but Broncos assistant GM, Bill's assistant GM, Rams assistant GM, and Seahawks assistant GM also in the running, but again, as of now, the inside track seems to be Rob Brzezinski and his job to lose. Sticking with the Vikings, so far in OTAs, obviously not a ton to take away from anything, but we might as well stay on top of it. Kevin O'Connell has mentioned that he's going to install some. Schemes, I'm guessing this is pretty standard across the league. Everybody says everybody's doing everything brand new. Reps, however, are being split between Kyler Murray and JJ McCarthy. That's going to be sort of the, I think it's more of an off-season hypey thing, where it's like, oh boy, what's going to happen. We all kind of know what's going to happen. Kyler Murray is currently in the process of trying to adjust to the very wordy verbiage of Kevin O'Connell's system, so I guess it's a very complicated and again wordy system that he's not necessarily used to. So far, though, reports are positive he's looking good in camp, his arm looks good, he's got an early connection with Jordan Addison McCarthy. On the other hand, really focusing on the processing speed, decision making, ball placement. Listen, if I could, I, you know, I went on this rant yesterday about how the Packers are better at doing the quarterback thing, and everything. McCarthy needed the Jordan Love treatment. Now, I don't know if he ever would have become great, and maybe he can still, if he's able to sit somewhere. I think it would be nice. I don't think it's going to happen. I think they're going to end up moving on from them. They're not going to give them another contract, but it would be nice to just let him sit and learn, and you know, continue learning from Kevin O'Connell, continue to sit behind Kyler Murray, to, you know, a little bit learn from Kyler Murray, but for the most part just develop without the pressure and with all the craziness of having to start and give this guy a shot after another year or two sitting and see what happens again. I don't think that's going to happen. I think they pushed them out there like, like always happens. They always.. this is exactly the point I made about the Packers and how they're different. Everybody is willing to pay lip service to the idea that, oh yeah, we're gonna let them sit, but man, when the, when the fire gets hot, they sure push those guys out there, don't they? We're gonna wait, we're gonna wait, we lose a couple games, everybody starts screaming, and boy, here he comes, here comes the savior, right? That's why you guys are in the situation anyways. Additionally, offensive line coach Keith Carter is setting the tone early, heavy emphasis during unpadded drills on first step power in the run game and leverage. So I can't tie it directly to what we were talking about with 13 personnel, but it's been a couple years now of people wanting to get bigger and stronger and more aggressive up front. It sounds like they're emphasizing that as well. Over in Minnesota, first round pick Caleb Banks is currently sidelined with a foot injury until training camp. Safety Jacoby, excuse me, Josh Metellus looks locked in as the every down safety. Theo Jackson, Jay Ward, and Jacoby Thomas are actively competing for remaining roles, if you don't know who those people are exactly. As for the Chicago Bears, Ben Johnson is heavily focused on overhauling daily habits, getting sharper offensive execution. Now that they're in year two of his system, he, for the second year in a row now, has talked about trying to get Caleb Williams' completion percentage up, which is quite hilarious. I saw Peter Bukowski comment on this, and he's exactly right that you've got the coach saying we want his completion percentage to come up. Caleb Williams has one of the worst completion percentages in football. Packer fans say, ha ha, your completion percentage sucks. Bears fans say who cares about completion percentage? Look at x, y, and z. And then the coach comes out again this year and says the number one focus for us is completion percentage. And then Bears fans are like, well, we never said completion percentage wasn't important. You guys are stupid, bro. Anywho, there's also a clip circulating, Ben Johnson saying he wants to buy stock in Luther Burden, very excited about Luther Burden. Congratulations on Luther Burden. We'll see. I have a hard time talking trash about Luther Burden, considering that was my guy in the, in the old process, but it's way too early to be making any bold proclamations of that sort, so I'm not really worried about that yet. Plus, the standard is pretty low to be something special in Chicago. There is already talk, though, of expecting a lot of heavy 12 and 13 personnel with Colson Loveland and Cole Commette, so again tying into what we talked about yesterday. Plus, if you remember, they were one of the teams that was a little heavy on that already, so expect that to continue and expand. Left tackle Ozzie Trapio is expected to miss the season with a patellar tendon issue. Braxton Jones currently the front runner, taking first team reps alongside Theo Benedet, while veteran signing Jedrick Wills is also in the mix, and then veteran Garrett Bradbury, who was brought in to replace the retired Drew Dahlman, is fighting for the starting job against second-round rookie Logan Jones, which, I mean, I don't know, I find that whole thing to be quite funny. I mean, when they lost their center Drew Dahlman, that was massive. I mean, it is massive, and. And of course Bears fans try to play that down, like, oh, it's fine, we got Garrett Bradbury, and of course Garrett Bradbury is terrible, and then they draft Logan Jones, and then it's all, see, we're good, we got Logan, what, what happened to Garrett Bradbury, plus now they're in a competition, I hope Garrett Bradbury wins, I really do, I doubt he does, but I hope he wins, cornerback Jalen Johnson is skipping OTAs, which is, I guess, kind of standard for him. Kyler Gordon is out a few weeks with a soft tissue injury. And then, finally, the Detroit Lions, Dan Campbell still obviously running that ship, but new offensive coordinator Drew Petsing is in charge of the offense, as of right now, he's turned over the keys to Petzing. The good news for us is that Petsing is from Arizona, so our defensive coordinator is going to have a pretty good idea of exactly the defensive mind that is going to be, or the offensive mind that is going to be taking over for Detroit. Petsing is a guy that looks heavily to the run game, so very similar to what a lot of other people are talking about, that is sort of his MO. Biggest storyline for Detroit is the fact that they are still planning on moving all pro right tackle Penne Sewell to the left side. I think that is crazy, but he's obviously supremely talented, so we'll probably be able to handle it, but if there's even a slight decline in his play, that was a giant mistake. The right tackle spot now is currently involved in a battle, which you, that's not what you want to hear if you're a Detroit Lions fan, but as of right now, there's a head-to-head battle between first round rookie Blake Miller and veteran edition Larry Boreham. If Blake Miller can't win that job, I mean, that's, that's a serious.. we're, we're moving Penny Sewell because of Blake Miller, because we drafted a right tackle, and so he's going to need to.. it's going to need to be able to do his job. There's also a competition at left guard, second year player Christian Mahogany, who you know there were a lot of high hopes to begin with, but he's currently the front runner in a battle against several guys, including Miles Frazier, Ben Bart, and Drew Juice scrubs, so the offensive line is starting to fizzle a bit, and they're trying to grab a hold of it and try to get it back to its former glory. On defense, Kelvin Shepherd's defense wants to get more versatile and experimenting with base three, four, nickel, and five down looks with a potential shift toward more zone coverage. Safety, Kirby Joseph's knee is a major talking point right now. Update updates are being deferred until more info is available. Brian Branch and Terry and Arnold are also rehabbing. I saw this over here. Lions coach Den Dan Campbell said the team is prioritizing safety Kirby Joseph's knee 2026 availability over participation in spring workouts. Both the starting safeties, Joseph and Branch, are rehabbing significant injuries. It'll be great to get one or both back on the field this spring. Campbell does not want to hurry his injured stars back and risk reinjury, so that's a rough spot there on the offensive side. Ted and tight end Sam La Porta is limited, basically said the exact same thing about Sam La Porta. Lions coach Dan Campbell said he is in no rush to get Sam La Porta back on the field for spring workouts. So those are the biggest storylines, probably are the injuries right now that they're going through. And then the offensive line shuffling. All right, let's take a break there. We'll come back with some Green Bay Packers news. We'll be right back. All right, so the big news here, unfortunately, is that Marshawn Lloyd is once again injured. Now we don't know to what extent this may be just a minor thing. He may be back as early as today. He's been participating up to this point, but for a guy that has not ever been able to stay healthy up to this point, the last thing you want to see is he's once again not practicing with the team due to an injury, no matter how minor, because for the most part people have kind of given up hope that he can stay healthy as it is, and this is just further confirmation that that's exactly the situation. Why in the world would we expect him to be able to make it an entire season, the update was as follows. Packers running back Marshawn Lloyd, undisclosed, sat out during team drills or organized team activities on Wednesday. It goes on to say it's possible this is just a maintenance-related coaching decision, but it's still slightly concerning. Injuries have limited Lloyd to just 10 offensive snaps. Through two NFL seasons, Packers starting running back to Os Jacob was arrested, blah blah blah, per ESPN Rob Dumaski. Lloyd took part in team drills during Tuesday's closed session, but did only individual work Wednesday. Packers running back Chris Brooks began team drills for the first team offense before subbing out for running back Pierre Strong. Packers had the day off on Thursday, and will Zoom practice tomorrow. The Packers remain optimistic that the powerful and speedy Lloyd can repay the team for their patience, but he needs to retake the field soon if he hopes to prove his reliability. The bottom line at this point is that I don't know that anybody, I bottom line, you, you may just have to go do something, and I don't know what that something is, but you have to almost assume that we're in a situation with no Josh Jacobs and no Marshawn Lloyd, even though we may have Josh Jacobs and Marshawn Lloyd. I don't know how you know, I know the Packers want some kind of resolution. They also have a better understanding of what the situation is, and it may be very minor, and they're not really worried about it, but I mean, I'm to the point of I don't know how we can proceed at this point with I guess I'm just kind of assuming at this point that we're going to see Brooks and Pierre strong as our starting running backs, and probably not just for a couple snaps, I'm seeing a very distinct scenario and possibility that what's going to happen is that the Green Bay Packers are not going to have Josh Jacobs, and they're not going to have Marshawn Lloyd for a very extended period of time, and you got to figure out what the heck that looks like. Presumably the draft is a place we're going to have to start looking pretty heavily, but outside of that, what about this year? Because you know, I think we could get by, but I'd rather not focus on just getting by at this point. Now, it's easier to just say that than to actually do something productive, and I don't know exactly what that is at this point. Fall to your knees and hope and pray that Marshawn Lloyd and Josh Jacobs situations get resolved and everything's going to be fine, but outside of that, I feel like there's either got to be a trade situation, which is not my favorite option, or some kind of a free agent option. Now, if there were any good free agents, they wouldn't be free agents, that's kind of the thing about free agency. Unfortunately, there are some names here that I think are potentially worth keeping an eye on. For example, Naji Harris, Naji Harris is first of all exactly the type of running back that I could see Brian Gutta comes being a big fan of, he's 28 so he's not super old, although in running back years that's like 32 six won 242 pounds, and he played for Alabama, so big dude, strong dude, and the other thing is, he's always been good, I don't exactly know what happened, but he spent four years at Pittsburgh Steelers, and his grades were 7175 77 and 77 He went to the Chargers after his four years, only had 15 attempts, but at 61 yards, 4.1 yards per attempt, and an 84 rushing grade. Nick Chubb is available, he's 3511 227 so another big dude, he comes out of Georgia, so there you go. Big program was phenomenal for a very long time in Cleveland, had one, looks like he got injured in 2023 came back 2024 was not really himself, played for Houston last year, and seemed to do pretty well, 136 attempts, 568 yards, 4.2 yards per attempt, three touchdowns, 76 rushing grade. I don't know that he's, you know, 2022 version of Nick Chubb is coming back, but again in a pinch, I don't, sure, why not? Now, the contracts these guys are asking for matters, but none of them made a ton of Naji Harris had a $5 million contract last year, Chubb was 2.5 million. It looks like I understand we got to let these situations resolve a little bit, but I would certainly be keeping an eye on a few of these guys. I think those two in particular are probably the most interesting. Joe Mixon is available, but he's kind of a scumbag, so I don't really want him on the team. Maybe Naji and Chub have some stuff going on that I just don't remember, or whatever. But again, we'll, we'll, we'll see about that in the, in the future. I, you know, I think before we even discuss trade, we'd have to see definitive. Lee, first of all, the Josh Jacobs thing would have to resolve with him being let go, and then you know from there we could start talking about it. Certainly, if Marshawn Lloyd has some kind of a serious injury that's going to hold him out for a while. I think at that point we're very seriously looking into, are there trade candidates available? How big and splashy, I don't know, but that would become much more of a real thing. As of right now, I don't know. Outside of the Packers making some phone calls, I don't know exactly what what they'd be willing to do, and how much we need to really dig into all that, but certainly disappointing. And by next week, when the Packers are back at it, we had better see Marsha and Lloyd practicing. I mean, we had better at least hear that he is practicing it again, and you know, if they want to shut him down because they want to keep him healthy, or whatever the case may be, they're trying to preserve his body so that he doesn't go through the issues yet. Fine, then first of all, make a statement about that, so we understand the situation, and don't panic, but beyond that, he needs to be out there, he needs to have freaking a helmet on and running around and doing stuff, because this is stupid. And then I think, lastly, for today, some other stuff, but it's bigger stuff, and I'm running out of time here. Wife and I are actually going out to dinner, which is a rare occasion for us, so I'm pretty excited about that. But Bo Melton is now officially listed as a wide receiver, so if you are getting whiplash, then you're just like the rest of us. Again, you gotta, you gotta appreciate Bo Melton, if for no other reason the fact that he's getting jerked around by this team left and right, and he is just keeping his head right in this thing now. Maybe, maybe behind the scenes, he's got a bad attitude, but as much as the Packers love him, I get the impression that he has a great attitude, and maybe he should have more of an attitude, because I mean it would be hard to be a little bit upset to feel like, you know, I've got talent and I've got something to offer, and if you would just invest in me in one area, maybe I could actually grow and thrive in that area, instead of jerking me around from cornerback to wide receiver to gunner to returner to all these different things, you know. I don't know, but he's certainly a valuable asset for us, and hopefully the Packers are able to, you know, I don't want to say stay loyal, I mean, if he doesn't, if it's, if it's not worth keeping him around, then I guess he's got to go, but hopefully they can actually find a role for him, and he can help the Green Bay Packers this year. You know, last year I know he was the issue last year was he had so many wide receivers that the only way he was going to stay on the team is if they moved him to corner. Well, we've kind of purged that, so you could see why it would maybe make sense to move him back if that is his strongest position. In which case, the Packers are actually probably doing right by him, that is, assuming you don't think that just letting him go somewhere and be a wide receiver somewhere else. But either way, I think with the thinning of the wide receiver room, it's given him an opportunity to get back into that room, and you know he's going to be pretty low on the pecking order, but at the same time, what do we got? We got Watson, Reed, Golden, after that is Savian, and then after that is probably Bo, and me being a number five wide receiver, he'll get some action, and as much as Matt LaFleur loves the guy, I mean, you can't, you can't guarantee he won't be ahead of Savian, I don't think he will, but I think Matt LaFleur really likes him, I think he wants him in the offense, and I think he's excited about the different ways that he can use him in the offense, I'm excited about the different ways we can use him in the offense, so anywho, just real quick, let me pull this up, just as a reminder, the Green Bay Packers calendar moving forward, the so this week was week one of OTAs, Friday was that final day, next week, if I'm not mistaken, day one is going to be June 1 of OTAs, and then usually I don't know the exact schedule, but I think in the past, as I've said, usually it's one week of media availability, so it'll be similar. It's probably going to be the second, maybe the next day, which would be June 2, where the media has access to practice, and then they'll have access to Matt LaFleur, and potentially they'll have locker room access, unless they shut that down again because of the Josh Jacobs situation. I don't know, they may just shut that down until training camp or something. I'm not really sure how they're going to handle that, but either way, we'll have some information by next week. Let's see, so this episode will be for Saturday, then Sunday, then Monday. Okay, so just a couple days until we're back at it. So, anywho, you all have a good rest of your day. If you have any calls, 608-501-0718 get your calls in, and I will talk to you over there. Have a good one. 

dies and gentlemen. Welcome once again to the Packernet Podcast. I am your host and resident panelist, as always, Ryan Schlipp. Check us out online, packernet.com Find me on Twitter, pack underscore that ad, so the OTAs for week one are officially behind us. By that, I mean today is the last day for me, and for you it's over. There's a little bit of unfortunate news that we'll get to in a little bit. Before we get there, just want to go through a couple of the news and notesy things that are floating around out there. The first one, I, I don't know, man, it's big, but it's like college football big, and it's confusing. It's going to have some implications on the NFL, but, and how deep do you want to get into this? Plus, it intersects into, like, politics, because politicians, it's bipartisan, but they're still trying to do some stuff. Bottom line, as best as I can tell, there was a Protect College Sports Act presented by Maria Cantwell, Democrat out of Washington, and Ted Cruz, Republican, out of Texas. In order to bring order to the current Wild West landscape, one of the things they're trying to do is to crack down on phony N I L money that is essentially to create a commission that tries to make sure that the money coming in is legitimate as opposed to just boosters throwing money at them through some kind of an N I L funnel, I, you know, having not spent a lot of time thinking about that or understanding it, because it's just I don't know, it's again, it's it, it kind of aligns with the NFL and impacts the NFL, but not enough that I've really dug into it a ton, but my general thought is that I don't see how this is going to hold up, because it's going to be very difficult to say yes, we think they should be paid millions of dollars, but only in this way, because if you do that way, that's a bad way. We're getting into some really arbitrary territory here to decide when it's a good thing for them to make millions and when it's a bad thing for them to make millions. I mean, we've kicked open the door and said, yes, you can make money as an athlete, so it is what it is. They're also looking at, like, a salary cap transfer restrictions. Athletes will generally be limited to one transfer during their college career without losing a year of eligibility. Sets a standard five year eligibility limit, prevents a breakaway. The bill tries to stop the wealthiest conferences, like Big 10 and SEC, from forming their own exclusive Super League by putting strict rules on conferences that make more than a billion dollars in annual revenue. I don't know. I look, I will simply say this: I think that college football has probably always been a little bit of a mess, and it's so hard to manage because there's so many different things, and that's why you find all kinds of scandals and all kinds of crazy stuff, because you set rules, and you know it's kind of like arm wrestling, if you're not cheating, you're not trying, I mean, the whole sport is just cheating, trying to gain an upper hand any way that you can, try not to get caught doing it, and so when you kick open a door the way that they have, man, it creates absolute chaos in such a massive thing that is college sports and college football, and you know, maybe, maybe things will settle on their own, it'll come to like a new natural stasis, I don't know if that's the right word, but it's also possible that it's just going to spiral out of control and continue spiraling, and so I understand the impulse to try to step in here and fix some things that have got are getting wildly out of control, or seemingly wildly out of control. I also think the government has a very low chance of actually fixing any of this, but whatever, we'll see what happens. If it ends up passing, we can take a second look at all the different components and what that could possibly mean. As of right now, it's a pretty steep uphill battle to get this passed and implemented, and everything. Also, as this is my duty, I will give you my weekly announcement that you should not get involved in media companies and journalism via Ryan Glass Spiegel. Two days ago, multiple NFL voices were laid off at Yahoo Sports this week, including Charles Robinson, who had been there over 20 years. Sources told FOS, Charles McDonald also announced he has been laid off. Charles Robinson has been around forever. I mean, they said it right there, 20 years, but I mean, that is one of the.. it's one of the guys that you.. I mean, that's a huge name in the.. in the space. Interestingly enough. Connor Orr, who is from Sports Illustrated, said Charles and Charles are dogged, creative, curious, hilarious, and original, the kinds of things we're running out of in this space. Can't wait to subscribe to wherever they land next. Why is that interesting? Because just as I was about to get started recording, I see this from Michael Rosenberg, who is a senior writer of Sports Illustrated says, this morning I had my favorite kind of meeting, a short one. I was laid off during that meeting. Goes on to say other things, but you get the idea. Adam Schefter memorialized him, said nobody better, an all-time writer. This is amongst many things disheartening. And then he says gutting the place, so Yahoo is gutting the place, and about a day or two later, Sports Illustrated starts gutting all of its people. As I've said before, these companies are purging money. They have a business model that just does not make any sense. They have massive, massive overhead, trying to compete with people that have zero, basically zero overhead. They pay for an internet connection and a freaking electric bill. There are probably very little to no other recurring costs that they have. So don't do it. Been saying this now for well over a year, it is, it is the most painful, slow death I've ever watched and experienced. By the way, I just looked, Charles Robinson was the senior NFL reporter for Yahoo, that's a pretty big layoff. It's also brand new breaking news here, Giants fear wide receiver Gunner Olazewski, who was carted off the practice field today, tore his Achilles. He will undergo additional testing to confirm the injury. It's an unfortunate thing that happens, man. You get into this time, you're all excited, and within seconds of these guys touching grass, they're getting carted off the field, and you just hope and pray that your guys are not included in that. In other news, Paris Campbell, wide receiver, is retiring from the NFL. The NFL did release a date and timeline for the NFL cut downs via Tom Pelissero. But he's changing their headers here. I don't recognize anybody anymore. Anywho, he says the NFL informed teams recently that this year's cut-down deadline to 53 players will be 6pm Eastern time on Sunday, august 30, not the following Tuesday, as it has been in recent years. Waiver claims will be due at 1pm Eastern time on Monday, August 30-first. The season kicks off September 9, so that has been added to the calendar that will be the official cut down day for the Green Bay Packers, and then the final non-Packers, non-NFC North specific news. What is this? That's basketball, and I don't.. I just think this is a good take. So I was trying to think, how do I work this into something, or whatever? I don't know that I have much to add to this. I just think it's a good take, and there's a lot of sort of, I don't know, it's hard because I don't really know the opposite views complaints specifically, but there seem to be a lot of people that are upset that things are expanding, right, more games, more this, more that, but that also goes to, we got Monday games, we got Wednesday games, we got Saturday games, we got all these stupid, and it's like, what happened to good old Sunday football, and like, I guess I kind of get it, but I think this is a little bit more the take that I appreciate. Like, I understand what's being said here, but I don't really get it. I mean, eight games sounds like music to my ears, like, what do we want 12 games on that we can't really see any of them, so we watch what two out of the 11 that are on, and we go, "Oh, I know what that those other ones, they confuse me, actually, to watching the games that I did care about, because I kept looking. I think it's awesome. I absolutely love it. I don't want seven games at 1pm I can't watch it all. There's no way. It's stupid. Like, so that's an instant. Like, are you telling me people Sundays are going to be ruined because they're gone? They're going to get home from church and go, "Oh, there's five games on at 1pm instead of seven. Oh, the days I ruined. It's ruined. I mean, I hate when there's four games at 425 I hate it. Or one's at 405 there's two at 405 and two at 425 I hate that I can't watch it. I'd like to enjoy the games, so I'm one that's not going to be, you know, complaining about this. I like the standalone games. I enjoy being able to watch one at a time. And then it's Sunday. There's nothing worse to me on a Sunday when the whole slate, and you go, "Oh my gosh, there's 13 games today, on Sunday. There's no way I can keep track of it all, and really talk about it all, and you know me, I'm sitting there writing notes, trying to keep up and do all that, but I feel like this will be better for everybody to digest, and I don't think it's going to effectively change Sundays all that much. In fact, there's a part of me that wants to argue and go, it's going to make. Better, we're all going to be tuned into the same few games and enjoying that, and be able to see it more, rather than I don't know what happened there. Hold it, he kicked the field goal. Oh, we threw a pass. I have no idea what's going on, but I saw that play, I saw that play, I saw that play, and that's where I wouldn't mind seeing eight games on Sunday. Like, and so, in summary, I can. I just say I'm starting to more and more. I don't watch their show all the time, but I'm starting to see clips, so I'm just kind of getting little glimmers here. And again, starting to really appreciate Chris Sims a little bit. I don't, for obvious reasons, really like Florio. I've never been very anti-Floria. I feel like when I used to watch this, Sims was like the whipping boy of Florio. Florio would say things, and he would just bend to the will and agree with everything he said. There was a clip I saw recently. I don't know if I ended up playing it or if I just watched it, but he went and just went at.. oh, it was over the Diana Rossini thing, where Sims was talking about the situation, and Florio was like trying to warn him, like, tread carefully, and he just was like, "What are you talking about, dude? Once you shut up and let me say what I want, like, he was something to that effect, and like, I don't know the full clip here, I don't know if if Florio took the opposite approach, but it just, I'm seeing Sims basically kind of turn into me almost with, like, you know, I think it's fricking stupid. I don't understand that, you know, and I'm watching Florio kind of squirm in his chair a little bit, like, you know, like he's taking a licking from Daddy over here, and I'm starting to appreciate, I mean, I think I like Sims's takes more, and the fact that he's found his, let's say, his manhood, and is able to kind of stand on his own feet and tell Florio to shut his face and get out of my face, is, you know, whether that's true or not, that's sort of my own little head cannon going on over here, and I appreciate it. I like it. I gotta go back and find that swear and bleep it out, but otherwise I'm in agreement with that. By the way, I don't understand the argument for I want more games on at once that I can't watch. Does it make your fantasy football more fun and enjoyable or something, or is it like red? Not red zone, maybe red zone. I know red zone is more fun with more. I don't know, I don't know what the argument could possibly be. I mean, if there's more games at different times that you don't want to watch, then don't watch it. I mean, I guess I guess I could understand the argument of I don't want, like, all I'm gonna watch is the Packers, and I don't want those on at random times. I would just want as many like noon games on Sunday as possible, but I mean, if you're an enjoyer of football, yeah, you want to spread all over the place, you can watch as many as you can. Anywho, we'll leave it at that for the non-Packers news. We'll take a break. We'll be right back. Getting into the NFC North news, here, first of all, it looks like the Brian Flores lawsuit will go forward. The NFL tried to throw that out and be like, no, no, no, look, let's, let's let us deal with this in house. We have our own mechanism for dealing with disputes, and I mean, I don't really know how all this stuff works as a layman here, but that seems like a conflict of interest, a bit like I'm.. it's kind of like the church doing an investigation on the church, you know what I mean? Like, there's some scandals going on here, like, you know what, we have an internal mechanism, we'll get to the bottom of this, yeah. No, no, you won't. I'm not going to relitigate the whole thing, I've gone through this lawsuit already. I don't remember exactly the details. I do know that Flores is not likely to get what he's after, but who knows? There may be some kind of a thing through discovery that, although he doesn't win, some things get uncovered. I don't know, frickin' drama, you know. I'll take it. As for their GM search, Vikings completed the second round of interviews for their general manager vacancy. The list of finalists includes Vikings' executive advice, right? We went through the list already. The second round is done, so you would assume that the final decision will come very soon. It seems as though the what everybody is expecting is that Rob Brzezinski will get the job. He is already their interim GM, the executive VP of football operations. So, there have been some outside guys, many of them, as we talked about, kind of turned away from the job, but Broncos assistant GM, Bill's assistant GM, Rams assistant GM, and Seahawks assistant GM also in the running, but again, as of now, the inside track seems to be Rob Brzezinski and his job to lose. Sticking with the Vikings, so far in OTAs, obviously not a ton to take away from anything, but we might as well stay on top of it. Kevin O'Connell has mentioned that he's going to install some. Schemes, I'm guessing this is pretty standard across the league. Everybody says everybody's doing everything brand new. Reps, however, are being split between Kyler Murray and JJ McCarthy. That's going to be sort of the, I think it's more of an off-season hypey thing, where it's like, oh boy, what's going to happen. We all kind of know what's going to happen. Kyler Murray is currently in the process of trying to adjust to the very wordy verbiage of Kevin O'Connell's system, so I guess it's a very complicated and again wordy system that he's not necessarily used to. So far, though, reports are positive he's looking good in camp, his arm looks good, he's got an early connection with Jordan Addison McCarthy. On the other hand, really focusing on the processing speed, decision making, ball placement. Listen, if I could, I, you know, I went on this rant yesterday about how the Packers are better at doing the quarterback thing, and everything. McCarthy needed the Jordan Love treatment. Now, I don't know if he ever would have become great, and maybe he can still, if he's able to sit somewhere. I think it would be nice. I don't think it's going to happen. I think they're going to end up moving on from them. They're not going to give them another contract, but it would be nice to just let him sit and learn, and you know, continue learning from Kevin O'Connell, continue to sit behind Kyler Murray, to, you know, a little bit learn from Kyler Murray, but for the most part just develop without the pressure and with all the craziness of having to start and give this guy a shot after another year or two sitting and see what happens again. I don't think that's going to happen. I think they pushed them out there like, like always happens. They always.. this is exactly the point I made about the Packers and how they're different. Everybody is willing to pay lip service to the idea that, oh yeah, we're gonna let them sit, but man, when the, when the fire gets hot, they sure push those guys out there, don't they? We're gonna wait, we're gonna wait, we lose a couple games, everybody starts screaming, and boy, here he comes, here comes the savior, right? That's why you guys are in the situation anyways. Additionally, offensive line coach Keith Carter is setting the tone early, heavy emphasis during unpadded drills on first step power in the run game and leverage. So I can't tie it directly to what we were talking about with 13 personnel, but it's been a couple years now of people wanting to get bigger and stronger and more aggressive up front. It sounds like they're emphasizing that as well. Over in Minnesota, first round pick Caleb Banks is currently sidelined with a foot injury until training camp. Safety Jacoby, excuse me, Josh Metellus looks locked in as the every down safety. Theo Jackson, Jay Ward, and Jacoby Thomas are actively competing for remaining roles, if you don't know who those people are exactly. As for the Chicago Bears, Ben Johnson is heavily focused on overhauling daily habits, getting sharper offensive execution. Now that they're in year two of his system, he, for the second year in a row now, has talked about trying to get Caleb Williams' completion percentage up, which is quite hilarious. I saw Peter Bukowski comment on this, and he's exactly right that you've got the coach saying we want his completion percentage to come up. Caleb Williams has one of the worst completion percentages in football. Packer fans say, ha ha, your completion percentage sucks. Bears fans say who cares about completion percentage? Look at x, y, and z. And then the coach comes out again this year and says the number one focus for us is completion percentage. And then Bears fans are like, well, we never said completion percentage wasn't important. You guys are stupid, bro. Anywho, there's also a clip circulating, Ben Johnson saying he wants to buy stock in Luther Burden, very excited about Luther Burden. Congratulations on Luther Burden. We'll see. I have a hard time talking trash about Luther Burden, considering that was my guy in the, in the old process, but it's way too early to be making any bold proclamations of that sort, so I'm not really worried about that yet. Plus, the standard is pretty low to be something special in Chicago. There is already talk, though, of expecting a lot of heavy 12 and 13 personnel with Colson Loveland and Cole Commette, so again tying into what we talked about yesterday. Plus, if you remember, they were one of the teams that was a little heavy on that already, so expect that to continue and expand. Left tackle Ozzie Trapio is expected to miss the season with a patellar tendon issue. Braxton Jones currently the front runner, taking first team reps alongside Theo Benedet, while veteran signing Jedrick Wills is also in the mix, and then veteran Garrett Bradbury, who was brought in to replace the retired Drew Dahlman, is fighting for the starting job against second-round rookie Logan Jones, which, I mean, I don't know, I find that whole thing to be quite funny. I mean, when they lost their center Drew Dahlman, that was massive. I mean, it is massive, and. And of course Bears fans try to play that down, like, oh, it's fine, we got Garrett Bradbury, and of course Garrett Bradbury is terrible, and then they draft Logan Jones, and then it's all, see, we're good, we got Logan, what, what happened to Garrett Bradbury, plus now they're in a competition, I hope Garrett Bradbury wins, I really do, I doubt he does, but I hope he wins, cornerback Jalen Johnson is skipping OTAs, which is, I guess, kind of standard for him. Kyler Gordon is out a few weeks with a soft tissue injury. And then, finally, the Detroit Lions, Dan Campbell still obviously running that ship, but new offensive coordinator Drew Petsing is in charge of the offense, as of right now, he's turned over the keys to Petzing. The good news for us is that Petsing is from Arizona, so our defensive coordinator is going to have a pretty good idea of exactly the defensive mind that is going to be, or the offensive mind that is going to be taking over for Detroit. Petsing is a guy that looks heavily to the run game, so very similar to what a lot of other people are talking about, that is sort of his MO. Biggest storyline for Detroit is the fact that they are still planning on moving all pro right tackle Penne Sewell to the left side. I think that is crazy, but he's obviously supremely talented, so we'll probably be able to handle it, but if there's even a slight decline in his play, that was a giant mistake. The right tackle spot now is currently involved in a battle, which you, that's not what you want to hear if you're a Detroit Lions fan, but as of right now, there's a head-to-head battle between first round rookie Blake Miller and veteran edition Larry Boreham. If Blake Miller can't win that job, I mean, that's, that's a serious.. we're, we're moving Penny Sewell because of Blake Miller, because we drafted a right tackle, and so he's going to need to.. it's going to need to be able to do his job. There's also a competition at left guard, second year player Christian Mahogany, who you know there were a lot of high hopes to begin with, but he's currently the front runner in a battle against several guys, including Miles Frazier, Ben Bart, and Drew Juice scrubs, so the offensive line is starting to fizzle a bit, and they're trying to grab a hold of it and try to get it back to its former glory. On defense, Kelvin Shepherd's defense wants to get more versatile and experimenting with base three, four, nickel, and five down looks with a potential shift toward more zone coverage. Safety, Kirby Joseph's knee is a major talking point right now. Update updates are being deferred until more info is available. Brian Branch and Terry and Arnold are also rehabbing. I saw this over here. Lions coach Den Dan Campbell said the team is prioritizing safety Kirby Joseph's knee 2026 availability over participation in spring workouts. Both the starting safeties, Joseph and Branch, are rehabbing significant injuries. It'll be great to get one or both back on the field this spring. Campbell does not want to hurry his injured stars back and risk reinjury, so that's a rough spot there on the offensive side. Ted and tight end Sam La Porta is limited, basically said the exact same thing about Sam La Porta. Lions coach Dan Campbell said he is in no rush to get Sam La Porta back on the field for spring workouts. So those are the biggest storylines, probably are the injuries right now that they're going through. And then the offensive line shuffling. All right, let's take a break there. We'll come back with some Green Bay Packers news. We'll be right back. All right, so the big news here, unfortunately, is that Marshawn Lloyd is once again injured. Now we don't know to what extent this may be just a minor thing. He may be back as early as today. He's been participating up to this point, but for a guy that has not ever been able to stay healthy up to this point, the last thing you want to see is he's once again not practicing with the team due to an injury, no matter how minor, because for the most part people have kind of given up hope that he can stay healthy as it is, and this is just further confirmation that that's exactly the situation. Why in the world would we expect him to be able to make it an entire season, the update was as follows. Packers running back Marshawn Lloyd, undisclosed, sat out during team drills or organized team activities on Wednesday. It goes on to say it's possible this is just a maintenance-related coaching decision, but it's still slightly concerning. Injuries have limited Lloyd to just 10 offensive snaps. Through two NFL seasons, Packers starting running back to Os Jacob was arrested, blah blah blah, per ESPN Rob Dumaski. Lloyd took part in team drills during Tuesday's closed session, but did only individual work Wednesday. Packers running back Chris Brooks began team drills for the first team offense before subbing out for running back Pierre Strong. Packers had the day off on Thursday, and will Zoom practice tomorrow. The Packers remain optimistic that the powerful and speedy Lloyd can repay the team for their patience, but he needs to retake the field soon if he hopes to prove his reliability. The bottom line at this point is that I don't know that anybody, I bottom line, you, you may just have to go do something, and I don't know what that something is, but you have to almost assume that we're in a situation with no Josh Jacobs and no Marshawn Lloyd, even though we may have Josh Jacobs and Marshawn Lloyd. I don't know how you know, I know the Packers want some kind of resolution. They also have a better understanding of what the situation is, and it may be very minor, and they're not really worried about it, but I mean, I'm to the point of I don't know how we can proceed at this point with I guess I'm just kind of assuming at this point that we're going to see Brooks and Pierre strong as our starting running backs, and probably not just for a couple snaps, I'm seeing a very distinct scenario and possibility that what's going to happen is that the Green Bay Packers are not going to have Josh Jacobs, and they're not going to have Marshawn Lloyd for a very extended period of time, and you got to figure out what the heck that looks like. Presumably the draft is a place we're going to have to start looking pretty heavily, but outside of that, what about this year? Because you know, I think we could get by, but I'd rather not focus on just getting by at this point. Now, it's easier to just say that than to actually do something productive, and I don't know exactly what that is at this point. Fall to your knees and hope and pray that Marshawn Lloyd and Josh Jacobs situations get resolved and everything's going to be fine, but outside of that, I feel like there's either got to be a trade situation, which is not my favorite option, or some kind of a free agent option. Now, if there were any good free agents, they wouldn't be free agents, that's kind of the thing about free agency. Unfortunately, there are some names here that I think are potentially worth keeping an eye on. For example, Naji Harris, Naji Harris is first of all exactly the type of running back that I could see Brian Gutta comes being a big fan of, he's 28 so he's not super old, although in running back years that's like 32 six won 242 pounds, and he played for Alabama, so big dude, strong dude, and the other thing is, he's always been good, I don't exactly know what happened, but he spent four years at Pittsburgh Steelers, and his grades were 7175 77 and 77 He went to the Chargers after his four years, only had 15 attempts, but at 61 yards, 4.1 yards per attempt, and an 84 rushing grade. Nick Chubb is available, he's 3511 227 so another big dude, he comes out of Georgia, so there you go. Big program was phenomenal for a very long time in Cleveland, had one, looks like he got injured in 2023 came back 2024 was not really himself, played for Houston last year, and seemed to do pretty well, 136 attempts, 568 yards, 4.2 yards per attempt, three touchdowns, 76 rushing grade. I don't know that he's, you know, 2022 version of Nick Chubb is coming back, but again in a pinch, I don't, sure, why not? Now, the contracts these guys are asking for matters, but none of them made a ton of Naji Harris had a $5 million contract last year, Chubb was 2.5 million. It looks like I understand we got to let these situations resolve a little bit, but I would certainly be keeping an eye on a few of these guys. I think those two in particular are probably the most interesting. Joe Mixon is available, but he's kind of a scumbag, so I don't really want him on the team. Maybe Naji and Chub have some stuff going on that I just don't remember, or whatever. But again, we'll, we'll, we'll see about that in the, in the future. I, you know, I think before we even discuss trade, we'd have to see definitive. Lee, first of all, the Josh Jacobs thing would have to resolve with him being let go, and then you know from there we could start talking about it. Certainly, if Marshawn Lloyd has some kind of a serious injury that's going to hold him out for a while. I think at that point we're very seriously looking into, are there trade candidates available? How big and splashy, I don't know, but that would become much more of a real thing. As of right now, I don't know. Outside of the Packers making some phone calls, I don't know exactly what what they'd be willing to do, and how much we need to really dig into all that, but certainly disappointing. And by next week, when the Packers are back at it, we had better see Marsha and Lloyd practicing. I mean, we had better at least hear that he is practicing it again, and you know, if they want to shut him down because they want to keep him healthy, or whatever the case may be, they're trying to preserve his body so that he doesn't go through the issues yet. Fine, then first of all, make a statement about that, so we understand the situation, and don't panic, but beyond that, he needs to be out there, he needs to have freaking a helmet on and running around and doing stuff, because this is stupid. And then I think, lastly, for today, some other stuff, but it's bigger stuff, and I'm running out of time here. Wife and I are actually going out to dinner, which is a rare occasion for us, so I'm pretty excited about that. But Bo Melton is now officially listed as a wide receiver, so if you are getting whiplash, then you're just like the rest of us. Again, you gotta, you gotta appreciate Bo Melton, if for no other reason the fact that he's getting jerked around by this team left and right, and he is just keeping his head right in this thing now. Maybe, maybe behind the scenes, he's got a bad attitude, but as much as the Packers love him, I get the impression that he has a great attitude, and maybe he should have more of an attitude, because I mean it would be hard to be a little bit upset to feel like, you know, I've got talent and I've got something to offer, and if you would just invest in me in one area, maybe I could actually grow and thrive in that area, instead of jerking me around from cornerback to wide receiver to gunner to returner to all these different things, you know. I don't know, but he's certainly a valuable asset for us, and hopefully the Packers are able to, you know, I don't want to say stay loyal, I mean, if he doesn't, if it's, if it's not worth keeping him around, then I guess he's got to go, but hopefully they can actually find a role for him, and he can help the Green Bay Packers this year. You know, last year I know he was the issue last year was he had so many wide receivers that the only way he was going to stay on the team is if they moved him to corner. Well, we've kind of purged that, so you could see why it would maybe make sense to move him back if that is his strongest position. In which case, the Packers are actually probably doing right by him, that is, assuming you don't think that just letting him go somewhere and be a wide receiver somewhere else. But either way, I think with the thinning of the wide receiver room, it's given him an opportunity to get back into that room, and you know he's going to be pretty low on the pecking order, but at the same time, what do we got? We got Watson, Reed, Golden, after that is Savian, and then after that is probably Bo, and me being a number five wide receiver, he'll get some action, and as much as Matt LaFleur loves the guy, I mean, you can't, you can't guarantee he won't be ahead of Savian, I don't think he will, but I think Matt LaFleur really likes him, I think he wants him in the offense, and I think he's excited about the different ways that he can use him in the offense, I'm excited about the different ways we can use him in the offense, so anywho, just real quick, let me pull this up, just as a reminder, the Green Bay Packers calendar moving forward, the so this week was week one of OTAs, Friday was that final day, next week, if I'm not mistaken, day one is going to be June 1 of OTAs, and then usually I don't know the exact schedule, but I think in the past, as I've said, usually it's one week of media availability, so it'll be similar. It's probably going to be the second, maybe the next day, which would be June 2, where the media has access to practice, and then they'll have access to Matt LaFleur, and potentially they'll have locker room access, unless they shut that down again because of the Josh Jacobs situation. I don't know, they may just shut that down until training camp or something. I'm not really sure how they're going to handle that, but either way, we'll have some information by next week. Let's see, so this episode will be for Saturday, then Sunday, then Monday. Okay, so just a couple days until we're back at it. So, anywho, you all have a good rest of your day. If you have any calls, 608-501-0718 get your calls in, and I will talk to you over there. Have a good one. 

ladies and gentlemen. Welcome once again to the Packernet Podcast. I am your host and resident panelist, as always, Ryan Schlipp. Check us out online, packernet.com Find me on Twitter, pack underscore dad. So, yesterday we did a Caleb thing, because it was brought to my attention, I guess, that these kinds of things are being said, and I mean, it shouldn't be necessarily surprising. I mean, we've seen a lot of dumb things from Les. I mean, we've seen Justin Fields, who was dog crap, and we're being told that the guy was actually very, very good and was just being held back, and all this stupid nonsense was never ever true, as I think we all have come to realize. Shame on those that doubted me, but again, the the Bears are not the only ones having some fantastical ideas, and as I've said the last couple of days, the one that surprised me the most was the Minnesota Vikings, and so I'm more curious than anything to kind of dive around and see what the heck these guys have been doing over here. Again, they're quiet, they've been quiet, which you know, again, everybody's been kind of quiet, nobody's really crossing that line of like talking trash, but everyone's kind of in their own corner getting themselves fired up and in their tight little, their airtight bubbles, so that when you walk into it, it's holy cow, what have you guys been doing over here, which I'm sure they do to us as well, but I figured there's a nice little connection here, because yesterday we talked about the Chicago Bears quarterback and some of the nonsense that's going on, and although I'm not sure exactly what the heck is going on over there in Minnesota, aside from just a very cursory look, I do know that a big part of their belief in everything being different this year is, wait for it, the quarterback. Now, most of us hadn't even considered that this is very similar to when they got Donald, which, yes, did go very, very well. He's still playing at a very high level. I don't think many people expected that, and I don't think that that happens very often. I think that that's exceedingly rare. We'll see if Malik is another one of those, unfortunately, but there does seem to be an underlying confidence that, okay, we needed a quarterback, boom, we got this guy, and again, I don't know if it's so much that Kyler is going to be elite as opposed to JJ, was the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone ever anywhere, and anybody that is even marginally decent at anything is going to get us to where we need to be, because I guess we're just such a good team, we need subpar quarterback play just to be a playoff team, like if we just get to up to subpar, then we're good, but I figure before we kind of attack the issue, I want to find out what exactly it is, what are Vikings fans saying about their quarterback situation, because first of all, I think it's settled, but I, you know, they're at least not 100% going to come out and say that it's settled. The Athletics, Alec Lewis believes the Vikings will measure quarterback JJ McCarthy's development by assessing his accuracy, touch, consistency this summer, by the way. I will say, as Packer fans, we don't want JJ McCarthy to start. The reason being they went out and got this quarterback, Kyler Murray, with the full intention of him starting. There's never a question, JJ is going to be moved, McCarthy is going to be the guy, we're going to find a new quarterback, excuse me, Kyler is going to be the guy, and then we're going to find a new quarterback and move forward that way, unless we can get Kyler to be really good, even then it's kind of iffy, they're probably hoping for a second Sam Darnold situation, then they don't mess it up and get rid of him, but he's 30, and as a mobile quarterback, age is a much bigger issue. He's not quite 30, but he's getting there. Once you start hitting the later years as a mobile quarterback, you have to learn to stand in the pocket and throw, and if you can't, then it's not great. Plus, the size and injury stuff, his, he's not going to be a 40 year old quarterback, it's not going to happen. So, the shelf life here is much shorter than, for example, Sam Darnold. So, with all that said, with the expectation of moving on from McCarthy and moving in a different direction, if. McCarthy starts. It's because, holy crap, he took that step. So that's the only, the only path I see, pending some, you know, injury or whatever, where they start JJ McCarthy over Kyler Murray, which would suck, because that would, that would be bad. So why don't we start here, and I know this guy's like extra biased hypey for the Vikings, but it's still a good spot to kind of be like, all right, what, what, what's what's the vibe over here? What's going on, Jerome's so the storyline of the off season that this is Purple FTW podcast, by the way, if you're interested in supporting, or whatever. I don't know, like it should get hype, and it seems sort of glossed over that the Vikings signed Kyler Murray, who's still getting paid almost 40 million bucks from the Cardinals for $1.3 million and he's Asian, he can do that. The good thing, a two-time Pro Bowl quarterback in his prime, so note number one, they're doing the whole, you know, two-time Pro Bowler thing. In his prime is another one. These are little notes that you can set to the side of what there is to be excited about. Still under 30 with revenge on his mind, as long as he's not playing video games to basically captain this ship, man, whether it's Kyler, whether it's JJ. Yes, it is funny that it transitioned so quickly from, dude, this guy is legitimately, he's legitimately elite, and nobody's talking about it, and that's crazy, or maybe the other guy who's also good don't sound super committed, there. That's interesting. Is JJ McCarthy being thrown under the bus at times? Yes, yes, but quarterback competition, we all know we love JJ. You know what I love more, the Vikings. So whoever it is, whatever it takes, done to them, and also we say we said we just need a captain of the ship, we need somebody to thought he was gonna say Carson Wentz, I was like, please just say Carson Wentz, it'd be hilarious if you also, if that doesn't work, we got Carson Went, skip ahead here just a touch, and with Kyler, this is a chance for some full on career rehab, right. Justin Jefferson, his corner is going to be good to go, and his time with Arizona didn't end the greatest, right? You know, got his contract, even though he's playing his video game. Still never going to forgive Steve Keim, but last year Kyler Murray, you know, five games before he got injured, he did some stuffings and things, you know, completed 68% was best, which Kyler doesn't get enough credit for being an accurate thrower. The football was good to go, and I know a lot has been made, is like, well, what about his a dot has averaged up the targets, but now last couple years, have you seen the Arizona offense? Like, there has nothing been there's to be fair, the reason that matters is because if you're going to talk accuracy, you kind of have to look at it as an accuracy per area of the field thing, right? Because if, if the a dot, the average depth of target is the reason for the accuracy, then you're not actually that accurate of a quarterback, you just throw easier passes. I'm not saying that's the case, but that's the reason that gets brought up. Ben, there's never been a more podunk checkdown offense since watching like JV football. It's essentially what it is, man. But Kyler went two and three as a starter. Jabroni Brisket went one and 15, by the way, or one at 11, plus enough, really good at math, yeah, but Kyler is on the full on career rehab trajectory, and the odds reflect that, in terms of comeback player of the year. Now, Mahomes is probably just gonna be handed the trophy, right, because ACL pretty much probably, yeah, come back all that good stuff, he's the prohibitive favorite across all of the books. Kyler is interestingly enough coming in second, either plus 600 so six to one, you know, 550 in a couple places as well. And I know that everyone's pissing, Mona, like, well, why is Michael Parsons odd so low? Parsons not a quarterback. Parsons tore his knee up late in the season, so there's no guarantee that he's going to be back early in the season, and may not even be himself by mid season. It is what it is, so that's why his odds are longer. Plus, he's not a quarterback, plus, like you said, Pat Mahomes. Good luck beating Pat Mahomes. Pat, I mean, Pat, Pat Mahomes doesn't even need to actually be like a top 10 quarterback, you can see that already everybody already putting him in the top two as far as the rankings, like today, even though he hasn't been in four three years since he's been, I think you'd have to go back four years before he'd be in the top three conversation, but he just needs. To come back and have a winning football team and look like Pat Mahomes, and he will win Comeback Player of the Year, Kyler Murray. If Pat Mahomes doesn't do that, Kyler Murray does make sense to be the next best in line, because he's a quarterback, and if they can make him look good, which again, he doesn't need to be like, you know, PFF grade, top 10-ish. He needs to be healthy the whole year. The Vikings need to have a winning record and needs to look like it's on the back of Kyler Murray, and if they do that, and Pat McHale's isn't in the way, he will win that again. You could say, well, I mean, that's pretty impressive that he is ahead of Michael Parsons, that does say something, maybe kind of, but very much to his point. Micah Parsons is going to have a very difficult time when you're going to miss at least the first four games of the season to dominate to such a degree, and basically the only thing that matters here in this conversation, if we're talking about comeback player of the year, is stay healthy, get a bunch of sacks. I mean, good luck getting the number of sacks you need minus an entire quarter of the season. So, yeah, I mean, I guess, but if you remove Micah from the equation, who is Kyler ahead of in the odds? Malik Neighbors, Daniel Jones and Deshaun Watson. Basically, it's a two-man race with Pat Mahomes at the top, and then Kyler, if he can play, and Mahomes, you know, if he gets hurt, then we'll just hand it to Kyler. And if Kyler can't do it, then Micah has a chance. And the fact that Micah is ahead of all these other guys, which makes sense, have not even having a full season, I don't necessarily know everybody else's situation, but Deshaun Watson isn't even guaranteed to be the starting quarterback, although his odds are way off. Basically, it's not a very large pool, so you know to look at and be like, well, he has the second best comeback odds. I'm not necessarily saying he's doing this, but to use that as evidence that, like, Vegas believes he's going to have a great year, it's an unbelievably small pool of people that could even be considered for this award, because he's going to have a truncated amount of time to do some damage. You have Malik Neighbors, Daniel Jones, Deshaun Watson. Why is Watson on there? It was, but Kyler, second place at getting around six to one. I do think it is Mahomes award to lose, but you know, the media does love a good story, and if and when Kyler Murray is, you know, he wants a starting job and just absolutely lights it up with this freaking offense, which there's gonna have a rededication in the run game. Kyler still has enough mobility where it's a threat to the defense. You got Jefferson, Addison, and Jennings. This offensive line should be good to go, because Darrisaw's leg hopefully won't fall off this season. And then you got Jackson, whoo, Blake Brandle, the solid veteran, getting acclimated at center. Will Fries going to prove that he's worth, hey dirty baby, I'm worth the money. Don't you worry, I said, hey, okay, we got some fries. All right, all right, all right, let's, let's, let's calm down, let's go ahead and skip a little bit here. It's offense, I know that people like to poo poo on the Vikings, and I know that we generally have a very sunny disposition when it comes to the Vikings, but if you're not drinking the purple Kool-Aid, honestly, it takes a special type of hater and loser to look at this offensive unit and be like child, please, and not even mention the defense across, which is going to be hellacious, is going to be extremely good at getting their ass off the field, good field position, taking the ball away, everything's gonna be good. So I honestly do believe that Kyler, you know, everyone and their mom, all Cardinals fan, you know, blaming Kyler for everything, but it's okay. It's okay, he can take the heat, he's gonna be motivated, he's gonna be mobile, agile, hostile. Give me all the six to one, baby. Just I feel like Kyler's on that comeback train and is going to be good to go, right? All right, good enough. So that's a position, and I look again as a Packer fan, even though they are in the division, and, but we got a lot to cover, and a lot to talk about, and all that stuff, and I think for the most part we've been looking at the NFC North through a 30,000 foot view. I haven't spent a lot of my life looking at Kyler Murray and his career, occasionally dabble over the years, just kind of like, oh, what's he, oh, he's, he's really good now, oh, he sucks now. Oh, whatever. I think kind of, kind of the big picture plan that I had here was let's look at Kyler, because that's another big thing. I don't want to go super in depth. We may have to, if I can't, you know, make this a big enough podcast in and of itself. And then perhaps we'll see, I don't, I don't want you know, sometimes I like my themes maybe a little bit more than I should, but the thought would be tomorrow we would do something similar with the Lions with the final crescendo, and maybe we'll just skip part three and go straight to the crescendo, being let's just look at the NFC North quarterbacks, and let's be honest about it. Let's look at golf, let's look at Kyler, let's look at Kayla. And then love, I don't know if we need to do this for the Lions, because I don't know that a lot of Lions fans are sitting around going, "Dude, we're going to be dope because of our quarterback. Last I remember, they started to fall out of love with him a little bit, but maybe that's the best. I'll do a tiny bit of digging to see if there's some golf hype. There probably is, and if there is, then we'll, we'll play this game as well, just so we can kind of get the receipts, and then hear specifically the arguments being made for them, and then we'll, and then again we will crescendo. What the heck does that word mean? Boy, I had no chance of spelling that crescendo, c r e s c r e s c e n d o, a gradual increase in loudness, force, or intensity. See, that's not what I was going for. So, a crescendo is the swelling, it's not the.. so now we're doing the crescendo. This is the swelling portion. Should stop using both of those words, swelling and crescendo. Well, see, I didn't want that to be the.. I didn't want that to be the word I was looking for. There's got to be a different word. Other related terms: fortissimo, sforzando, and tutti. Fortissimo is what we're going to go for, so we'll do the, we'll do the crescendo now, and then it'll get to the fortissimo. Definitely not the other thing, also not 2t We're not going to do a 2t We, there will be no two ting here on the Packer Nut Podcast. But let's take a break, and we'll be right back, you right, let's move over here. This is Menace, excuse me, Purple Daily, Minnesota Vikings chemistry. It is a Q and A segment, I believe. I don't know, but this.. this first portion is Brian continues and says, let me get serious now. The national media narrative on Kyler Murray is that his deep ball has regressed, but a quarterback's downfield accuracy is heavily tied to his targets. When he had DeAndre Hopkins a few years ago, Kyler was one of the better deep ball throwers. First of all, I don't think that's true at all. We'll get into the actual breaking these things down, but just to be clear, you would have to prove that to me. That's one of those things people on social media like to do, where they say things that they think sound smart without having any regard for whether or not you have to look that up. I don't think that that's true. Why? I mean, why would that be the case? I mean, the assumption is, well, if you got somebody wide open or whatever, but that's kind of irrelevant, and the stats don't really take that into account. It's just a question of whether or not you throw a good ball, and saying, well, if you look back a few years ago to when he had this person, then, then, yeah, but you're kind of, you're not really answering the question, you're just kind of giving a different explanation for it, while acknowledging that there has been regression. Yeah, well, a few years ago it was good. I know that's the entire point. It was good, and now it's not good. And you're saying that it's, it's only because of the players, and I'm not saying there can't be some kind of a relationship there. Maybe it goes to confidence, or, you know, I don't know, could also be things like offensive line, you know, if you're throwing on the run in a panic, as opposed to a comfortable pocket, there can be all kinds of variables, but on some level you're going to have to actually prove that correlation, which is again a lot of work to do, significantly less now with AI, but I doubt anybody's actually going to bother doing that, as opposed to just saying it because it sounds good in football with Justin Jefferson and the best supporting cast of his career in Minnesota. Is it creative to prove that as well? I don't know that that's true, but perhaps easy to think Kyler can regain that accuracy and launch himself right back into the MVP conversation, like in 2020 This is how you know that somebody's just saying stuff when, when we go from 'trust me, bro, I'm just being rational' to 'Should we be talking MVP? Why would we go to MVP again? It's not that it's impossible, but why would your mind be sitting there? Why, why, why would that be the case? I mean, if we say it's possible for all 32 quarterbacks, and then work backwards, how far do we get before Kyler gets taken off that list, I. You know, if we're going off of most likely, I don't think he's at or near the top. He won with D Hop, if he stays healthy for the majority of the season. That is where Judd's camp notes come into play. I gotta see the arm strength, because you know he's not wrong. Look, like we have seen, you might be wrong, but I guess we don't know that highlights of Kyler through the years with Cardinals, with some nice deep passes. In fact, again, kind of begging the question here. The question is, is it regressing right? So, if you go back and say, well, if you look back several years ago, it looked good. That doesn't answer the question of is it regressing. If I'm not mistaken, he beat the Vikings on a deep pass to the late Rondelle Moore in a game. So I'm curious to see what the arm strength is now, and again, the question wasn't about strength, although that would be a part of it. It was specifically about accuracy, which is a different thing. Doesn't have to be. I mean, if you don't have the strength and the accuracy of getting the ball to where it needs to be, as opposed to falling short, naturally follows. But now we're just kind of answering why. But he may have strength and not accuracy, so he. so, in other words, what is probably going to happen that doesn't answer the question is he's going to get in cap, he's going to launch a 55 yard ball, and everybody from Purple Daily is going to go, "Well, that answers the question. Everybody was talking about his arm strength, and there it is. No, no, that's not exactly what was being questioned. It was his deep ball accuracy, which is a different thing, and if it was just, but it's weird, because was it the receivers, was it the play calling, because he still had play calling, what the hell does that have to do with his accuracy, or arm strength, for that matter, some pretty good receivers, or so we thought with the Cardinals, but it definitely dissipated, so stage one is what I would say, stage, so this, this theory, like, like the downfield theory of he just has, he's had bad targets, and I'm maybe I'm wrong on this, but I feel like that logic could apply for sure to the 25 plus yard air throws, right? So, all right, this is kind of a 5050 ball. I'm putting the ball way down the field, and over the last four years on passes that travel 25 plus yards in the air down the field of all the qualified quarterbacks, like the, like the 45 qualified quarterbacks, Tyler is dead last incompletion percentage, 21% on passes that travel 25 or more yards. I wasn't going to look at it quite yet, because that was going to be more of a tomorrow or two days thing, but I'm staring at he's looking at something else, because it's 25 yards, he's probably over at Pro Football Reference or something. I'm looking at PFF, which is 20 plus yards, and I'm not looking at the rest of the field, but I can see he has a 76 grade, which sounds good, but this is when you're talking deep balls, this is the area where you've probably got five quarterbacks with a 99 grade, you've got the, you know, probably 20 in the 90s, so being at a 75 he's going to be relatively low. His completion percentage is at 37.5% which that usually is low. So, I can't speak to where that's at, but I'm guessing this is not very good compared to the rest of the league. Yards in the air, yeah, dead last in expected points added per attempt, that's bad. And dead last in yards per attempt, you could say. Well, well, that doesn't even make any sense. You wouldn't look at yards per attempt when you're already looking at 25 I mean, that's kind of just a weird anomaly, I guess. Well, I guess, and again, this is, there are better ways to do this than yards per attempt, if you were really concerned, but if it's 25 plus as the final thing, you could say that he has a weak arm because everybody else has these 60 yard, 50 yard throws, and his, his or more in the 2530 range. He's really not airing it out as much. You could say that, but that doesn't even necessarily answer that question. I think that's just a stupid stat to look at yards per attempt when you're looking at the, when you're looking specifically at yardage, yeah, I mean, give them a, give them a reliable target down the field. Here's where this is, this is where Judd's camp notes are going to come into play even more. It's the 10 plus yards in the air being bad that makes me more nervous, because that now includes the intermediate stuff, kind of the like the deep intermediate, those in cut routes that Kevin O'Connell loves. They're doing my homework for me. I appreciate this. Right, since 2022 on passes and going back to 2022 this encompasses some of his good years. The travel 10 or more yards down the field, Kyler dead last in expected points added per attempt. Yeah, that's 41st out of 43 in yards per attempt, and 36 out of 43 in completion percentage. The yards per attempt make a little bit more sense there, but still, it's even in general, I think yards per attempt is kind of a stupid stat. The only time I would really care is if it was exceedingly high or exceedingly low, that's where you kind of put a little asterisk next to some things like accuracy, and say, okay, we need to kind of do a little bit extra digging, but I genuinely don't care all that much. Yes, having Jefferson, Addison, Juan Jennings is going to help him, and any other quarterback, but like those are valid concerns over the past few years that we need to see what that looks like throughout mini camp, training camp, OTAs, etc. but do we think so? I guess let's go back to 2024 with Donald. You pretty quickly picked up on, don't, don't start. Don't listen. Here is another thing that we're going to have to, again, this, this is kind of just immersing ourselves in, like, what is the conversation over here? What are we doing? What I'm not going to tolerate is, yeah, but we said this about Donald. Darnold was a one-off. Okay, now I am not saying that Kyler, who's already unlike Darnold, demonstrated an ability to be a very good quarterback, if he got, if he was healthy in Arizona, he might have been good this year in Arizona. And I think Kevin O'Connell is a good coach, a good play caller, they have a good offensive line, they have good wide receivers, or mostly good offensive line, and at least one good wide receiver. There's every reason to believe that this could be one of his up years in a career that's been very like really good, really bad, really good, really bad. What I'm not going to do is play this game where you know, look at what happened with Donald, and so we should expect that to be a thing that happens all the time. That is a once in a lifetime situation. What happened with Arnold on in watching him at training camp? He had a great deep ball, like his depot is, he has a very good impeccable. He always did his medium range stuff was okay. I mean, it wasn't a disaster, but it certainly was not great. But if you have issues with the deep ball and you have issues with what you just talked about, which is the intermediate stuff. What would you say you do here? So, like, that's going to be really intriguing to watch. It seems to me like, like one or the other has to be efficient, and quite frankly, if I only can take one, I'm probably taking the mid-range stuff, because those plays present themselves a lot more, like I mean, just, just as a, so if we look at it, and this is going to be pretty, I don't know, that this, let me look at Jordan Love real quick, because this feels a little off, and again, his seems like he's known for throwing a lot of short passes, yeah, so, and Jordan's probably not a good example either, because I think he throws more deep balls than your average quarterback, but so he's at 15% of his passes are 20 plus, 20% of his passes are in the 10 to 19 yard range, so again, that's probably closer than most who would throw probably less deep balls for Kyler, you're looking at nine compared to 17, so yes, of course, you want the 17% to show out better than the 10% For reference, Jordan Love has a 94 passing grade on deep passes, a 91 passing grade on medium passes, 84 on short, and then 62 at behind the line of scrimmage. Kyler is 7174 6976 I'm not even gonna tell you directionally which way we're going, because it doesn't matter. He's just like a mid 70s across the board, and 41% of his passes are the zero to nine yards, with 24% being behind the line of scrimmage, so 63% of his passes came nine yards or less, and for Jordan Love it was, let's see, 55% so still a big chunk, but again you got 35% beyond that, with Kyler Murray sitting at like 25% of his passes, which is pretty crazy, one in four passes traveled 10 yards or more, Jordan was closer to one in three, and about 50% of Justin Jefferson's receptions came 10 yards or further down the field. Anywho, sorry, let's continue, but yes, that will be, that'll be very interesting to see. And you can always say, hey, look, I mean, with the Vikings, you're gonna have a top three receiver tandem that's really, really good, and that's, you know, the this is another thing that all four NFC North teams. Do is they, I think, over inflate. I don't want to sit here and say except the Packers, but I do think accept the Packers, because I don't think a lot of Packer fans, and I've talked to, if anything, they undersell the group. Well, Watson's never healthy, and Reed's no good, he's going to get traded and golden, and they're the underrated group in my mind, but top three receiver tandem. What are you talking about? Again, this is what I said. Remember when I told you that they massively overrate Addison? This is fricking crazy to me, that you think you have a top three. You don't even have a top three receiver anymore. This Justin Jefferson is the Pat Mahomes of wide receivers, he is a very good receiver who hasn't been a top receiver in three years, but everybody still says he's a top receiver, and yeah, maybe he bounces back, that's possible, but also until you do, I don't think I'm going to call you a top guy anymore, he ranked 14th last year as a receiver below Davante Adams. Now, I mean, no offense to Devonte, but I mean we know Devonte is slowly drifting in his 30s. Stefan Diggs has fallen off faster than Devonte, by the way. Christian Watson ranked 11th, so we have Christian Watson on this team who graded out higher than Justin Jefferson last year, and again, blame the quarterback all you want, that's fine, but until you actually prove it on the field, I'm not going to just say, "Oh no, he's still the top receiver. By the way, Pookan Akua, criminally underrated, everybody knows Pooka is good, he had like a 96 receiving grade, I don't think I don't think Jefferson has ever had that, and by the way, I was wrong. I was looking at Stefan Diggs; he ranked 17th last year. Justin Jefferson, his best year ever was a 91 so his grades have been 9190 9091, The last, then it dropped to an 88 which is still very good, but first time he's ever been below that, and then an 80 in 2025 that is a shocking drop off. Puka Nakua had a 96 receiving grade, that is better than than Jefferson has ever been by a mile. Jackson Smith and Jigba had a 93 grade, that's better than Jefferson has ever been, ever. So we still talk about Justin Jefferson, because again we fail to recalibrate, but he's not up there anymore. By the way, Aman Ross St. Brown, the last four years, 9091 9091 Aman Ross St. Brown has been as good as Justin Jefferson for four straight years. In other words, he's having a four year stretch that Jefferson had his first four years and is currently the better wide receiver in the NFC North. So, Jefferson isn't even the best receiver in the NFC North anymore. In fact, again, if we're just going off of last year, if we look at the did it, do, do, do. Let's, this would have been easier to just not do this. NFC North, Aman Ross St. Brown, then Christian Watson, then Justin Jefferson, with Luther Burden being nipping at his heels with a 78 great Romeo had a 77 almost as good as Justin Jefferson, Jameson Williams at a 77 I mean that that group is all right there with a minor gap between Jefferson and Watson, 80 to an 84 and then Aman Rah by himself at a 91 The only real blue chip wide receiver in the NFC North right now is Aman Raw St. Brown, until Justin Jefferson proves that last year was an anomaly, I had some stuff going on, our quarterback sucked, whatever, but I'm back fine, but again, until you prove that, and it's been, you have to go back not to 2025 or 2024 but to 2023 as the last time you had a 90 receiving grade, and again Pooka had almost 100 receiving grades. That's one of the best receiving grades that any receiver. I don't know that Devonte has ever had a grade like that, but yet we're still going to sit here and allow Vikings fans to talk about Justin Jefferson as though he is the premier receiver in the NFL, and that you have a top three receiving group, bro. You absolutely freaking do not. That is, that is an.. that is an absolute joke that you believe you have a top three receiving core, and.. and if you try to add your bum tight end to that, I'm gonna laugh in your face. I'm sorry, you might have the fourth best receiving core in the NFC North. I think you have the fourth best tight end again. You're, you're, when you, when you look at not just the, the top end, but the talent. I mean, if you look at Detroit, they've got Sam LaPorta, Jameson Williams, Amon Ra, St. Brown. I would take that. Met over Jefferson Addison and TJ Hawkinson, for reference, Jefferson 80 grade, Addison 61 which is the second lowest wide receiver grade. I think we already covered this in the entire NFC North, also ahead of Cole Commet, but that's kind of irrelevant at this point, but as far as wide receivers, just the second lowest, and then as far as tight ends, TJ Hawkinson is the lowest, not including Cole Commit, because he's not a number one tight end. It goes Coast and Loveland, then Sam Laporta, then Tucker Kraft, in terms of receiving grades, with all three of them being relatively close, 8683 and 83 between La Porta and Kraft, Hawkinson 62 he's not in the same category. Hawkinson is not good. There are three good tight ends, and Hawkinson is not one of them. So I would take Detroit without hesitation. Let's look at Chicago. Chicago has Colston Loveland, who is the, according to receiving grade, the second best receiver period in the NFC North. He was very good last year, had almost 1000 yards as a tight end at 906 Roma Dunes, a with a 71 grade, and Luther Burton with a 78 Now, you could argue that Jefferson currently is better and probably bounces back even more. So, would you rather have that? Honestly, no, because you can have one Justin Jefferson with a terrible supporting cast and a subpar tight end, and no real running backs to speak of, which we're not even discussing, or you can have an ascending a doomsday, an ascending burden, and a guy that could potentially be the top tight end in football here at Colston Loveland. Of course, I'm taking Chicago's group over Minnesota's group, and then you get to Green Bay. Well, as I said, Christian Watson already graded out higher than Justin Jefferson last year, and we have Matthew Golden, who we barely even got to see this past year, who almost graded out as well as Justin Jefferson did. He graded out better than Jalen Naylor and Jordan Addison. Obviously, there are other two receivers that were there, Naylor now a Raider, but it doesn't matter. They don't have good wide receivers, and then Tucker Kraft, who again is significantly better than what they have. The Minnesota Vikings have the fourth best receiving group. They're not even top three in the NFC North, and he's talking about, say that again, with the Vikings, you're going to have a top three receiver tandem that's really, really good. Oh my lord, you might have a bottom three receiver tandem. Dude, shut up. I mean, not really. Justin Jefferson is going to preclude that, but it's just.. it's not good. It's just not you. You have to get Justin Jefferson back to being a really good receiver. And again, even then, in today's NFL, he's not.. I don't know that he's going to be top five, because there's so many really, really good receivers. It's going to be hard for him to surpass Aman Ross St. Brown, who is currently playing at a level that Justin Jefferson played at at his best. Jamar Chase is already up there. Jackson Smith and Jigba and Pooka are already better receivers than Justin Jefferson, as I said, ever was. Drake London is up in that category right now. Pickens is up in there, there's a lot of guys that are that are kind of playing in that range. I think at best he gets back to what he was and ends up being third, but in a pile of probably three to four other guys that are about as good, but probably not as good as Jackson Smith and Jigba and Pooka Nakua. And again, I don't, I don't think there's any real reason to believe, pending Amon Ra falling off, that he, like, massively surpasses Aman Raw St. Brown. So, again, Justin Jefferson, I will, I will say this again, is the Pat Mahomes of wide receivers. He took the title of being the top receiver. And listen, I've always been flattering of Justin Jefferson, all right, because I, because I tell the truth, and if it's true, then I say it's true. He has been a very good receiver. I've always said he is a very good receiver. I have at times called him probably the best receiver, but this, this is not 2021 by the way. I don't know if he's ever been better than third. If you go back, I'm going back to 2020 now. Yeah, and that's that's the thing with being so, so, because he's been consistently like top three, top five. I've said he's like the best in football, but he's, I don't think he's been better than third. Justin Jefferson in 2020 was behind Stefan Diggs and Devonte Adams. In 2021 he was behind Devonte Adams and Cooper Cup. In 2022 he was, he dropped a fifth from third, and was behind Amon Ra, Devonte Adams, Jalen Naylor, and Tyreke Hill, which I mean, that's three years in a row, Devonte was ahead of them. 2023 he is fourth behind Amon Ra. And an Iuk and Tyreek Hill, and then again the fall off can begins in 2024 so he was top three, then the last, then the next two years, 2022 and 2023 he was top five, and now he in 2024 drops to top 10, being eighth behind T Higgins, Drake London, Aman Raw St Brown, Mike Evans, AJ Brown, Nico Collins, and new to the scene, Puka Nakua. By the way, in this year you had Nico Collins with a 92 grade, which again Justin Jefferson has never had. And then in 2025 is when you have him dropping out of the top 10, not even top 15, he becomes a top 20 receiver, ranking 17th. Hilariously, his 80 pff receiving grade is closer to Michael Wilson of Arizona than it is to Aman Ross St. Brown in the same division. I bring that up, obviously, because his new quarterback, it was in Arizona, so anywho, let's take our final break, and we'll be right back. And I'll say this just to start off this other site, but first of all, the Purple Daily, they do a good job being much more centered, and they have been this whole time. The top three thing kind of set me off, obviously, but, but for the most part, the conversation is centered around, you know, we'll have to see where he's at, and if he's any good. The fella in the middle here, I don't know their names, but he brings up a good point. I won't play the whole audio, but he's he's looking at 2021 and saying this is what Tyler's best year was, and he's going to go through how good it was as a point of being excited toward him, or whatever, or what he's capable of, I should say, and he brings up as a counterpoint to his point before he gets started, as a caveat, he knows that this is a very long time ago, five years as an eternity in the NFL, and brings up Deshaun Watson. If you remember, Deshaun Watson was the dude in Houston. He was freaking amazing as a quarterback. It feels like that never happened. It was such an eternity ago, another world ago, because, considering how much he gets made fun of for being garbage, he was unbelievably good as a quarterback, but if you were to try to convince anybody that he is good or could be good, as opposed to this dude fell, I can't explain it, but it's over. It just goes to show five years is an eternity, and without playing this, I'll just add one final caveat, and that is, you know, the NFL sometimes speaks to us and tells us what they think, then sometimes they get it wrong, clearly. But the Vikings did not inherit a guy that the NFL believes is elite. The Arizona Cardinals are paying him to play for another team right now, paying him a massive amount of money to play for the Vikings, and the Vikings invested like a million dollars to get them. They paid nothing for him, and anybody could have gotten him for that. And the Vikings just let him walk in. I don't think there is a single team out of 32 that believes in Kyler Murray anymore, and I think that's evident by the way that this whole thing is panning out. There was not a massive market, there was not a bidding war for him, there was nothing. They, they are paying a huge amount of money to let him play somewhere else, and this obviously ties into the Jefferson thing as well, because not only Vikings fans, but I'm sure Packer fans will listen and say, "Oh, come on, of course he's elite. And again, I believe he - I mean, he's young enough that I'm sure he'll have a bounce back this year in a better situation. My point is things change in the NFL, and we don't change with it fast enough. The Pat Mahomes thing, the Justin Jefferson thing, things change rapidly, and we constantly.. but this is where free agency gets stupid, because people will hear big names and go, 'Oh, you gotta get him. Not realizing he hasn't been a thing in three, four years. This is also why I don't think Pooka gets his proper due, because I mean, we know Pook is good, but I mean, you know, he's not Jocelyn Jefferson, bro. Come on, stop it. The torch has been passed, and Puka is what Justin Jefferson never was. And this is with all due full respect to Jefferson, who I have been. If you're a Vikings fan and you've been listening a while, you need to acknowledge I have been very flattering to Jefferson. In fact, when I talk about top receivers, he's always my go-to, and I believe he can get back to like a 90 grade this year. It's entirely possible, but I think he's going to try to fight to get back into top five. At a minimum, I would guess he gets back to top 10, but it's also possible that his reign is over, and he is just a good receiver, not a great receiver. And as Packer fans, I need you to understand a couple things. When I try to get people to understand the gap in understanding here, in other words, we put Justin Jefferson on God tier, and Watson is good, but he hasn't really. Reach that level, like he's a solid guy. We need a number one. Watson was above him, better than him, higher category. And the fact that he was 11th to be a top 10 receiver is incredible. It is, there are so many elite receivers, it is hard to crack the top 10. He was 11th, Justin Jefferson was 17th. The inability for Packer fans to grasp this, I think, fully, and I say this partially to myself, because it's, it's, it feels impossible, but we don't fully appreciate how good Watson was this past year, not, and this isn't even necessarily AC, he's been good this whole time. Like I said, he had a breakout, he came back from injury and was like, holy, the same same with Tucker, except it's the opposite with Tucker. Everybody always thought Tucker was great, and I was like, you guys are overrating Tucker. And then he became the beast that everybody said he always was. Now I think he's still overrated, where people say he's the number one tight end. I think he could be, and he's in a conversation with a pile of tight ends, including two others in our own division, Colston Loveland and Sam La Porta, but I'm not, I'm not really interested in fighting that battle, because he's a very good tight end, and you know, if he ends up being the fifth best instead of the number one, I'm, you know, whatever. Fine. Just call him the best. I don't, I don't really care. It's not worth fighting over, but there is a severe lack of understanding how good Christian Watson was in the limited time that we saw him. By the way, he came back healthy and just played, so we might have a top 10 receiver all year if he can stay healthy, not to mention hopefully a breakout gold, and not to mention Tucker Kraft continuing to ascend, hopefully, or at least maintaining his position that he was at last year. You want to talk about top three receiving duo, or a group, or whatever? I don't know that the Packers crack that, but boy, do they have a good one. They're at least fighting in a very tough division to be the best receiving group in the NFC North, which is again going to be very difficult when you have Aman Rah Saint Brown and Sam La Porta. We're going to have to rely on depth, which the Bears also have, so they're also going to be better than the Bears. So, in order to be the best in the division, you have to be very good and very deep, and that's not going to be easy to do, but this is a to go off and complete my tangent that has nothing to do with the original topic. This is a very good and underrated group of receivers. I think this is a very good take here too. I think his name is Jud. I'm not sure, but this is this is this is essentially, I think they do a very good job of putting things in their proper context, the way that I try to do, and to try to step back and be like, okay, let's, let's be calm, and let's think about this. He highlights specifically, sort of the fan problem here, because it's funny when you're, when you know a guy and he was a big name player, and he gets signed by the team that you cover a lot of times, you, you go in thinking that the highlights that you've seen are him, or what you've heard is him, and then you find out it's different. Exactly right, exactly right. And that could be positive or negative, right. This is why the Kyler Murray thing is probably so polarizing, because if you're a Vikings fan, you think highlights, and if you're a Packers fan, you think Call of Duty, right? Do you think the guy's a freaking bum and a lazy in and wait a minute? I don't know how Call of Duty works, but don't they have certain, like, releases or whatever? We gotta, I want to see something long-running NFL meme that Kyler Murray tends to play worse after a new Call of Duty game comes out, or during a big Call of Duty event like Double XP weekends. Hold on, wait for it. So, probably not September. When is our next game? Oh no, is it late? Oh, november 15. Yeah, that might. So, we might have missed it. According to this, mid October is the highest risk period for a new Call of Duty drop. There's also there are weekends for double XP. This is so funny that we're going to be able to make fun of them for this, but apparently they don't announce that until a few days or like a week until presumably the Thanksgiving period is when they're going to be having some kind of events, and we play the Vikings november 15, so probably too early. Dang it, when do the.. what does the Vikings get? Who's.. who's.. I hope it's not the Bears. So mid October they've got the Saints, which would be hilarious if they dropped that one, possibly the Colts. That's kind of late October, and then you've got the Thanksgiving time, which would be roughly ers, Falcons. Yeah. Oh, well, we'll have fun with it. I think we can maybe end on this. No, this is a very long video, and there's plenty of other Kyler stuff, but just again, just trying to get a general vibe on this one other thing that was. Mentioned as a person that called in or wrote into their show and talked about the potential problems with a, as the writer put it, a Kevin Hart-sized quarterback playing in cold weather. Now that's a very good point, obviously it is a dome team, but they have to play two games in, well, I guess one in Green Bay, which I think is, uh, when is that? Yeah, the first one is there, so that actually works in our, then, yeah, the november 15, so that that works massively in our favor. Let me take a peek at their schedule here. So, when is it going to start getting cold, probably not till October. Warm weather, warm weather, pretty much everybody's a freaking dome now. Lions are a dome, Buffalo, but that's at home. Yeah, so I mean, they don't play a cold weather game, I think until november 15 against the Packers. They play the Patriots in New England december 10. I'm trying to remember who has a dome and who doesn't, Patriots, I don't believe do they play the Jets january 3, so I think those are their only cold weather games, but still worth mentioning, and obviously by virtue of how cold weather works, these are all later in the season, so if you have an injury-prone smaller quarterback that has already taken his lumps, now has to start playing in cold weather games. You could see a situation where the Minnesota Vikings possibly get off to a hot start, but similar to what you see with older quarterbacks, they start to diminish toward the end of the season. This is why, by the way, Green Bay always talks about how they like to get bigger guys, and they've always kind of liked getting bigger guys, in part just as a general NFL theory, but also because of the cold weather situation, and even if you think you're not a cold weather team because you have a dome, you still have to travel, you're still gonna have to play in it, and theoretically, and hopefully you're going to struggle to get through the later portion of the season and stay resilient as it starts getting colder, so hopefully that does end up being a bit of a hindrance. All right, so here's the plan, tentatively moving forward. I'm going to do some general due diligence today to see if Lions fans are hyping up golf. I'm guessing there has to be some. On one hand, you've got like the I think if you, if you just had a room full of Lions fans, they're probably not hyping up Goff a ton. They feel like he's maybe kind of holding them back or something. I don't know, but if you were to have an NFC North discussion about Jordan Love and Caleb and who's the best quarterback, I'm guessing you'd see plenty of Lions fans come out and say, give me a frickin' break, it's golf, and that's all I need, that's all I need to go off of. So I will see if I can find some of that. We will discuss that quarterback situation and how they feel about him, and then that will.. what the heck was the word for Flino? I don't remember something Italian and Effie. We'll do our breakdown of my thoughts again, kind of like I've done before, in terms of I don't want to go in, find where Jordan is the best, pretend that those are the best stats, and then say, ha ha, we win. I want to start with the stats and then go find them and then rank them accordingly. Start from a standpoint of, here's what I think makes you kind of like what Colin Coward did, but he did it like an idiot. Start with your criteria, and then go look at the quarterbacks. But I'm going to leave it at that for today. I will talk to you all later. 

ladies and gentlemen. Welcome once again to the Packernet Podcast. I am your host and resident panelist, as always, Ryan Schlipp. Check us out online, packernet.com Find me on Twitter, pack underscore dad. So, yesterday we did a Caleb thing, because it was brought to my attention, I guess, that these kinds of things are being said, and I mean, it shouldn't be necessarily surprising. I mean, we've seen a lot of dumb things from Les. I mean, we've seen Justin Fields, who was dog crap, and we're being told that the guy was actually very, very good and was just being held back, and all this stupid nonsense was never ever true, as I think we all have come to realize. Shame on those that doubted me, but again, the the Bears are not the only ones having some fantastical ideas, and as I've said the last couple of days, the one that surprised me the most was the Minnesota Vikings, and so I'm more curious than anything to kind of dive around and see what the heck these guys have been doing over here. Again, they're quiet, they've been quiet, which you know, again, everybody's been kind of quiet, nobody's really crossing that line of like talking trash, but everyone's kind of in their own corner getting themselves fired up and in their tight little, their airtight bubbles, so that when you walk into it, it's holy cow, what have you guys been doing over here, which I'm sure they do to us as well, but I figured there's a nice little connection here, because yesterday we talked about the Chicago Bears quarterback and some of the nonsense that's going on, and although I'm not sure exactly what the heck is going on over there in Minnesota, aside from just a very cursory look, I do know that a big part of their belief in everything being different this year is, wait for it, the quarterback. Now, most of us hadn't even considered that this is very similar to when they got Donald, which, yes, did go very, very well. He's still playing at a very high level. I don't think many people expected that, and I don't think that that happens very often. I think that that's exceedingly rare. We'll see if Malik is another one of those, unfortunately, but there does seem to be an underlying confidence that, okay, we needed a quarterback, boom, we got this guy, and again, I don't know if it's so much that Kyler is going to be elite as opposed to JJ, was the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone ever anywhere, and anybody that is even marginally decent at anything is going to get us to where we need to be, because I guess we're just such a good team, we need subpar quarterback play just to be a playoff team, like if we just get to up to subpar, then we're good, but I figure before we kind of attack the issue, I want to find out what exactly it is, what are Vikings fans saying about their quarterback situation, because first of all, I think it's settled, but I, you know, they're at least not 100% going to come out and say that it's settled. The Athletics, Alec Lewis believes the Vikings will measure quarterback JJ McCarthy's development by assessing his accuracy, touch, consistency this summer, by the way. I will say, as Packer fans, we don't want JJ McCarthy to start. The reason being they went out and got this quarterback, Kyler Murray, with the full intention of him starting. There's never a question, JJ is going to be moved, McCarthy is going to be the guy, we're going to find a new quarterback, excuse me, Kyler is going to be the guy, and then we're going to find a new quarterback and move forward that way, unless we can get Kyler to be really good, even then it's kind of iffy, they're probably hoping for a second Sam Darnold situation, then they don't mess it up and get rid of him, but he's 30, and as a mobile quarterback, age is a much bigger issue. He's not quite 30, but he's getting there. Once you start hitting the later years as a mobile quarterback, you have to learn to stand in the pocket and throw, and if you can't, then it's not great. Plus, the size and injury stuff, his, he's not going to be a 40 year old quarterback, it's not going to happen. So, the shelf life here is much shorter than, for example, Sam Darnold. So, with all that said, with the expectation of moving on from McCarthy and moving in a different direction, if. McCarthy starts. It's because, holy crap, he took that step. So that's the only, the only path I see, pending some, you know, injury or whatever, where they start JJ McCarthy over Kyler Murray, which would suck, because that would, that would be bad. So why don't we start here, and I know this guy's like extra biased hypey for the Vikings, but it's still a good spot to kind of be like, all right, what, what, what's what's the vibe over here? What's going on, Jerome's so the storyline of the off season that this is Purple FTW podcast, by the way, if you're interested in supporting, or whatever. I don't know, like it should get hype, and it seems sort of glossed over that the Vikings signed Kyler Murray, who's still getting paid almost 40 million bucks from the Cardinals for $1.3 million and he's Asian, he can do that. The good thing, a two-time Pro Bowl quarterback in his prime, so note number one, they're doing the whole, you know, two-time Pro Bowler thing. In his prime is another one. These are little notes that you can set to the side of what there is to be excited about. Still under 30 with revenge on his mind, as long as he's not playing video games to basically captain this ship, man, whether it's Kyler, whether it's JJ. Yes, it is funny that it transitioned so quickly from, dude, this guy is legitimately, he's legitimately elite, and nobody's talking about it, and that's crazy, or maybe the other guy who's also good don't sound super committed, there. That's interesting. Is JJ McCarthy being thrown under the bus at times? Yes, yes, but quarterback competition, we all know we love JJ. You know what I love more, the Vikings. So whoever it is, whatever it takes, done to them, and also we say we said we just need a captain of the ship, we need somebody to thought he was gonna say Carson Wentz, I was like, please just say Carson Wentz, it'd be hilarious if you also, if that doesn't work, we got Carson Went, skip ahead here just a touch, and with Kyler, this is a chance for some full on career rehab, right. Justin Jefferson, his corner is going to be good to go, and his time with Arizona didn't end the greatest, right? You know, got his contract, even though he's playing his video game. Still never going to forgive Steve Keim, but last year Kyler Murray, you know, five games before he got injured, he did some stuffings and things, you know, completed 68% was best, which Kyler doesn't get enough credit for being an accurate thrower. The football was good to go, and I know a lot has been made, is like, well, what about his a dot has averaged up the targets, but now last couple years, have you seen the Arizona offense? Like, there has nothing been there's to be fair, the reason that matters is because if you're going to talk accuracy, you kind of have to look at it as an accuracy per area of the field thing, right? Because if, if the a dot, the average depth of target is the reason for the accuracy, then you're not actually that accurate of a quarterback, you just throw easier passes. I'm not saying that's the case, but that's the reason that gets brought up. Ben, there's never been a more podunk checkdown offense since watching like JV football. It's essentially what it is, man. But Kyler went two and three as a starter. Jabroni Brisket went one and 15, by the way, or one at 11, plus enough, really good at math, yeah, but Kyler is on the full on career rehab trajectory, and the odds reflect that, in terms of comeback player of the year. Now, Mahomes is probably just gonna be handed the trophy, right, because ACL pretty much probably, yeah, come back all that good stuff, he's the prohibitive favorite across all of the books. Kyler is interestingly enough coming in second, either plus 600 so six to one, you know, 550 in a couple places as well. And I know that everyone's pissing, Mona, like, well, why is Michael Parsons odd so low? Parsons not a quarterback. Parsons tore his knee up late in the season, so there's no guarantee that he's going to be back early in the season, and may not even be himself by mid season. It is what it is, so that's why his odds are longer. Plus, he's not a quarterback, plus, like you said, Pat Mahomes. Good luck beating Pat Mahomes. Pat, I mean, Pat, Pat Mahomes doesn't even need to actually be like a top 10 quarterback, you can see that already everybody already putting him in the top two as far as the rankings, like today, even though he hasn't been in four three years since he's been, I think you'd have to go back four years before he'd be in the top three conversation, but he just needs. To come back and have a winning football team and look like Pat Mahomes, and he will win Comeback Player of the Year, Kyler Murray. If Pat Mahomes doesn't do that, Kyler Murray does make sense to be the next best in line, because he's a quarterback, and if they can make him look good, which again, he doesn't need to be like, you know, PFF grade, top 10-ish. He needs to be healthy the whole year. The Vikings need to have a winning record and needs to look like it's on the back of Kyler Murray, and if they do that, and Pat McHale's isn't in the way, he will win that again. You could say, well, I mean, that's pretty impressive that he is ahead of Michael Parsons, that does say something, maybe kind of, but very much to his point. Micah Parsons is going to have a very difficult time when you're going to miss at least the first four games of the season to dominate to such a degree, and basically the only thing that matters here in this conversation, if we're talking about comeback player of the year, is stay healthy, get a bunch of sacks. I mean, good luck getting the number of sacks you need minus an entire quarter of the season. So, yeah, I mean, I guess, but if you remove Micah from the equation, who is Kyler ahead of in the odds? Malik Neighbors, Daniel Jones and Deshaun Watson. Basically, it's a two-man race with Pat Mahomes at the top, and then Kyler, if he can play, and Mahomes, you know, if he gets hurt, then we'll just hand it to Kyler. And if Kyler can't do it, then Micah has a chance. And the fact that Micah is ahead of all these other guys, which makes sense, have not even having a full season, I don't necessarily know everybody else's situation, but Deshaun Watson isn't even guaranteed to be the starting quarterback, although his odds are way off. Basically, it's not a very large pool, so you know to look at and be like, well, he has the second best comeback odds. I'm not necessarily saying he's doing this, but to use that as evidence that, like, Vegas believes he's going to have a great year, it's an unbelievably small pool of people that could even be considered for this award, because he's going to have a truncated amount of time to do some damage. You have Malik Neighbors, Daniel Jones, Deshaun Watson. Why is Watson on there? It was, but Kyler, second place at getting around six to one. I do think it is Mahomes award to lose, but you know, the media does love a good story, and if and when Kyler Murray is, you know, he wants a starting job and just absolutely lights it up with this freaking offense, which there's gonna have a rededication in the run game. Kyler still has enough mobility where it's a threat to the defense. You got Jefferson, Addison, and Jennings. This offensive line should be good to go, because Darrisaw's leg hopefully won't fall off this season. And then you got Jackson, whoo, Blake Brandle, the solid veteran, getting acclimated at center. Will Fries going to prove that he's worth, hey dirty baby, I'm worth the money. Don't you worry, I said, hey, okay, we got some fries. All right, all right, all right, let's, let's, let's calm down, let's go ahead and skip a little bit here. It's offense, I know that people like to poo poo on the Vikings, and I know that we generally have a very sunny disposition when it comes to the Vikings, but if you're not drinking the purple Kool-Aid, honestly, it takes a special type of hater and loser to look at this offensive unit and be like child, please, and not even mention the defense across, which is going to be hellacious, is going to be extremely good at getting their ass off the field, good field position, taking the ball away, everything's gonna be good. So I honestly do believe that Kyler, you know, everyone and their mom, all Cardinals fan, you know, blaming Kyler for everything, but it's okay. It's okay, he can take the heat, he's gonna be motivated, he's gonna be mobile, agile, hostile. Give me all the six to one, baby. Just I feel like Kyler's on that comeback train and is going to be good to go, right? All right, good enough. So that's a position, and I look again as a Packer fan, even though they are in the division, and, but we got a lot to cover, and a lot to talk about, and all that stuff, and I think for the most part we've been looking at the NFC North through a 30,000 foot view. I haven't spent a lot of my life looking at Kyler Murray and his career, occasionally dabble over the years, just kind of like, oh, what's he, oh, he's, he's really good now, oh, he sucks now. Oh, whatever. I think kind of, kind of the big picture plan that I had here was let's look at Kyler, because that's another big thing. I don't want to go super in depth. We may have to, if I can't, you know, make this a big enough podcast in and of itself. And then perhaps we'll see, I don't, I don't want you know, sometimes I like my themes maybe a little bit more than I should, but the thought would be tomorrow we would do something similar with the Lions with the final crescendo, and maybe we'll just skip part three and go straight to the crescendo, being let's just look at the NFC North quarterbacks, and let's be honest about it. Let's look at golf, let's look at Kyler, let's look at Kayla. And then love, I don't know if we need to do this for the Lions, because I don't know that a lot of Lions fans are sitting around going, "Dude, we're going to be dope because of our quarterback. Last I remember, they started to fall out of love with him a little bit, but maybe that's the best. I'll do a tiny bit of digging to see if there's some golf hype. There probably is, and if there is, then we'll, we'll play this game as well, just so we can kind of get the receipts, and then hear specifically the arguments being made for them, and then we'll, and then again we will crescendo. What the heck does that word mean? Boy, I had no chance of spelling that crescendo, c r e s c r e s c e n d o, a gradual increase in loudness, force, or intensity. See, that's not what I was going for. So, a crescendo is the swelling, it's not the.. so now we're doing the crescendo. This is the swelling portion. Should stop using both of those words, swelling and crescendo. Well, see, I didn't want that to be the.. I didn't want that to be the word I was looking for. There's got to be a different word. Other related terms: fortissimo, sforzando, and tutti. Fortissimo is what we're going to go for, so we'll do the, we'll do the crescendo now, and then it'll get to the fortissimo. Definitely not the other thing, also not 2t We're not going to do a 2t We, there will be no two ting here on the Packer Nut Podcast. But let's take a break, and we'll be right back, you right, let's move over here. This is Menace, excuse me, Purple Daily, Minnesota Vikings chemistry. It is a Q and A segment, I believe. I don't know, but this.. this first portion is Brian continues and says, let me get serious now. The national media narrative on Kyler Murray is that his deep ball has regressed, but a quarterback's downfield accuracy is heavily tied to his targets. When he had DeAndre Hopkins a few years ago, Kyler was one of the better deep ball throwers. First of all, I don't think that's true at all. We'll get into the actual breaking these things down, but just to be clear, you would have to prove that to me. That's one of those things people on social media like to do, where they say things that they think sound smart without having any regard for whether or not you have to look that up. I don't think that that's true. Why? I mean, why would that be the case? I mean, the assumption is, well, if you got somebody wide open or whatever, but that's kind of irrelevant, and the stats don't really take that into account. It's just a question of whether or not you throw a good ball, and saying, well, if you look back a few years ago to when he had this person, then, then, yeah, but you're kind of, you're not really answering the question, you're just kind of giving a different explanation for it, while acknowledging that there has been regression. Yeah, well, a few years ago it was good. I know that's the entire point. It was good, and now it's not good. And you're saying that it's, it's only because of the players, and I'm not saying there can't be some kind of a relationship there. Maybe it goes to confidence, or, you know, I don't know, could also be things like offensive line, you know, if you're throwing on the run in a panic, as opposed to a comfortable pocket, there can be all kinds of variables, but on some level you're going to have to actually prove that correlation, which is again a lot of work to do, significantly less now with AI, but I doubt anybody's actually going to bother doing that, as opposed to just saying it because it sounds good in football with Justin Jefferson and the best supporting cast of his career in Minnesota. Is it creative to prove that as well? I don't know that that's true, but perhaps easy to think Kyler can regain that accuracy and launch himself right back into the MVP conversation, like in 2020 This is how you know that somebody's just saying stuff when, when we go from 'trust me, bro, I'm just being rational' to 'Should we be talking MVP? Why would we go to MVP again? It's not that it's impossible, but why would your mind be sitting there? Why, why, why would that be the case? I mean, if we say it's possible for all 32 quarterbacks, and then work backwards, how far do we get before Kyler gets taken off that list, I. You know, if we're going off of most likely, I don't think he's at or near the top. He won with D Hop, if he stays healthy for the majority of the season. That is where Judd's camp notes come into play. I gotta see the arm strength, because you know he's not wrong. Look, like we have seen, you might be wrong, but I guess we don't know that highlights of Kyler through the years with Cardinals, with some nice deep passes. In fact, again, kind of begging the question here. The question is, is it regressing right? So, if you go back and say, well, if you look back several years ago, it looked good. That doesn't answer the question of is it regressing. If I'm not mistaken, he beat the Vikings on a deep pass to the late Rondelle Moore in a game. So I'm curious to see what the arm strength is now, and again, the question wasn't about strength, although that would be a part of it. It was specifically about accuracy, which is a different thing. Doesn't have to be. I mean, if you don't have the strength and the accuracy of getting the ball to where it needs to be, as opposed to falling short, naturally follows. But now we're just kind of answering why. But he may have strength and not accuracy, so he. so, in other words, what is probably going to happen that doesn't answer the question is he's going to get in cap, he's going to launch a 55 yard ball, and everybody from Purple Daily is going to go, "Well, that answers the question. Everybody was talking about his arm strength, and there it is. No, no, that's not exactly what was being questioned. It was his deep ball accuracy, which is a different thing, and if it was just, but it's weird, because was it the receivers, was it the play calling, because he still had play calling, what the hell does that have to do with his accuracy, or arm strength, for that matter, some pretty good receivers, or so we thought with the Cardinals, but it definitely dissipated, so stage one is what I would say, stage, so this, this theory, like, like the downfield theory of he just has, he's had bad targets, and I'm maybe I'm wrong on this, but I feel like that logic could apply for sure to the 25 plus yard air throws, right? So, all right, this is kind of a 5050 ball. I'm putting the ball way down the field, and over the last four years on passes that travel 25 plus yards in the air down the field of all the qualified quarterbacks, like the, like the 45 qualified quarterbacks, Tyler is dead last incompletion percentage, 21% on passes that travel 25 or more yards. I wasn't going to look at it quite yet, because that was going to be more of a tomorrow or two days thing, but I'm staring at he's looking at something else, because it's 25 yards, he's probably over at Pro Football Reference or something. I'm looking at PFF, which is 20 plus yards, and I'm not looking at the rest of the field, but I can see he has a 76 grade, which sounds good, but this is when you're talking deep balls, this is the area where you've probably got five quarterbacks with a 99 grade, you've got the, you know, probably 20 in the 90s, so being at a 75 he's going to be relatively low. His completion percentage is at 37.5% which that usually is low. So, I can't speak to where that's at, but I'm guessing this is not very good compared to the rest of the league. Yards in the air, yeah, dead last in expected points added per attempt, that's bad. And dead last in yards per attempt, you could say. Well, well, that doesn't even make any sense. You wouldn't look at yards per attempt when you're already looking at 25 I mean, that's kind of just a weird anomaly, I guess. Well, I guess, and again, this is, there are better ways to do this than yards per attempt, if you were really concerned, but if it's 25 plus as the final thing, you could say that he has a weak arm because everybody else has these 60 yard, 50 yard throws, and his, his or more in the 2530 range. He's really not airing it out as much. You could say that, but that doesn't even necessarily answer that question. I think that's just a stupid stat to look at yards per attempt when you're looking at the, when you're looking specifically at yardage, yeah, I mean, give them a, give them a reliable target down the field. Here's where this is, this is where Judd's camp notes are going to come into play even more. It's the 10 plus yards in the air being bad that makes me more nervous, because that now includes the intermediate stuff, kind of the like the deep intermediate, those in cut routes that Kevin O'Connell loves. They're doing my homework for me. I appreciate this. Right, since 2022 on passes and going back to 2022 this encompasses some of his good years. The travel 10 or more yards down the field, Kyler dead last in expected points added per attempt. Yeah, that's 41st out of 43 in yards per attempt, and 36 out of 43 in completion percentage. The yards per attempt make a little bit more sense there, but still, it's even in general, I think yards per attempt is kind of a stupid stat. The only time I would really care is if it was exceedingly high or exceedingly low, that's where you kind of put a little asterisk next to some things like accuracy, and say, okay, we need to kind of do a little bit extra digging, but I genuinely don't care all that much. Yes, having Jefferson, Addison, Juan Jennings is going to help him, and any other quarterback, but like those are valid concerns over the past few years that we need to see what that looks like throughout mini camp, training camp, OTAs, etc. but do we think so? I guess let's go back to 2024 with Donald. You pretty quickly picked up on, don't, don't start. Don't listen. Here is another thing that we're going to have to, again, this, this is kind of just immersing ourselves in, like, what is the conversation over here? What are we doing? What I'm not going to tolerate is, yeah, but we said this about Donald. Darnold was a one-off. Okay, now I am not saying that Kyler, who's already unlike Darnold, demonstrated an ability to be a very good quarterback, if he got, if he was healthy in Arizona, he might have been good this year in Arizona. And I think Kevin O'Connell is a good coach, a good play caller, they have a good offensive line, they have good wide receivers, or mostly good offensive line, and at least one good wide receiver. There's every reason to believe that this could be one of his up years in a career that's been very like really good, really bad, really good, really bad. What I'm not going to do is play this game where you know, look at what happened with Donald, and so we should expect that to be a thing that happens all the time. That is a once in a lifetime situation. What happened with Arnold on in watching him at training camp? He had a great deep ball, like his depot is, he has a very good impeccable. He always did his medium range stuff was okay. I mean, it wasn't a disaster, but it certainly was not great. But if you have issues with the deep ball and you have issues with what you just talked about, which is the intermediate stuff. What would you say you do here? So, like, that's going to be really intriguing to watch. It seems to me like, like one or the other has to be efficient, and quite frankly, if I only can take one, I'm probably taking the mid-range stuff, because those plays present themselves a lot more, like I mean, just, just as a, so if we look at it, and this is going to be pretty, I don't know, that this, let me look at Jordan Love real quick, because this feels a little off, and again, his seems like he's known for throwing a lot of short passes, yeah, so, and Jordan's probably not a good example either, because I think he throws more deep balls than your average quarterback, but so he's at 15% of his passes are 20 plus, 20% of his passes are in the 10 to 19 yard range, so again, that's probably closer than most who would throw probably less deep balls for Kyler, you're looking at nine compared to 17, so yes, of course, you want the 17% to show out better than the 10% For reference, Jordan Love has a 94 passing grade on deep passes, a 91 passing grade on medium passes, 84 on short, and then 62 at behind the line of scrimmage. Kyler is 7174 6976 I'm not even gonna tell you directionally which way we're going, because it doesn't matter. He's just like a mid 70s across the board, and 41% of his passes are the zero to nine yards, with 24% being behind the line of scrimmage, so 63% of his passes came nine yards or less, and for Jordan Love it was, let's see, 55% so still a big chunk, but again you got 35% beyond that, with Kyler Murray sitting at like 25% of his passes, which is pretty crazy, one in four passes traveled 10 yards or more, Jordan was closer to one in three, and about 50% of Justin Jefferson's receptions came 10 yards or further down the field. Anywho, sorry, let's continue, but yes, that will be, that'll be very interesting to see. And you can always say, hey, look, I mean, with the Vikings, you're gonna have a top three receiver tandem that's really, really good, and that's, you know, the this is another thing that all four NFC North teams. Do is they, I think, over inflate. I don't want to sit here and say except the Packers, but I do think accept the Packers, because I don't think a lot of Packer fans, and I've talked to, if anything, they undersell the group. Well, Watson's never healthy, and Reed's no good, he's going to get traded and golden, and they're the underrated group in my mind, but top three receiver tandem. What are you talking about? Again, this is what I said. Remember when I told you that they massively overrate Addison? This is fricking crazy to me, that you think you have a top three. You don't even have a top three receiver anymore. This Justin Jefferson is the Pat Mahomes of wide receivers, he is a very good receiver who hasn't been a top receiver in three years, but everybody still says he's a top receiver, and yeah, maybe he bounces back, that's possible, but also until you do, I don't think I'm going to call you a top guy anymore, he ranked 14th last year as a receiver below Davante Adams. Now, I mean, no offense to Devonte, but I mean we know Devonte is slowly drifting in his 30s. Stefan Diggs has fallen off faster than Devonte, by the way. Christian Watson ranked 11th, so we have Christian Watson on this team who graded out higher than Justin Jefferson last year, and again, blame the quarterback all you want, that's fine, but until you actually prove it on the field, I'm not going to just say, "Oh no, he's still the top receiver. By the way, Pookan Akua, criminally underrated, everybody knows Pooka is good, he had like a 96 receiving grade, I don't think I don't think Jefferson has ever had that, and by the way, I was wrong. I was looking at Stefan Diggs; he ranked 17th last year. Justin Jefferson, his best year ever was a 91 so his grades have been 9190 9091, The last, then it dropped to an 88 which is still very good, but first time he's ever been below that, and then an 80 in 2025 that is a shocking drop off. Puka Nakua had a 96 receiving grade, that is better than than Jefferson has ever been by a mile. Jackson Smith and Jigba had a 93 grade, that's better than Jefferson has ever been, ever. So we still talk about Justin Jefferson, because again we fail to recalibrate, but he's not up there anymore. By the way, Aman Ross St. Brown, the last four years, 9091 9091 Aman Ross St. Brown has been as good as Justin Jefferson for four straight years. In other words, he's having a four year stretch that Jefferson had his first four years and is currently the better wide receiver in the NFC North. So, Jefferson isn't even the best receiver in the NFC North anymore. In fact, again, if we're just going off of last year, if we look at the did it, do, do, do. Let's, this would have been easier to just not do this. NFC North, Aman Ross St. Brown, then Christian Watson, then Justin Jefferson, with Luther Burden being nipping at his heels with a 78 great Romeo had a 77 almost as good as Justin Jefferson, Jameson Williams at a 77 I mean that that group is all right there with a minor gap between Jefferson and Watson, 80 to an 84 and then Aman Rah by himself at a 91 The only real blue chip wide receiver in the NFC North right now is Aman Raw St. Brown, until Justin Jefferson proves that last year was an anomaly, I had some stuff going on, our quarterback sucked, whatever, but I'm back fine, but again, until you prove that, and it's been, you have to go back not to 2025 or 2024 but to 2023 as the last time you had a 90 receiving grade, and again Pooka had almost 100 receiving grades. That's one of the best receiving grades that any receiver. I don't know that Devonte has ever had a grade like that, but yet we're still going to sit here and allow Vikings fans to talk about Justin Jefferson as though he is the premier receiver in the NFL, and that you have a top three receiving group, bro. You absolutely freaking do not. That is, that is an.. that is an absolute joke that you believe you have a top three receiving core, and.. and if you try to add your bum tight end to that, I'm gonna laugh in your face. I'm sorry, you might have the fourth best receiving core in the NFC North. I think you have the fourth best tight end again. You're, you're, when you, when you look at not just the, the top end, but the talent. I mean, if you look at Detroit, they've got Sam LaPorta, Jameson Williams, Amon Ra, St. Brown. I would take that. Met over Jefferson Addison and TJ Hawkinson, for reference, Jefferson 80 grade, Addison 61 which is the second lowest wide receiver grade. I think we already covered this in the entire NFC North, also ahead of Cole Commet, but that's kind of irrelevant at this point, but as far as wide receivers, just the second lowest, and then as far as tight ends, TJ Hawkinson is the lowest, not including Cole Commit, because he's not a number one tight end. It goes Coast and Loveland, then Sam Laporta, then Tucker Kraft, in terms of receiving grades, with all three of them being relatively close, 8683 and 83 between La Porta and Kraft, Hawkinson 62 he's not in the same category. Hawkinson is not good. There are three good tight ends, and Hawkinson is not one of them. So I would take Detroit without hesitation. Let's look at Chicago. Chicago has Colston Loveland, who is the, according to receiving grade, the second best receiver period in the NFC North. He was very good last year, had almost 1000 yards as a tight end at 906 Roma Dunes, a with a 71 grade, and Luther Burton with a 78 Now, you could argue that Jefferson currently is better and probably bounces back even more. So, would you rather have that? Honestly, no, because you can have one Justin Jefferson with a terrible supporting cast and a subpar tight end, and no real running backs to speak of, which we're not even discussing, or you can have an ascending a doomsday, an ascending burden, and a guy that could potentially be the top tight end in football here at Colston Loveland. Of course, I'm taking Chicago's group over Minnesota's group, and then you get to Green Bay. Well, as I said, Christian Watson already graded out higher than Justin Jefferson last year, and we have Matthew Golden, who we barely even got to see this past year, who almost graded out as well as Justin Jefferson did. He graded out better than Jalen Naylor and Jordan Addison. Obviously, there are other two receivers that were there, Naylor now a Raider, but it doesn't matter. They don't have good wide receivers, and then Tucker Kraft, who again is significantly better than what they have. The Minnesota Vikings have the fourth best receiving group. They're not even top three in the NFC North, and he's talking about, say that again, with the Vikings, you're going to have a top three receiver tandem that's really, really good. Oh my lord, you might have a bottom three receiver tandem. Dude, shut up. I mean, not really. Justin Jefferson is going to preclude that, but it's just.. it's not good. It's just not you. You have to get Justin Jefferson back to being a really good receiver. And again, even then, in today's NFL, he's not.. I don't know that he's going to be top five, because there's so many really, really good receivers. It's going to be hard for him to surpass Aman Ross St. Brown, who is currently playing at a level that Justin Jefferson played at at his best. Jamar Chase is already up there. Jackson Smith and Jigba and Pooka are already better receivers than Justin Jefferson, as I said, ever was. Drake London is up in that category right now. Pickens is up in there, there's a lot of guys that are that are kind of playing in that range. I think at best he gets back to what he was and ends up being third, but in a pile of probably three to four other guys that are about as good, but probably not as good as Jackson Smith and Jigba and Pooka Nakua. And again, I don't, I don't think there's any real reason to believe, pending Amon Ra falling off, that he, like, massively surpasses Aman Raw St. Brown. So, again, Justin Jefferson, I will, I will say this again, is the Pat Mahomes of wide receivers. He took the title of being the top receiver. And listen, I've always been flattering of Justin Jefferson, all right, because I, because I tell the truth, and if it's true, then I say it's true. He has been a very good receiver. I've always said he is a very good receiver. I have at times called him probably the best receiver, but this, this is not 2021 by the way. I don't know if he's ever been better than third. If you go back, I'm going back to 2020 now. Yeah, and that's that's the thing with being so, so, because he's been consistently like top three, top five. I've said he's like the best in football, but he's, I don't think he's been better than third. Justin Jefferson in 2020 was behind Stefan Diggs and Devonte Adams. In 2021 he was behind Devonte Adams and Cooper Cup. In 2022 he was, he dropped a fifth from third, and was behind Amon Ra, Devonte Adams, Jalen Naylor, and Tyreke Hill, which I mean, that's three years in a row, Devonte was ahead of them. 2023 he is fourth behind Amon Ra. And an Iuk and Tyreek Hill, and then again the fall off can begins in 2024 so he was top three, then the last, then the next two years, 2022 and 2023 he was top five, and now he in 2024 drops to top 10, being eighth behind T Higgins, Drake London, Aman Raw St Brown, Mike Evans, AJ Brown, Nico Collins, and new to the scene, Puka Nakua. By the way, in this year you had Nico Collins with a 92 grade, which again Justin Jefferson has never had. And then in 2025 is when you have him dropping out of the top 10, not even top 15, he becomes a top 20 receiver, ranking 17th. Hilariously, his 80 pff receiving grade is closer to Michael Wilson of Arizona than it is to Aman Ross St. Brown in the same division. I bring that up, obviously, because his new quarterback, it was in Arizona, so anywho, let's take our final break, and we'll be right back. And I'll say this just to start off this other site, but first of all, the Purple Daily, they do a good job being much more centered, and they have been this whole time. The top three thing kind of set me off, obviously, but, but for the most part, the conversation is centered around, you know, we'll have to see where he's at, and if he's any good. The fella in the middle here, I don't know their names, but he brings up a good point. I won't play the whole audio, but he's he's looking at 2021 and saying this is what Tyler's best year was, and he's going to go through how good it was as a point of being excited toward him, or whatever, or what he's capable of, I should say, and he brings up as a counterpoint to his point before he gets started, as a caveat, he knows that this is a very long time ago, five years as an eternity in the NFL, and brings up Deshaun Watson. If you remember, Deshaun Watson was the dude in Houston. He was freaking amazing as a quarterback. It feels like that never happened. It was such an eternity ago, another world ago, because, considering how much he gets made fun of for being garbage, he was unbelievably good as a quarterback, but if you were to try to convince anybody that he is good or could be good, as opposed to this dude fell, I can't explain it, but it's over. It just goes to show five years is an eternity, and without playing this, I'll just add one final caveat, and that is, you know, the NFL sometimes speaks to us and tells us what they think, then sometimes they get it wrong, clearly. But the Vikings did not inherit a guy that the NFL believes is elite. The Arizona Cardinals are paying him to play for another team right now, paying him a massive amount of money to play for the Vikings, and the Vikings invested like a million dollars to get them. They paid nothing for him, and anybody could have gotten him for that. And the Vikings just let him walk in. I don't think there is a single team out of 32 that believes in Kyler Murray anymore, and I think that's evident by the way that this whole thing is panning out. There was not a massive market, there was not a bidding war for him, there was nothing. They, they are paying a huge amount of money to let him play somewhere else, and this obviously ties into the Jefferson thing as well, because not only Vikings fans, but I'm sure Packer fans will listen and say, "Oh, come on, of course he's elite. And again, I believe he - I mean, he's young enough that I'm sure he'll have a bounce back this year in a better situation. My point is things change in the NFL, and we don't change with it fast enough. The Pat Mahomes thing, the Justin Jefferson thing, things change rapidly, and we constantly.. but this is where free agency gets stupid, because people will hear big names and go, 'Oh, you gotta get him. Not realizing he hasn't been a thing in three, four years. This is also why I don't think Pooka gets his proper due, because I mean, we know Pook is good, but I mean, you know, he's not Jocelyn Jefferson, bro. Come on, stop it. The torch has been passed, and Puka is what Justin Jefferson never was. And this is with all due full respect to Jefferson, who I have been. If you're a Vikings fan and you've been listening a while, you need to acknowledge I have been very flattering to Jefferson. In fact, when I talk about top receivers, he's always my go-to, and I believe he can get back to like a 90 grade this year. It's entirely possible, but I think he's going to try to fight to get back into top five. At a minimum, I would guess he gets back to top 10, but it's also possible that his reign is over, and he is just a good receiver, not a great receiver. And as Packer fans, I need you to understand a couple things. When I try to get people to understand the gap in understanding here, in other words, we put Justin Jefferson on God tier, and Watson is good, but he hasn't really. Reach that level, like he's a solid guy. We need a number one. Watson was above him, better than him, higher category. And the fact that he was 11th to be a top 10 receiver is incredible. It is, there are so many elite receivers, it is hard to crack the top 10. He was 11th, Justin Jefferson was 17th. The inability for Packer fans to grasp this, I think, fully, and I say this partially to myself, because it's, it's, it feels impossible, but we don't fully appreciate how good Watson was this past year, not, and this isn't even necessarily AC, he's been good this whole time. Like I said, he had a breakout, he came back from injury and was like, holy, the same same with Tucker, except it's the opposite with Tucker. Everybody always thought Tucker was great, and I was like, you guys are overrating Tucker. And then he became the beast that everybody said he always was. Now I think he's still overrated, where people say he's the number one tight end. I think he could be, and he's in a conversation with a pile of tight ends, including two others in our own division, Colston Loveland and Sam La Porta, but I'm not, I'm not really interested in fighting that battle, because he's a very good tight end, and you know, if he ends up being the fifth best instead of the number one, I'm, you know, whatever. Fine. Just call him the best. I don't, I don't really care. It's not worth fighting over, but there is a severe lack of understanding how good Christian Watson was in the limited time that we saw him. By the way, he came back healthy and just played, so we might have a top 10 receiver all year if he can stay healthy, not to mention hopefully a breakout gold, and not to mention Tucker Kraft continuing to ascend, hopefully, or at least maintaining his position that he was at last year. You want to talk about top three receiving duo, or a group, or whatever? I don't know that the Packers crack that, but boy, do they have a good one. They're at least fighting in a very tough division to be the best receiving group in the NFC North, which is again going to be very difficult when you have Aman Rah Saint Brown and Sam La Porta. We're going to have to rely on depth, which the Bears also have, so they're also going to be better than the Bears. So, in order to be the best in the division, you have to be very good and very deep, and that's not going to be easy to do, but this is a to go off and complete my tangent that has nothing to do with the original topic. This is a very good and underrated group of receivers. I think this is a very good take here too. I think his name is Jud. I'm not sure, but this is this is this is essentially, I think they do a very good job of putting things in their proper context, the way that I try to do, and to try to step back and be like, okay, let's, let's be calm, and let's think about this. He highlights specifically, sort of the fan problem here, because it's funny when you're, when you know a guy and he was a big name player, and he gets signed by the team that you cover a lot of times, you, you go in thinking that the highlights that you've seen are him, or what you've heard is him, and then you find out it's different. Exactly right, exactly right. And that could be positive or negative, right. This is why the Kyler Murray thing is probably so polarizing, because if you're a Vikings fan, you think highlights, and if you're a Packers fan, you think Call of Duty, right? Do you think the guy's a freaking bum and a lazy in and wait a minute? I don't know how Call of Duty works, but don't they have certain, like, releases or whatever? We gotta, I want to see something long-running NFL meme that Kyler Murray tends to play worse after a new Call of Duty game comes out, or during a big Call of Duty event like Double XP weekends. Hold on, wait for it. So, probably not September. When is our next game? Oh no, is it late? Oh, november 15. Yeah, that might. So, we might have missed it. According to this, mid October is the highest risk period for a new Call of Duty drop. There's also there are weekends for double XP. This is so funny that we're going to be able to make fun of them for this, but apparently they don't announce that until a few days or like a week until presumably the Thanksgiving period is when they're going to be having some kind of events, and we play the Vikings november 15, so probably too early. Dang it, when do the.. what does the Vikings get? Who's.. who's.. I hope it's not the Bears. So mid October they've got the Saints, which would be hilarious if they dropped that one, possibly the Colts. That's kind of late October, and then you've got the Thanksgiving time, which would be roughly ers, Falcons. Yeah. Oh, well, we'll have fun with it. I think we can maybe end on this. No, this is a very long video, and there's plenty of other Kyler stuff, but just again, just trying to get a general vibe on this one other thing that was. Mentioned as a person that called in or wrote into their show and talked about the potential problems with a, as the writer put it, a Kevin Hart-sized quarterback playing in cold weather. Now that's a very good point, obviously it is a dome team, but they have to play two games in, well, I guess one in Green Bay, which I think is, uh, when is that? Yeah, the first one is there, so that actually works in our, then, yeah, the november 15, so that that works massively in our favor. Let me take a peek at their schedule here. So, when is it going to start getting cold, probably not till October. Warm weather, warm weather, pretty much everybody's a freaking dome now. Lions are a dome, Buffalo, but that's at home. Yeah, so I mean, they don't play a cold weather game, I think until november 15 against the Packers. They play the Patriots in New England december 10. I'm trying to remember who has a dome and who doesn't, Patriots, I don't believe do they play the Jets january 3, so I think those are their only cold weather games, but still worth mentioning, and obviously by virtue of how cold weather works, these are all later in the season, so if you have an injury-prone smaller quarterback that has already taken his lumps, now has to start playing in cold weather games. You could see a situation where the Minnesota Vikings possibly get off to a hot start, but similar to what you see with older quarterbacks, they start to diminish toward the end of the season. This is why, by the way, Green Bay always talks about how they like to get bigger guys, and they've always kind of liked getting bigger guys, in part just as a general NFL theory, but also because of the cold weather situation, and even if you think you're not a cold weather team because you have a dome, you still have to travel, you're still gonna have to play in it, and theoretically, and hopefully you're going to struggle to get through the later portion of the season and stay resilient as it starts getting colder, so hopefully that does end up being a bit of a hindrance. All right, so here's the plan, tentatively moving forward. I'm going to do some general due diligence today to see if Lions fans are hyping up golf. I'm guessing there has to be some. On one hand, you've got like the I think if you, if you just had a room full of Lions fans, they're probably not hyping up Goff a ton. They feel like he's maybe kind of holding them back or something. I don't know, but if you were to have an NFC North discussion about Jordan Love and Caleb and who's the best quarterback, I'm guessing you'd see plenty of Lions fans come out and say, give me a frickin' break, it's golf, and that's all I need, that's all I need to go off of. So I will see if I can find some of that. We will discuss that quarterback situation and how they feel about him, and then that will.. what the heck was the word for Flino? I don't remember something Italian and Effie. We'll do our breakdown of my thoughts again, kind of like I've done before, in terms of I don't want to go in, find where Jordan is the best, pretend that those are the best stats, and then say, ha ha, we win. I want to start with the stats and then go find them and then rank them accordingly. Start from a standpoint of, here's what I think makes you kind of like what Colin Coward did, but he did it like an idiot. Start with your criteria, and then go look at the quarterbacks. But I'm going to leave it at that for today. I will talk to you all later. 

Pack Nation, it's another late night in the Packernet After Dark call-in booth — and the callers brought everything. From Jaire Alexander's mental health journey to the Packers' historically brutal injury luck to whether Beer Cheese Benny is raising his kids right (he absolutely is), this one covers the full spectrum of what it means to be a die-hard Packer fan.

Pack Nation, it's another late night in the Packernet After Dark call-in booth — and the callers brought everything. From Jaire Alexander's mental health journey to the Packers' historically brutal injury luck to whether Beer Cheese Benny is raising his kids right (he absolutely is), this one covers the full spectrum of what it means to be a die-hard Packer fan.

A lot happened at the NFL owner's meeting and Ryan's got all of it. Nashville officially gets Super Bowl 64 in 2030. Minnesota gets the 2028 draft — good news for Packer fans within driving distance. International games are expanding to 10 per season starting in 2027, with Goodell eyeing 16 eventually. Ryan's cautiously okay with the expansion until someone says Japan, at which point he's fully on board and also realizes he'll never actually go. The Bears got a special briefing on their stadium situation, because the other 31 owners apparently need a progress report on why Chicago still doesn't know where their team plays. The only two viable options remain Arlington Heights and Hammond, Indiana — meaning the days of Bears fans talking trash about small-town Wisconsin are officially over. Ryan has thoughts. Also: Rashee Rice is in jail after a marijuana violation voided his deferred sentencing. Josh Sweat is unhappy in Arizona, Ganon is in Green Bay, and Ryan does the math on what a third-round pick for a number-three edge rusher might look like. He's making that call. And finally — the Packers briefly discussed bringing Davante Adams back before it went nowhere, and they signed Vanderbilt DB Marlon Jones, who beat stage-three Hodgkin's lymphoma last year and is the feel-good story of the offseason.

A lot happened at the NFL owner's meeting and Ryan's got all of it. Nashville officially gets Super Bowl 64 in 2030. Minnesota gets the 2028 draft — good news for Packer fans within driving distance. International games are expanding to 10 per season starting in 2027, with Goodell eyeing 16 eventually. Ryan's cautiously okay with the expansion until someone says Japan, at which point he's fully on board and also realizes he'll never actually go. The Bears got a special briefing on their stadium situation, because the other 31 owners apparently need a progress report on why Chicago still doesn't know where their team plays. The only two viable options remain Arlington Heights and Hammond, Indiana — meaning the days of Bears fans talking trash about small-town Wisconsin are officially over. Ryan has thoughts. Also: Rashee Rice is in jail after a marijuana violation voided his deferred sentencing. Josh Sweat is unhappy in Arizona, Ganon is in Green Bay, and Ryan does the math on what a third-round pick for a number-three edge rusher might look like. He's making that call. And finally — the Packers briefly discussed bringing Davante Adams back before it went nowhere, and they signed Vanderbilt DB Marlon Jones, who beat stage-three Hodgkin's lymphoma last year and is the feel-good story of the offseason.

Instead of doing the standard win/loss prediction everyone else does, Ryan handed the 2026 Packers schedule to multiple AIs — Grok, Claude, and ChatGPT — and had them simulate the season week by week, complete with final scores, key plays, and the reason the Packers won or lost each game. Three of the four models landed at exactly 11-6. What came out isn't just a schedule prediction — it's an accidental portrait of what being a Packer fan feels like every year. The Week 1 loss in Minnesota that sends everyone into full panic. The Jets win that doesn't really count. The Micah Parsons homecoming game against the Bears. The Rams loss on two costly interceptions that breaks everybody. The Bills loss at home that makes you question everything. The Christmas Day win in Chicago that brings everyone back. And then the Week 18 loss to Detroit on a missed field goal that sends you into the playoffs feeling somehow both good and terrible about 11-6. Ryan's takeaway: there's no combination of six losses that feels good. But 11-6 is 11-6, the off season is actually kind of relaxing, and the regular season is going to be exactly this — all of it — whether you're ready or not.

Instead of doing the standard win/loss prediction everyone else does, Ryan handed the 2026 Packers schedule to multiple AIs — Grok, Claude, and ChatGPT — and had them simulate the season week by week, complete with final scores, key plays, and the reason the Packers won or lost each game. Three of the four models landed at exactly 11-6. What came out isn't just a schedule prediction — it's an accidental portrait of what being a Packer fan feels like every year. The Week 1 loss in Minnesota that sends everyone into full panic. The Jets win that doesn't really count. The Micah Parsons homecoming game against the Bears. The Rams loss on two costly interceptions that breaks everybody. The Bills loss at home that makes you question everything. The Christmas Day win in Chicago that brings everyone back. And then the Week 18 loss to Detroit on a missed field goal that sends you into the playoffs feeling somehow both good and terrible about 11-6. Ryan's takeaway: there's no combination of six losses that feels good. But 11-6 is 11-6, the off season is actually kind of relaxing, and the regular season is going to be exactly this — all of it — whether you're ready or not.

Psalm 62:1-12, Ruth 3:1-4:22, John 9:35-10:21. Packer raises at the start of his influential book, *Knowing God* Jesus said, ‘I am the good shepherd; I *know* my sheep and my sheep *know* me – just as the Father *knows* me and I *know* *the Father*' (John 10:14)

Psalm 62:5–8, Ruth 4:13-17, John 9:35-38, 10:1-18. Packer raises at the start of his influential book, *Knowing God* Jesus said, ‘I am the good shepherd; I *know* my sheep and my sheep *know* me – just as the Father *knows* me and I *know* *the Father*' (John 10:14)

Ryan dives into one of the most emotional stories of the offseason as Jaire Alexander finally tells his side in a raw, vulnerable Players' Tribune piece — and Pack Daddy walks through the highs, the lows, and the mental health battle that led to him stepping away from football. Plus, the latest Packers rookie contract news, the Micah Parsons PUP list buzz, and a brutal reality check for Vikings fans who've been shoving Jordan Addison down our throats.

Ryan dives into one of the most emotional stories of the offseason as Jaire Alexander finally tells his side in a raw, vulnerable Players' Tribune piece — and Pack Daddy walks through the highs, the lows, and the mental health battle that led to him stepping away from football. Plus, the latest Packers rookie contract news, the Micah Parsons PUP list buzz, and a brutal reality check for Vikings fans who've been shoving Jordan Addison down our throats.

Here we are on a Friday…my birthday! Big one today as I turn 50!! Somehow I haven't died…yet. Busy morning with a lot of b-day texts/calls/messages, but we still found some time to talk about plenty of other shit happening. In the news this morning, the latest on a construction worker in Madison who fell off a building, a British man with hantavirus that was supposed to be in quarantine was found at an Italian bar, Kouri Richins gets sentenced, and Britney Spears is out of rehab and up to her old tricks again? In sports, the Brew Crew got a nice 7-1 win over the Padres yesterday, the NBA Playoffs continue tonight with a couple of games, the NHL Playoffs had two games last night, the Oilers fire their head coach, and the World Cup is going to have a halftime show at the final match in July. We talked about what's on TV this weekend and what's new in theaters. Talked about some new music releases, and we discussed Adam McKay's recent comments about white liberals. A new study reveals that we're winning the fight against litter, a 72 year-old nurse finally graduates college, and a couple of teens save a guy's life after he had a heart attack while changing a flat tire. Doc joined us just after 8am for another racing report thanks to County Materials in Holmen & Eau Claire. What would you do if you found $30,000 in a fanny pack at a gas station? This #FloridaMan returned it to it's original owner. And a judge in California is doing the Lord's work! Elsewhere in sports, Garrick Higgo is late for his tee time, a Miller Lite soccer ball just in time for the World Cup, and the Rousey/Carano fight is tomorrow on Netflix! And in today's edition of "Bad News with Happy Music", we had stories about a guy who keeps his gun in his kid's diaper bag, a high school water polo team, an underage DUI in Kentucky, a lost Bitcoin password, & a helicopter landing in a city park for some prom pics. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Packer schedule is out! Certainly a lot to figure out about how they perform on the field, but I think the schedule is VERY kind. Brewers were an out away from another sweep, but do take the series against San Diego. Miz was DOMINANT on Wednesday. Myles Turner outs Giannis as a guy who, "shows up late to everything," during a podcast appearance. Not great!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

George Packer is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers politics, foreign affairs, and culture. He joins Preet to discuss President Trump's enduring effect on the American mind, the future of the Democratic Party, and why Congress has become more performance than politics.   Then, Preet answers listener questions about malicious prosecution and the meaning of the phrase “eighty-six.” In the bonus for Insiders, Preet and Packer examine the prevailing personality trait among members of Congress, the public's role in shaping our political environment, and why we're experiencing national cognitive decline. Join the Insider community for access to bonus content from Stay Tuned and weekly episodes of the Insider podcast hosted by Preet and Joyce Vance. Head to cafe.com/insider to sign up. Thank you for supporting our work.   Show notes and a transcript of the episode are available on our website.  You can now watch this episode! Head to CAFE's Youtube channel and subscribe. Shop Stay Tuned merch and featured books by our guests in our Amazon storefront. Have a question for Preet? Ask @PreetBharara on BlueSky, or Twitter with the hashtag #AskPreet. Email us at staytuned@cafe.com, or call 833-997-7338 to leave a voicemail. Stay Tuned with Preet is brought to you by CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pack Daddy is digging into the 2026 schedule release breadcrumbs, the latest Packers waiver wire moves, and a full statistical case for why Christian Watson belongs in the top 10 wide receiver conversation. Pack Nation, this is the kind of analytical deep dive the mainstream media isn't doing on the Green Bay receiver room.

Pack Daddy is back in the late-night chair and Pack Nation showed up swinging. Tonight's edition of Packernet After Dark tackles the dumbest takes floating around social media, the upcoming 2026 schedule release, and why the Jordan Love hate has officially crossed into clown territory.

Pack Daddy is back in the late-night chair and Pack Nation showed up swinging. Tonight's edition of Packernet After Dark tackles the dumbest takes floating around social media, the upcoming 2026 schedule release, and why the Jordan Love hate has officially crossed into clown territory.

Pack Daddy is digging into the 2026 schedule release breadcrumbs, the latest Packers waiver wire moves, and a full statistical case for why Christian Watson belongs in the top 10 wide receiver conversation. Pack Nation, this is the kind of analytical deep dive the mainstream media isn't doing on the Green Bay receiver room.

In the final Spring Book Club episode, Hunter and Autumn discuss chapters 21–22 of Knowing God by J. I. Packer, acknowledging the reality of inward trials and the sufficiency of God in the midst of them. Packer challenges the expectation of an easy Christian life, showing how God uses weakness, struggle, and uncertainty to deepen our dependence on Him and reveal His grace as truly enough. Packer anchors the final chapter of the book in Romans 8, considering what it means to live with confidence that if God is for us, nothing can ultimately stand against us.

Ignacio Packer's journey is not defined by titles or roles, but by a thread connecting people, places, and moments. From early experiences shaped by the Cold War to a pivotal decision to leave a career in finance for humanitarian work, Ignacio reflects on what it means to live with purpose and passion. A simple but powerful moment—his mother telling him to “free yourself”—set him on a path that would take him across the world, working in some of the most challenging contexts and ultimately leading him to a deeper question: how do we rebuild trust in a fragmented world? In this conversation, Ignacio shares how his thinking evolved from focusing on systems and policies to recognizing the essential role of relationships, inner transformation, and personal responsibility. Drawing from decades in humanitarian work and now leading Initiatives of Change, he explores the courage it takes to listen, to speak respectfully across divides, and to reconnect even when trust has been broken. This episode is a powerful reflection on leadership, humanity, and the quiet work required to heal relationships—within ourselves and with others. Listener Engagement: Discover the songs picked by Ignacio and other guests on our #walktalklisten here. Learn more about Ignacio (via his Linkedin) and his work through the Caux website and/or check Linkedin. Caux's Instagram and Facebook. Share your feedback on this episode through our Walk Talk Listen Feedback link – your thoughts matter! Follow Us: Support the Walk Talk Listen podcast by following us on Facebook and Instagram. Visit 100mile.org or mauricebloem.com for more episodes and information about our work. Check out the special series "Enough for All" and learn more about the work of the Joint Learning Initiative (JLI).

Today on the show I speak with drumming legend - Derrick McKenzie.Derrick is a British based drummer/dj/producer known worldwide for his time with Acid Funk pioneers 'Jamiroquai' - a band who (at this point) he has been with for over 3 decades.In addition to his amazing career with Jamiroquai he has also worked with 'Purple Disco Machine', DR Packer and Matt Johnson (among others).He has also been making numerous waves on the disco/house scene over the last few years where he is currently the only combined DJ/drummer/musician on the prestige international DJ circuit.I was so happy to talk with Derrick as in my opinion he is a complete groove master. During our conversation, we talk about touring, pocket, AI and even drumming on phone books.For more information on Derrick McKenzie or his work, please search for him across all socials or visit www.derrickmckenzie.com.For further information on Travis Marc or 'Musicians-Mentor' website, please visit www.musicians-mentor.com As usual, thanks for checking out the channel and if you're getting anything useful from my content, please feel free to comment, like, share and subscribe, thank you. Additionally, for those interested - you can support this channel by - 'Buying Us Coffee'. https://buymeacoffee.com/musiciansmentor Or visiting our affiliate page with the lovely folks over at - 'Soundbrenner'. https://www.soundbrenner.com - use code TRAVISMARC-DEAL

Pack Daddy is running on fumes after Mother's Day food coma — so Pack Nation steps up and carries the show with some absolute heaters. From punchable faces in sports media to the Jordan love slander that just won't die, this one builds to one of the most legendary caller rants in After Dark history. Buckle up.

Pack Daddy is running on fumes after Mother's Day food coma — so Pack Nation steps up and carries the show with some absolute heaters. From punchable faces in sports media to the Jordan love slander that just won't die, this one builds to one of the most legendary caller rants in After Dark history. Buckle up.

East Coast Eric is back to talk Packer football. What did Eric think of the draft? Is he on the Marshawn Lloyd train? Should the Packers have picked up Tyrod Taylor? Picked up Lukas Van Ness's 5th year option? That and more in Episode 240. Go Pack Go

Ryan opens with a quick breakdown of the Brandon McManus release — and why it was always the obvious move once the Packers drafted Smaack. No fake competition needed. Then it's on to the main event: the Jordan Love inconsistency narrative that refuses to die, and Ryan is done letting it breathe. Armed with PFF grades, coefficient of variation analysis, and week-by-week comparisons across the entire NFL, Ryan methodically dismantles the "wildly inconsistent" label that fans and media have slapped on Love without a shred of data to back it up. McManus release explained: why roster math and draft logic made this inevitable from day one Jonathan Gannon calls Jordan Love "top tier" — and AJ Hawk's hesitant response says more than he intended PFF grade breakdowns for Love, Josh Allen, Stafford, Dak, Goff, Caleb Williams, Drake May, and Bo Nix — the numbers don't lie Standard deviation and CV analysis reveals Love as the second-most consistent starter in the NFL behind only Josh Allen Stop repeating talking points you can't back up. Ryan's challenge to every Packer fan and hater alike: prove it — or stop saying it. #GreenBayPackers #JordanLove #NFLDraft #PackerNation #PFF #NFLAnalysis #Packers2025 #BrandonMcManus #ConsistencyDebate #PackernetPodcast This episode is brought to you by PrizePicks! Use code PACKDADDY to get started with America's #1 fantasy sports app. https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/PACKDADDY To advertise on this podcast please email: ad-sales@libsyn.com Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/packernetpodcast Help keep the show growing and check out everything I'm building across the Packers and NFL world: Support: Patreon: www.patreon.com/pack_daddy Venmo: @Packernetpodcast CashApp: $packpod Website: https://nfldraftgrades.com/ My Board: https://nfldraftgrades.com/board/83a18c42-7a0b-4590-8d1b-453e49840d02

Ryan opens with a quick breakdown of the Brandon McManus release — and why it was always the obvious move once the Packers drafted Smaack. No fake competition needed. Then it's on to the main event: the Jordan Love inconsistency narrative that refuses to die, and Ryan is done letting it breathe. Armed with PFF grades, coefficient of variation analysis, and week-by-week comparisons across the entire NFL, Ryan methodically dismantles the "wildly inconsistent" label that fans and media have slapped on Love without a shred of data to back it up. McManus release explained: why roster math and draft logic made this inevitable from day one Jonathan Gannon calls Jordan Love "top tier" — and AJ Hawk's hesitant response says more than he intended PFF grade breakdowns for Love, Josh Allen, Stafford, Dak, Goff, Caleb Williams, Drake May, and Bo Nix — the numbers don't lie Standard deviation and CV analysis reveals Love as the second-most consistent starter in the NFL behind only Josh Allen Stop repeating talking points you can't back up. Ryan's challenge to every Packer fan and hater alike: prove it — or stop saying it. #GreenBayPackers #JordanLove #NFLDraft #PackerNation #PFF #NFLAnalysis #Packers2025 #BrandonMcManus #ConsistencyDebate #PackernetPodcast This episode is brought to you by PrizePicks! Use code PACKDADDY to get started with America's #1 fantasy sports app. https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/PACKDADDY To advertise on this podcast please email: ad-sales@libsyn.com Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/packernetpodcast Help keep the show growing and check out everything I'm building across the Packers and NFL world: Support: Patreon: www.patreon.com/pack_daddy Venmo: @Packernetpodcast CashApp: $packpod Website: https://nfldraftgrades.com/ My Board: https://nfldraftgrades.com/board/83a18c42-7a0b-4590-8d1b-453e49840d02

Chas & Dr Dave discuss Packer's Pecker, This Generation's Joe Manchin, and The Attention Span Of A Goldfish Swimming In Bongwater WARNING: This episode of PEP may contain explicit language. Timestamps: 0:00 - Introducing: Dr Dave  2:10 - Grateful (Detroit Pistons, Onion Wars) 12:31 - Correspondence (Comey, The 1967 Referendum, Predictive Markets, Alito, Political Violence, Twins) 37:36 - Updates (Gerrymandering) 44:22 - Iran: Project Freedom 1:06:25 - Iran: War Powers 1:16:47 - Elections (Ballroom + Platner) 1:34:54 - Elections (Fetterman) 2:00:49 - Elections (National Voter Compact) 2:11:23 - German Troop Withdrawal 2:24:41 - Not Normal (Kim Jong Un, Soldier, Ears, Maths, Medical Crap) 2:39:24 - Unleashed: Not Normal (Arc, Passport) 2:45:56 - Unleashed: Comey  2:47:51 - Unleashed: Iran 2:59:49 - Unleashed: Immigration (Asylum) Homework: * Heidecker as Rogan - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLPcyTmnDxo * Heidecker as Maher - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ha6D1LQGD4 * New Hampsire children's bill article - https://www.npr.org/2015/03/20/394334697/fourth-graders-get-rough-lesson-in-politics * US bases in Germany - https://amp.dw.com/en/the-significance-of-us-military-bases-in-germany/a-77015428 * Dave's extra homework on Project Freedom - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/07/trump-project-freedom-saudi-arabia-strait-of-hormuz SHOW LINKS: *Chat with the PEPpers on the Discord Server: https://discord.com/invite/WxDD2PPvaW THE (UPDATED) DR DAVE BOOK CLUB MASTERLIST: David Malouf - The Great World (Mentioned 2:37, Ep 258) Connie Willis - Doomsday Book & To Say Nothing of the Dog (Mentioned 4:26, Ep 244) Richard Yates - Revolutionary Road  (Mentioned 1:48:45, Ep 240) Michael Lewis - Who Is Government? (Mentioned 2:19:59, Ep 235) Orlando Whitfield - All That Glitters (Mentioned 2:34:37, Ep 232) John Lyons - Balcony Over Jerusalem (Mentioned 2:45:26, Ep 231) Yukio Mishima - Spring Snow (Mentioned 2:35:12, Ep 227) John Steinbeck - Cannery Row (Mentioned 02:39, Ep 226) David Simon & Ed Burns - The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood (Mentioned 2:21:40, Ep 225) William Appleman Williams - The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (Mentioned 2:11:23, Ep 222) Mahmood Mamdani - Good Muslim, Bad Muslim (Mentioned 2:07:14, Ep 220) Carlo Rovelli - The Order Of Time (Mentioned 06:36, Ep 220) Carlo Rovelli - Reality Is Not What It Seems (Mentioned 06:36, Ep 220) Ryszard Kapuściński - Shah of Shahs (Mentioned 2:21:27, Ep 217) Ervand Abrahamian - Khomeinism (Mentioned 2:23:19, Ep 217) Anthony Seldon - Truss at 10 (Mentioned 1:36:09, Ep 215) Steven Teles - The Conservative Legal Movement (Mentioned 2:12:12, Ep 215) Amin Maalouf - The Crusades Through Arab Eyes (Mentioned 4:32, Ep 214) Geoffrey Blainey - The Causes Of War (Mentioned 43:49, Ep 198) Margaret Levi - Of Rule And Revenue (Mentioned 1:11:16, Ep 195) Margaret Levi - Consent, Dissent, and Patriotism (Mentioned 1:11:16, Ep 195) Sayaka Murata - Convenience Store Woman (Mentioned 2:14, Ep 194) Sid Meier - Sid Meier's Memoir! (Mentioned 16:30, Ep 178) David Simon & Ed Burns - The Corner (Mentioned 8:40, Ep 178) Maurice O. Wallace - King's Vibrato (Mentioned 14:26, Ep 164) Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky - Manufacturing Consent - (Mentioned 32:12, Ep 164) Robert Plunket - My Search For Warren Harding (Mentioned 1:49:12, Ep 158) Ian Lambot & Greg Girard - City of Darkness Revisited (Mentioned 39:25, Ep 157) Max Chafkin - The Contrarian (Mentioned 32:18, Ep 155) Claire Conner - Wrapped In The Flag (Mentioned 31:42, Ep 155) Rita Abrahamsen, Mike Williams et al - Global Right (Mentioned 31:12, Ep 155) Philip Gorski and Samuel Perry - The Flag And The Cross (Mentioned 30:49, Ep 155) Cynthia Miller-Idriss - Hate In The Homeland (Mentioned 30:10, Ep 155) Cory Doctorow & Rebecca Giblin - Chokepoint Capitalism (Mentioned 34:55, Ep 150) Elizabeth Ingleson - Made In China (Mentioned 31:50, Ep 150) John Corrigan - Religious Intolerance, America, and the World (Mentioned 1:16:18, Ep 141) Gérard Prunier - From Genocide to Continental War (Mentioned 48:18, Ep 141) Liu Cixin, - The Three Body Trilogy (Mentioned 1:11:04, Ep 136) Tilman Allert - The Hitler Salute (Mentioned 22:03, Ep 134) Philip Roth - Nemesis (Mentioned 1:56, Ep 133) Joshua Cohen - The Netanyahus Zeke Faux - Number Go Up Michael Paul Rogin - The Intellectuals and McCarthy Cathy Kramer - The Politics of Resentment Naomi Klein - Doppelganger Maria Bamford - Sure, I'll Join Your Cult Wendy Brown - States Of Injury Corey Robin. - The Reactionary Mind Patricia Lockwood - No One Is Talking About This David Cay Johnston - The Making of Donald Trump Jane Mayer - Dark Money Harry Frankfurt - On Bullshit Stephen King - The Dead Zone Elle Hardy - Beyond Belief Federico Finchelstein - From Fascism to Populism in History Robert Jervis - Why Intelligence Fails Alex Haley and Malcolm X - The Autobiography of Malcolm X Jonathan Haidt - The Righteous Mind David Graeber - Debt: The First 5000 Years Jerry L. Mashaw - Creating The American Administrative Constitution Brian Balogh - A Government Out of Sight Paul Connerton - How Societies Remember Paul Connerton - How Modernity Forgets Catherine Green and Sarah Catherine Gilbert - Vaxxers John Zaller - The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion Matthew Karp - This Vast Southern Empire Robert Fatton - The Guise of Exceptionalism Anatol Lievin - Climate Change and the Nation State: The Realist Case James Alfred Aho - The Politics of Righteousness The substack that Dr Dave apparently plagiarises liberally from! https://luke.substack.com/ James Beverley - God's Man in the White House Jane Chi Hyun Park - Yellow Future Matthias Gardell - In The Name of Elijah Muhammad Gosta Esping-Andersen - The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism Suzanne Mettler - The Submerged State Brendon O'Connor - Anti-Americanism and American Exceptionalism James Morone - Hellfire Nation Nathan Kalmoe - With Ballots and Bullets Winnifred Fallers Sullivan - The Impossibility of Religious Freedom Mary L. Trump - Too Much And Never Enough Richard Cooke - Tired of Winning Jon Ronson - So You've Been Publicly Shamed Rodney Tiffen, Ross Gittins, Anika Gauja, David Smith, Brendon O'Connor - How America Compares Tony Horwitz - Confederates In the Attic Ghassan Hage - White Nation George Lakoff - Women, Fire and Dangerous Things George Lakoff - Metaphors We Live By Michelle Alexander - The New Jim Crow Alex S. Vitale - The End of Policing Dave Cullen - Parkland: Birth of a Movement Thomas Sugrue - The Origins of the Urban Crisis Rick Pearlstein - The Invisible Bridge Rick Pearlstein - Before the Storm Rick Pearlstein - Nixonland Brian Doherty - Radicals for Capitalism Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken, Stanley Schachter - When Prophecy Fails Nancy L. Rosenblum & Russell Muirhead - A Lot Of People Are Saying Benjamin Moffitt - The Global Rise of Populism Jon Krakauer - Missoula THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

In our sixth Spring Book Club episode, Hunter and Autumn cover chapters 18–20 of Knowing God by J. I. Packer. In these chapters, Packer writes of the heart of the gospel and what it means to belong to God. Christ's substitutionary work satisfies God's justice and permits all who accept his atoning sacrifice to be adopted as sons and daughters. Packer calls adoption the highest privilege the gospel offers—bringing warmth, security, and intimacy to the Christian life.

“Do you want to be right or do you want to win? I want to win.” -Will Packer When Will Packer pulls up to The Pivot Podcast, the conversation goes far beyond Hollywood headlines, combining sports and business to one of the most entertaining yet educational episodes we've had. Will unpacks the real story behind his rise—from grinding it out as a young mind at at HBCU to becoming one of the most powerful producers in the game. He shares how he built a billion-dollar film resume from the ground up, turning bold ideas into box office hits while navigating an industry that rarely hands out opportunities. But this isn't just about success. Packer gets candid about the missteps, the pressure of managing money and expectations, and the moments where everything could have fallen apart. From producing cultural staples to learning hard lessons about risk, partnerships, and perseverance, his journey is a masterclass in betting on yourself—even when the odds say otherwise. From navigating Hollywood's gatekeepers to creating opportunities where none existed, his path is paved with resilience, ownership, and vision as we unpack the wins, losses, and the pivots in between—and what it really takes to turn ambition into a lasting legacy. He reflects on hits like Girls Trip, Ride Along, Think Like a Man, and Stomp the Yard to life—films that didn't just perform well, but became cultural movements. Along the way, he's collaborated with some of the biggest names in Hollywood, including Kevin Hart, Ice Cube, Queen Latifah, Tiffany Haddish, and the late Paul Walker. On day one of filming Takers, Will had to step in and defuse a tense moment when Paul nearly walked off set—quickly navigating the pressure to keep the production on track. It became a test of leadership, showing how staying composed and solutions-focused can turn a potential setback into a moment of trust and respect. Filled with inside stories, lessons and advice on staying at the top, this episode is about building confidence as a muscle, taking big leaps, and overcoming rejection in order to get doors to finally open, Will is unguarded and uses humor to share some of his most impactful moments to allow us to see a side of him we haven't before, hoping his story inspires and ignites a fire in others. Pivot Family, comment, like, hit the subscribe button, we enjoy hearing and learning from you- the good and the bad, we want to know! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rick Guglielmi, or Rick G. as Ty calls him, is a long time mule packer and buckaroo who calls Oregon home. Rick has been a long time student of Ty's and is fantastic with mules. **We are sorry for the technical difficulties that we had recording this episode. Rick has a hard time connecting to good internet due to his remote location in Oregan.

Pack Daddy is stir crazy, the callers are locked in, and somehow the whole thing turns into one of the most unexpectedly insightful nights in After Dark history. Ryan opens with a restless energy he can't shake — bungee jumping, road trips to Maine, a pint of ice cream — but the calls keep coming and so does the football. Daniel from California breaks down exactly how the Packers' 2025 draft class is schemed to attack the NFC's biggest hurdles — Brandon C'Sae as the answer to the Rams' edge-run game and McClellan as the interior pressure weapon Caleb Williams genuinely cannot handle TJ from Alabama veers into a late-night riff on "my truth," personal responsibility, and the libertarian Gen X worldview that apparently nobody under 30 remembers anymore Uncle Rico delivers his definitive NFL loyalty doctrine across multiple legendary call-ins: every player is garbage unless they're a Packer, and the moment they leave, that's it — they're garbage again Garrett from Southern Illinois calls in with high praise for the Sal experiment, and Ryan goes full manifesto mode on AI — where it's headed, why the eBay analogy is terrifying, and why Jensen Huang is basically right about everything Ryan teases a conspiracy theory for tomorrow's episode tied to the media integrity questions raised by recent off-field drama, and promises to explain why he ever brought it up in the first place Call in live at 608-501-0718 — new callers go straight to the front of the line. Subscribe, leave a review, and follow along on socials @Pack_Daddy and @Packernetpodcast. #PackernetAfterDark #GreenBayPackers #NFLDraft2025 #BrandonCSae #McClellan #CalebWilliams #AIandPodcasting #GoPackGo #PackNation

Pack Nation, Ryan is fired up — and this one turned into something special. What started as a quick take on Lucas Van Ness's fifth year option turned into a full-on intervention for Packer fans who've convinced themselves that nobody on this roster is worth paying. Buckle up. The Rasini Rabbit Hole: Ryan goes deep on the conspiracy theory nobody is saying out loud — could The Athletic's investigation into inappropriate reporter-source relationships be connected to a sudden wave of high-profile NFL executives "stepping away to pursue other passions"? He wants credit if it turns out to be true. Lucas Van Ness Is a No-Brainer: The fifth year option is a bargain. Van Ness is slotting in as roughly the 40th-highest-paid pass rusher in the league. Letting him walk means handing the edge rotation to Baron Sorrell and a prayer. Ryan breaks down exactly why this isn't a debate. Salary Cap School Is In Session: Ryan pulls out his salary cap calculator at packergames.com and walks through why fans are consistently overestimating what these contracts actually cost. Aaron Rodgers' $33M deal in 2018 would be worth $61M today — and we panicked then too. Stop Playing the "He's Not Worth It" Game: From Jaden Reed to Christian Watson to Wyatt to Tucker Craft — Ryan argues that Packer fans systematically undervalue their own players and then have no plan for what to do with the savings. Gutey himself said "absolutely" when asked if they can still afford Watson. Call in and tell Ryan something crazy to do — 608-501-0718. New callers go to the front of the line. Subscribe, leave a five-star review, and find Ryan on X @Pack_Daddy. #GreenBayPackers #GoPackGo #LucasVanNess #NFLDraft #SalaryCap #PackNet #ChristianWatson #NFL #PackerNation This episode is brought to you by PrizePicks! Use code PACKDADDY to get started with America's #1 fantasy sports app. https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/PACKDADDY To advertise on this podcast please email: ad-sales@libsyn.com Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/packernetpodcast Help keep the show growing and check out everything I'm building across the Packers and NFL world: Support: Patreon: www.patreon.com/pack_daddy Venmo: @Packernetpodcast CashApp: $packpod Website: https://nfldraftgrades.com/ My Board: https://nfldraftgrades.com/board/83a18c42-7a0b-4590-8d1b-453e49840d02        

Brick Lombardi cracks open the vault. Four tracks. Four moods. One very bad night for a Bears fan in Naperville, Illinois. The episode opens on the dance floor with GO PACK GO — an electro-pop, crunk-influenced banger built for the club and dedicated to the women who bleed green and gold. Standards are green and gold. If you don't know that, Brick does. From there, the energy shifts hard into PRESSURE — a cinematic, Queen-interpolated meditation on pass protection collapse and the particular dread of watching Jordan Love disappear into a rush. Heavy. Restrained. Honest. SUPERSTITIOUS brings the groove — a Stevie Wonder-influenced funk anthem for every Packer fan who's never spoken their ritual out loud. Same chair. Same hoodie. Same socks. The commentator jinx as a theological crisis. You know the system. You never talk about the system. Brick talks about the system. The episode closes with LET 'EM CRY — a Southern rock ballad. Organ, acoustic guitar, and a Bears fan alone at a bar in Naperville. Fourth and one. Caleb threw it low. Keisean Nixon took it from there. The song sounds like sympathy. It is not sympathy. Subscribe, rate, and review to keep the Tundra FM signal alive. Go Pack Go. #TundraFM #BrickLombardi #GoPackGo #GreenBayPackers #PackNation #NFLMusic #PackerNation #JordanLove #ChicagoBears #GoPackGo This episode is brought to you by PrizePicks! Use code PACKDADDY to get started with America's #1 fantasy sports app. https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/PACKDADDY To advertise on this podcast please email: ad-sales@libsyn.com Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/packernetpodcast Help keep the show growing and check out everything I'm building across the Packers and NFL world: Support: Patreon: www.patreon.com/pack_daddy Venmo: @Packernetpodcast CashApp: $packpod Website: https://nfldraftgrades.com/ My Board: https://nfldraftgrades.com/board/83a18c42-7a0b-4590-8d1b-453e49840d02

Brick Lombardi cracks open the vault. Four tracks. Four moods. One very bad night for a Bears fan in Naperville, Illinois. The episode opens on the dance floor with GO PACK GO — an electro-pop, crunk-influenced banger built for the club and dedicated to the women who bleed green and gold. Standards are green and gold. If you don't know that, Brick does. From there, the energy shifts hard into PRESSURE — a cinematic, Queen-interpolated meditation on pass protection collapse and the particular dread of watching Jordan Love disappear into a rush. Heavy. Restrained. Honest. SUPERSTITIOUS brings the groove — a Stevie Wonder-influenced funk anthem for every Packer fan who's never spoken their ritual out loud. Same chair. Same hoodie. Same socks. The commentator jinx as a theological crisis. You know the system. You never talk about the system. Brick talks about the system. The episode closes with LET 'EM CRY — a Southern rock ballad. Organ, acoustic guitar, and a Bears fan alone at a bar in Naperville. Fourth and one. Caleb threw it low. Keisean Nixon took it from there. The song sounds like sympathy. It is not sympathy. Subscribe, rate, and review to keep the Tundra FM signal alive. Go Pack Go. #TundraFM #BrickLombardi #GoPackGo #GreenBayPackers #PackNation #NFLMusic #PackerNation #JordanLove #ChicagoBears #GoPackGo This episode is brought to you by PrizePicks! Use code PACKDADDY to get started with America's #1 fantasy sports app. https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/PACKDADDY To advertise on this podcast please email: ad-sales@libsyn.com Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/packernetpodcast Help keep the show growing and check out everything I'm building across the Packers and NFL world: Support: Patreon: www.patreon.com/pack_daddy Venmo: @Packernetpodcast CashApp: $packpod Website: https://nfldraftgrades.com/ My Board: https://nfldraftgrades.com/board/83a18c42-7a0b-4590-8d1b-453e49840d02

Pack Nation, Ryan is fired up — and this one turned into something special. What started as a quick take on Lucas Van Ness's fifth year option turned into a full-on intervention for Packer fans who've convinced themselves that nobody on this roster is worth paying. Buckle up. The Rasini Rabbit Hole: Ryan goes deep on the conspiracy theory nobody is saying out loud — could The Athletic's investigation into inappropriate reporter-source relationships be connected to a sudden wave of high-profile NFL executives "stepping away to pursue other passions"? He wants credit if it turns out to be true. Lucas Van Ness Is a No-Brainer: The fifth year option is a bargain. Van Ness is slotting in as roughly the 40th-highest-paid pass rusher in the league. Letting him walk means handing the edge rotation to Baron Sorrell and a prayer. Ryan breaks down exactly why this isn't a debate. Salary Cap School Is In Session: Ryan pulls out his salary cap calculator at packergames.com and walks through why fans are consistently overestimating what these contracts actually cost. Aaron Rodgers' $33M deal in 2018 would be worth $61M today — and we panicked then too. Stop Playing the "He's Not Worth It" Game: From Jaden Reed to Christian Watson to Wyatt to Tucker Craft — Ryan argues that Packer fans systematically undervalue their own players and then have no plan for what to do with the savings. Gutey himself said "absolutely" when asked if they can still afford Watson. Call in and tell Ryan something crazy to do — 608-501-0718. New callers go to the front of the line. Subscribe, leave a five-star review, and find Ryan on X @Pack_Daddy. #GreenBayPackers #GoPackGo #LucasVanNess #NFLDraft #SalaryCap #PackNet #ChristianWatson #NFL #PackerNation This episode is brought to you by PrizePicks! Use code PACKDADDY to get started with America's #1 fantasy sports app. https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/PACKDADDY To advertise on this podcast please email: ad-sales@libsyn.com Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/packernetpodcast Help keep the show growing and check out everything I'm building across the Packers and NFL world: Support: Patreon: www.patreon.com/pack_daddy Venmo: @Packernetpodcast CashApp: $packpod Website: https://nfldraftgrades.com/ My Board: https://nfldraftgrades.com/board/83a18c42-7a0b-4590-8d1b-453e49840d02        

Pack Daddy is stir crazy, the callers are locked in, and somehow the whole thing turns into one of the most unexpectedly insightful nights in After Dark history. Ryan opens with a restless energy he can't shake — bungee jumping, road trips to Maine, a pint of ice cream — but the calls keep coming and so does the football. Daniel from California breaks down exactly how the Packers' 2025 draft class is schemed to attack the NFC's biggest hurdles — Brandon C'Sae as the answer to the Rams' edge-run game and McClellan as the interior pressure weapon Caleb Williams genuinely cannot handle TJ from Alabama veers into a late-night riff on "my truth," personal responsibility, and the libertarian Gen X worldview that apparently nobody under 30 remembers anymore Uncle Rico delivers his definitive NFL loyalty doctrine across multiple legendary call-ins: every player is garbage unless they're a Packer, and the moment they leave, that's it — they're garbage again Garrett from Southern Illinois calls in with high praise for the Sal experiment, and Ryan goes full manifesto mode on AI — where it's headed, why the eBay analogy is terrifying, and why Jensen Huang is basically right about everything Ryan teases a conspiracy theory for tomorrow's episode tied to the media integrity questions raised by recent off-field drama, and promises to explain why he ever brought it up in the first place Call in live at 608-501-0718 — new callers go straight to the front of the line. Subscribe, leave a review, and follow along on socials @Pack_Daddy and @Packernetpodcast. #PackernetAfterDark #GreenBayPackers #NFLDraft2025 #BrandonCSae #McClellan #CalebWilliams #AIandPodcasting #GoPackGo #PackNation

Big Sal from Peshtigo cannot let it go — and honestly, why would he? The Chicago Bears just walked into the 2026 NFL Draft with a broken pass rush and a prayer, and walked out with three tight ends, a gadget receiver, and a sixth-round defensive tackle. Pack Nation, this is not a bit. This actually happened. The Bears traded UP in Day 2 for their THIRD tight end while ranking near the bottom of the league in sacks — Big Sal has the fishing tackle box analogy that will haunt Ryan Poles in his sleep Ninety-five percent of Bears fans hated the draft — and Big Sal calls it what it is: North Korea numbers, but against your own team Meanwhile, Gutey sat patient with picks 52 and 84, and the Packers get to face this Bears roster TWICE a year with Micah Parsons on the edge and Jonathan Gannon in the film room Ryan and Kullen are LIVE on the Day 2 stream — get in the war room with Pack Nation and watch the real picks roll in It is a beautiful morning to be a Packer fan. Smash subscribe, drop five stars, and go tell a Bears fan — gently — what they did to themselves. GO PACK GO! #Packers #ChicagoBears #NFLDraft2026 #LetMeTellYouSomething #BigSal #PackNation #GoPackGo #NFLDraft #GreenBayPackers #DraftDay #BearsDraft This episode is brought to you by PrizePicks! Use code PACKDADDY to get started with America's #1 fantasy sports app. https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/PACKDADDY To advertise on this podcast please email: ad-sales@libsyn.com Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/packernetpodcast Help keep the show growing and check out everything I'm building across the Packers and NFL world: Support: Patreon: www.patreon.com/pack_daddy Venmo: @Packernetpodcast CashApp: $packpod Website: https://nfldraftgrades.com/ My Board: https://nfldraftgrades.com/board/83a18c42-7a0b-4590-8d1b-453e49840d02

Big Sal from Peshtigo cannot let it go — and honestly, why would he? The Chicago Bears just walked into the 2026 NFL Draft with a broken pass rush and a prayer, and walked out with three tight ends, a gadget receiver, and a sixth-round defensive tackle. Pack Nation, this is not a bit. This actually happened. The Bears traded UP in Day 2 for their THIRD tight end while ranking near the bottom of the league in sacks — Big Sal has the fishing tackle box analogy that will haunt Ryan Poles in his sleep Ninety-five percent of Bears fans hated the draft — and Big Sal calls it what it is: North Korea numbers, but against your own team Meanwhile, Gutey sat patient with picks 52 and 84, and the Packers get to face this Bears roster TWICE a year with Micah Parsons on the edge and Jonathan Gannon in the film room Ryan and Kullen are LIVE on the Day 2 stream — get in the war room with Pack Nation and watch the real picks roll in It is a beautiful morning to be a Packer fan. Smash subscribe, drop five stars, and go tell a Bears fan — gently — what they did to themselves. GO PACK GO! #Packers #ChicagoBears #NFLDraft2026 #LetMeTellYouSomething #BigSal #PackNation #GoPackGo #NFLDraft #GreenBayPackers #DraftDay #BearsDraft This episode is brought to you by PrizePicks! Use code PACKDADDY to get started with America's #1 fantasy sports app. https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/PACKDADDY To advertise on this podcast please email: ad-sales@libsyn.com Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/packernetpodcast Help keep the show growing and check out everything I'm building across the Packers and NFL world: Support: Patreon: www.patreon.com/pack_daddy Venmo: @Packernetpodcast CashApp: $packpod Website: https://nfldraftgrades.com/ My Board: https://nfldraftgrades.com/board/83a18c42-7a0b-4590-8d1b-453e49840d02

Day two of the 2026 NFL Draft is in the books, and the Green Bay Packers did exactly what they needed to do — fill the two biggest holes on the roster without overthinking it. Ryan breaks down both picks in detail and makes the case that Pack Nation should be sitting somewhere between content and flat-out ecstatic. Brandon Cissé, CB, South Carolina — 20 years old, 41-inch vertical, 4.44 speed, elite run support from the perimeter, and a chip on his shoulder that traces back to being passed over in high school. Ryan walks through his PFF profile, his press-man skillset, the "neck down" scouting concern, and why his passion on draft night is rocket fuel for a culture Jonathan Gannon is building. Chris McClellan, DT, Missouri — No freakish RAS, no hype train — just a four-year arc of steady improvement, six sacks leading all SEC defensive tackles in 2025, Senior Bowl standout, and the kind of high-motor, scheme-versatile interior piece that quietly makes defenses better. Ryan compares him to Mike Pinnell and breaks down why this is the "just find a player" pick Packer fans have been begging for. Day Three Preview — Ryan teases what positions are now truly "best available" and why virtually any pick tomorrow works given the needs already addressed. Don't miss Day Three — starts at noon. Links dropping on YouTube, Facebook, and Patreon. Pack Nation, this defense is becoming something real. This episode is brought to you by PrizePicks! Use code PACKDADDY to get started with America's #1 fantasy sports app. https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/PACKDADDY To advertise on this podcast please email: ad-sales@libsyn.com Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/packernetpodcast Help keep the show growing and check out everything I'm building across the Packers and NFL world: Support: Patreon: www.patreon.com/pack_daddy Venmo: @Packernetpodcast CashApp: $packpod Website: https://nfldraftgrades.com/ My Board: https://nfldraftgrades.com/board/83a18c42-7a0b-4590-8d1b-453e49840d02 #PackersNation #GreenBayPackers #NFLDraft2026 #BrandonCissé #ChrisMcClellan #PackernetPodcast #NFLDraft #DraftDay2 #GoPackGo #PackDaddy

Day two of the 2026 NFL Draft is in the books, and the Green Bay Packers did exactly what they needed to do — fill the two biggest holes on the roster without overthinking it. Ryan breaks down both picks in detail and makes the case that Pack Nation should be sitting somewhere between content and flat-out ecstatic. Brandon Cissé, CB, South Carolina — 20 years old, 41-inch vertical, 4.44 speed, elite run support from the perimeter, and a chip on his shoulder that traces back to being passed over in high school. Ryan walks through his PFF profile, his press-man skillset, the "neck down" scouting concern, and why his passion on draft night is rocket fuel for a culture Jonathan Gannon is building. Chris McClellan, DT, Missouri — No freakish RAS, no hype train — just a four-year arc of steady improvement, six sacks leading all SEC defensive tackles in 2025, Senior Bowl standout, and the kind of high-motor, scheme-versatile interior piece that quietly makes defenses better. Ryan compares him to Mike Pinnell and breaks down why this is the "just find a player" pick Packer fans have been begging for. Day Three Preview — Ryan teases what positions are now truly "best available" and why virtually any pick tomorrow works given the needs already addressed. Don't miss Day Three — starts at noon. Links dropping on YouTube, Facebook, and Patreon. Pack Nation, this defense is becoming something real. This episode is brought to you by PrizePicks! Use code PACKDADDY to get started with America's #1 fantasy sports app. https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/PACKDADDY To advertise on this podcast please email: ad-sales@libsyn.com Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/packernetpodcast Help keep the show growing and check out everything I'm building across the Packers and NFL world: Support: Patreon: www.patreon.com/pack_daddy Venmo: @Packernetpodcast CashApp: $packpod Website: https://nfldraftgrades.com/ My Board: https://nfldraftgrades.com/board/83a18c42-7a0b-4590-8d1b-453e49840d02 #PackersNation #GreenBayPackers #NFLDraft2026 #BrandonCissé #ChrisMcClellan #PackernetPodcast #NFLDraft #DraftDay2 #GoPackGo #PackDaddy

Let me tell you somethin, Pack Nation — the NFC North just served up a nine-course meal of embarrassment and Big Sal is STILL hungry for dessert.

Let me tell you somethin, Pack Nation — the NFC North just served up a nine-course meal of embarrassment and Big Sal is STILL hungry for dessert.

Big Sal from Peshtigo is FIRED UP. The Packers don't have a first-round pick tonight — Gutey shipped it to Dallas for Micah Parsons and Sal would do it again twice over — but that's not what tonight is about. Tonight is about the holiest day on a Packer fan's calendar with no skin in the game: HATE WATCHING. The Lions, Vikings, and Bears are all about to step to the podium, and Big Sal has predictions, grievances, and zero mercy. Why the Lions will draft ANOTHER offensive lineman at 17 while their defense crumbles — and why "In Brad We Trust" is the most delusional meme in football The Vikings spending pick 18 on Dillon Thieneman while their D-line gets bulldozed by Jordan Love twice a year The Bears and their seven-year streak of ignoring defense in round one — plus Big Sal's snowblower analogy that perfectly explains the Chicago franchise One small, petty admission from Big Sal about being jealous of the teams actually picking tonight Ryan and Kullen are LIVE STREAMING day one of the draft with a full war room setup. Pull up a chair, grab a beer, and hate watch the NFC North with Pack Nation. Smash subscribe, leave a review, and tell your jagoff cousin who roots for the Bears. #Packers #GoPackGo #NFLDraft #PackNation #NFCNorth #BigSal #HateWatch #Lions #Vikings #Bears #PackernetPodcast This episode is brought to you by PrizePicks! Use code PACKDADDY to get started with America's #1 fantasy sports app. https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/PACKDADDY To advertise on this podcast please email: ad-sales@libsyn.com Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/packernetpodcast Help keep the show growing and check out everything I'm building across the Packers and NFL world: Support: Patreon: www.patreon.com/pack_daddy Venmo: @Packernetpodcast CashApp: $packpod Website: https://nfldraftgrades.com/ My Board: https://nfldraftgrades.com/board/83a18c42-7a0b-4590-8d1b-453e49840d02

Big Sal from Peshtigo is FIRED UP. The Packers don't have a first-round pick tonight — Gutey shipped it to Dallas for Micah Parsons and Sal would do it again twice over — but that's not what tonight is about. Tonight is about the holiest day on a Packer fan's calendar with no skin in the game: HATE WATCHING. The Lions, Vikings, and Bears are all about to step to the podium, and Big Sal has predictions, grievances, and zero mercy. Why the Lions will draft ANOTHER offensive lineman at 17 while their defense crumbles — and why "In Brad We Trust" is the most delusional meme in football The Vikings spending pick 18 on Dillon Thieneman while their D-line gets bulldozed by Jordan Love twice a year The Bears and their seven-year streak of ignoring defense in round one — plus Big Sal's snowblower analogy that perfectly explains the Chicago franchise One small, petty admission from Big Sal about being jealous of the teams actually picking tonight Ryan and Kullen are LIVE STREAMING day one of the draft with a full war room setup. Pull up a chair, grab a beer, and hate watch the NFC North with Pack Nation. Smash subscribe, leave a review, and tell your jagoff cousin who roots for the Bears. #Packers #GoPackGo #NFLDraft #PackNation #NFCNorth #BigSal #HateWatch #Lions #Vikings #Bears #PackernetPodcast This episode is brought to you by PrizePicks! Use code PACKDADDY to get started with America's #1 fantasy sports app. https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/PACKDADDY To advertise on this podcast please email: ad-sales@libsyn.com Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/packernetpodcast Help keep the show growing and check out everything I'm building across the Packers and NFL world: Support: Patreon: www.patreon.com/pack_daddy Venmo: @Packernetpodcast CashApp: $packpod Website: https://nfldraftgrades.com/ My Board: https://nfldraftgrades.com/board/83a18c42-7a0b-4590-8d1b-453e49840d02

It's another jam-packed edition of The Interviews this week, folks. First, Chris Hewitt talks fillums, scary and otherwise, with the wonderful Jack Reynor, star of Lee Cronin's The Mummy. [1:35 - 18:44 approx] Then he has a chaotic, recorded-on-iPhone-because-reasons, chat with Seamus McLean Ross and Samuel Bottomley, the stars of James McAvoy's California Schemin' [20:48 - 37:01 approx]; and finally there's a fun chat between Chris and Kat Coiro and Will Packer, director and producer respectively of the frothy rom-com You, Me & Tuscany.[37:59 - 52:47 approx] Enjoy.