Green Bay Packers fans want the team more “all-in,” but the NFL will never be the NBA that way

Green Bay Packers fans want the team more “all-in,” but the NFL will never be the NBA that way

I know a lot of fans wish the Green Bay Packers would go allin like teams do in the NBA, but the NFL is not the NBA and it’s never going to be. It’s never going to work like that. You are Locked On Packers, your daily Green Bay Packers podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. You are locked on Packers, part of the Locked on Podcast Network. Your team every day. I’m Peter Bowski and I cover the Packers for the Leap, a newsletter I would love for you to subscribe to. Follow me on Twitter, Peter_Bukowski. Follow the podcast on Twitter. Locked on Packers. Like us on Facebook. Subscribe to the podcast, iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts wherever you find podcasts, you will find Locked on Packers, the number one Packers podcast on the internet. and the show for fans who know what happened. They want to know why and how. Thanks to everyone who makes Lockdown Packers their first listen every day. We hope you like starting your day with us as much as we like starting our day with you. Today’s episode brought to you by our friends at Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account, and use code locked on NFL for $20 off your first purchase. this question of all-in of going and taking a big swing. Something I, by the way, I just advocated the Packers do, so let’s not get it twisted. Now that we’re in the midst of some craziness around the NBA, I wanted to revisit this because the criticism from a lot of Packer fans, maybe you are one and maybe you aren’t, has been that Green Bay has been unwilling to do that. And I have made the case and we’re not going to sit here and do it again, but I’ve made the case over and over that they did late career Rogers go for it. They went all in. They maxed out the credit card, the salary cap, all that stuff. What they didn’t do is make a move that was able to get them a championship. And the reality is more often than not that’s what happens. And we see this in all sports. If it were easy to say, “Let me just get this one player and that will guarantee me a title.” Every team would do it. There’s no such thing. That doesn’t happen. No titles are guaranteed ever. The the example that I like to use here is Von Miller. The Rams make their quote all-in trade for Von Miller. They give up a lot for what ends up being half a season of Von Miller. They win the Super Bowl. The Bills try and catch that magic. They sign Von Miller to a free agent deal and Von Miller does nothing for Buffalo. Does not move the needle for them. They tried to do the thing that the Rams did. They they recreated the model. Didn’t work. Didn’t work. And this is why you get teams that try and balance it, that don’t make what what I think some fans want is for teams to be reckless. They want them to do what let’s say the Milwaukee Bucks just did and stretch Damen Lillard so that they can sign Miles Turner to like maybe be the fourth best team in the Eastern Conference in the NBA. Now they have Jonathan Tedkumbo an all-time player and so you do what you have to do in that in that situation. That’s what most fans are going to say and and I don’t I don’t blame any fan base who says I wish my team operated like that who who did everything in their power every year to make this work. But the NFL is not the NBA. So let’s let’s stick with this Bucks example. I know I got a lot of Wisconsin sports fans who listen and I know not everybody is. But let me let me try and relate this for you. The Bucks can’t get over the hump in 2019, Eastern Conference Finals. Kawhi Leonard, they can’t do it. They end up trading for Drew Holiday and they win a title. The next year they would have, by the way, they would have won the title in 2020 if CO doesn’t happen and they have to play in the bubble. They win in 2021 anyway. And they would have won in 2022, but Chris Middleton got hurt. Not unlike when the Packers maxed out the credit cards, pushed money forward, did a bunch of stuff that they don’t normally do to make the math work on the 2020 and the 2021 salary cap, the postcoid salary caps, because we knew what was happening in those years where the revenues were not going to be the same. They maxed out the salary cap, brought in veterans, tried to make that work, and David Bakiari gets hurt. a key piece in your team gets hurt and it doesn’t work. You try and run it back. Well, now you have atrophy. Now you have age. The Bucks are seeing that. So you trade Drew Holiday for Damen Lillard, by the way, a trade, not to get too far into it, but that I I thought was the was a defensible trade in the moment. It’s a trade that I would have made. And the fact that Drew Holidayiday winds up in Boston and playing for the Celtics stinks. They win the title, but it’s a trade you make. Giannis gets hurt and can’t play against the Pacers in one series. And then Dame is hurt and Giannis is hurt. So sometimes circumstance conspires against you. But what the Bucks did is they went for it and then they went for it and now they’re going for it again. These are the associated risks. And in the NBA, you can take on those risks because one player can change your life. One player. I talked about the CBA the other day with with the NBA versus the NFL. And I understand why the NFL, a a business that generates over $20 billion in revenue, would say why the star players would go, I’m I’m Patrick Mahomes. There’s no way I should be making less money than Shay Gilders Alexander in in the NBA, a a league that generates 101 billion, like less than half of the money that the NFL is generating. And I I kind of don’t care about the the salary difference in terms of the per player allocations. If I’m the best player, if I’m the most valuable player, I should be getting paid commensurate to that value. That’s that’s a separate problem. But you get Sheay in Oklahoma City. You get Giannis in Milwaukee. You get Luca in Dallas until a front office executive loses his mind. That can change your franchise. Even getting a great quarterback in the NFL might not be enough. Ask the Ravens. Ask the Bills. Ask the Bengals. Ask yourself, ask Packer fans, MVP, back-to-back years, 2020, 2021. It wasn’t enough. One player, the idea that any team is one player away is just almost always wrong simply because one player just doesn’t change your team enough. It doesn’t change your your team enough to insulate against injuries. It doesn’t change your team enough to elevate over other other roster issues like LeBron and his prime was enough to mask deficiencies elsewhere. Giannis at his apex, Nicole Joic, Steph Curry, they can dominate the game in a way that no players in the NFL can. And so the riskreward is just different. The risk is you blow up your salary cap and whatever you’re giving up to get these players and the reward is maybe maybe you you improve 4% 8% 10%. Whereas in the NBA you might you might improve 20% 30% 40%. And I’m I’m making up those numbers but you understand what I’m saying hopefully. So, when you when you say, “Oh, the Packers, they don’t make all-in moves.” What exactly does that mean? What move that is available to them? Because remember, something has to be available to them are they not making that you want them to make? If someone trades for TJ Watt and only gives up a fourth round pick, then I will go, well, yeah, they definitely should have done that. And I think that that is a a justifiable criticism in a moment like that, but that hasn’t happened. And those, by the way, those trades are are rare. Should the Packers in 2021 have given up? I I think it was a second and a third for Von Miller. I thought that Packers team in 21 was good enough. The offense no-sh showed in the playoffs and then the special teams pissed down its leg, but that team was good enough. So So don’t don’t give me the like they should have they should have made this this shoot for the moon move. No, no, the team was good enough. They they did the work. They built the team. Sometimes you lose. Ask the Cleveland Cavaliers this last year. Ask, you know, the Dodgers when they spent a historic amount of money on their payroll a couple years ago, or the Mets or the Yankees, any of the times they did that, too. Trying is not always enough. But I understand any fan who says, “I want my team to be trying.” My question to you is in the NFL, who are the teams that are doing that? Because the Chiefs are not going perpetually allin? They’re not making those kinds of moves. They just have Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid. It’s usually the team like the Saints or the Dolphins, the Steelers right now are kind of doing this trying to hold trying to grasp the Eagles don’t do this for all the for all the you know I was going to use a phrasing that I would have regretted but for all of the compliment mentary analysis of Howie Roseman. Like the AJ Brown trade was a big one. That was a big trade. Like John Datson stunk for them. He gave up real draft capital for Jan Dawson. They tried to give up real stuff for Russell Wilson when the Broncos did. They their their organization is crippled if they make that trade. It takes luck, too. If you want to win a Super Bowl, you need a coach who can paper over some issues. I want to talk a little bit about Matt Lafur and where he stands right now around the league as a play caller. Let’s talk about that next on Locked on Packers. 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Last minute tickets, the lowest price guaranteed. How many coaches right now? How many coaches would you hire to replace Matt Laflur, the play caller, in a vacuum? not how many coaches would leave. Understanding, oh, to to hire some of these coaches, you’d have to replace Matt Laflur as the as the head coach. I I had some I threw this out there on socials the other day and I had some people say, well, if there’s this um team aspect like, hey, I would love this guy to work with Matt Laflur because the combination of those two, not the exercise. How many coaches would you hire to take away play calling from Matt Laflur? Let’s assume everything else constant. I understand that’s not a a uh not even a fair hypothetical in some ways. The reason I’m asking it is I want to know where you think Matt Laflur stands in the NFL as a play caller. Who would be a clear upgrade over him? My answer is there are three coaches. Andy Reid, Kyle Shanahan, Shawn McF. There are some coaches that I think are in the class with Matt Laflur, guys who I think are about even Kevin Oonnell, who I think by the way has a case has a case as holistically a better overall coach. But I’m not talking about hiring. I’m not talking about culture. I’m just talking about the guy who builds the offense, who calls the plays. That’s what I’m talking about. And I wouldn’t I wouldn’t replace Matt Lafur with Kevin Oonnell. I think that that is a lateral move essentially. Who are the other guys? Ben Johnson maybe, but we’ve seen him only call plays in a situation that is very, very good. That offensive line was top three always. Really good skill, talent. incredible run game. Like, he did a very good job of putting together that run game, but when you have an elite offensive line and very good backs, like, h how hard is that really? Now, Shawn Payeyton did some nice things with with Boon Knicks and a not so great set of circumstances. By the way, uh, the Packers, I don’t know if you know this, um, fourth in offensive DVOA last year, the Minnesota Vikings with Justin Jefferson and a really good offensive line overall and TJ Hawinson and Aaron Jones, they were 15th in DVO last year. Like all all a lot of was made of like, oh, Sam Darnold, look at all this great stuff that he did. No, 15th in offensive DVO. The Packers have never, if you look at weighted DVOA, which is okay, how good were they adjusting for opponent and then waiting toward how they played at the end of the season. The Packers have never not been a top 10 offense in Matt Laflur’s career. Even in 2022, even in Jordan Love’s first year as a starter, never not been top 10. This is a top 10 offense no matter what. Matt Laflur, someone has got to explain to me why this why he’s not an elite head coach. This, by the way, this conversation sparked by a conversation I had with Wendel FA who covers the Packers and other stuff for a toz and we were talking about Mike McDaniel and I said, I think Mike McDaniel might be the only coach the Packers could reasonably hire that would incentivize Matt Laflur to give up play calling. It’s like, “Hey, come call plays here and we will do this together. We’ll work together, but I want you to come here and be my OC.” And I think that I still think that might be right. Like if Kyle Shanahan got fired tomorrow, I don’t think Matt Laflur would hire him. Not because I I think that, you know, ego or whatever. Like I just don’t I just don’t think that works personalitywise from a you know pedigree standpoint. Matt used to work for Kyle. I always think those dynamics are weird. I think I think you could do it with McVey honestly because those guys were I guess Matt worked for for Shawn McVey one year. They’re a little bit closer though in terms of age, in terms of, you know, when they were both working for Kyle Shanahan. How many how many guys how many coaches really in the AFC especially? Not that many. And now this was related to the conversation. There was a a podcast discussion over at the Athletic about supporting casts in the NFC. And the Packers came in, I believe, top five for both of those guys. And the Vikings came in ahead of the Packers. And I was like, “Okay, that’s interesting.” When the Packers had a much better offense last year than the Vikings, even though everyone agrees that Kevin Okonnell is a really good coach and that Justin Jefferson is at at worst, the second best receiver in the NFL. Jordan’s a really good player. TJ Hawinson’s a really good player. Christian Darasaw, Brian O’Neal, those guys are really good players. That offensive line was was pretty good last year. The run game is We’ll see. Matt Laflur is awesome at this. That’s kind of what I I just want to like spend five minutes on on the 4th of July. By the way, happy 4th everybody engaging in this in this weird hypothetical because you have to be better. You have to clear the bar. That’s why I thought this was interesting. Like not not how many people are as good as Matt Laflur. Like I think there is a tier of guys. Matt Laflur, John McVey, I think Mike McDaniel is probably in this tier. Kevin Oonnell where I go, okay, those guys are in the class with Matt Laflur. I don’t think replacing Matt Laflur. I don’t think they’re clear upgrades. Like the only guys who go those Yeah, I would rather have those guys calling plays than Matt Laflur. Shanahan, McVey, Reed. That’s it. That’s the list. Unfortunately for the Packers, two of those guys are in the NFC. Two of those guys coach teams that the Packers are going to have to try and beat. Like Ben Johnson, I would not replace Matt Laflur with Ben Johnson. I wouldn’t. We’ll see. We like Ben Johnson’s got to prove it a little bit more to me in a in a circumstance that’s not as good. Now, I don’t want to, you know, talk out of two sides of my mouth about this because I I am I am thinking that that play caller situation like that could be much worse. Not that they’re going to be a bad offense, but that they would, you know, not be the third best offense in the league, they might be the ninth best offense in the league, the 10th best offense in the league, and that would meaningfully impact their win total. I can’t say, well, it was easy for Ben Johnson. I think Ben Johnson is a good coach. I think he’s a very good play caller. I think he is at best in the tier with Matt Laflur. I don’t think he is clearly ahead of Matt Laflur. I don’t know that he could do what Matt Laflur has done with the guys that Matt Laflur has had and that includes a group of receivers that could not stop screwing up on third down last year. I want to revisit this topic next on Locked on Packers. Warren Sharp tweeted out a stat about the percentage of third down incomp completions that were due to receiver error. I think we did a segment on this once already and I wrote about this 32 almost 33%. So almost one in three third down incompletions due to receiver error for Jordan Love. The next highest expected day one starter in 2025. So that but this is last year’s numbers. But like I’m I’m excluding Daniel Jones because Daniel Jones he started 10 games last year. So much smaller sample size and we don’t know if he’s going to be the starter this year. Not really a preferred starter player. So we’re going to try and compare apples to apples. The next preferred starter expected 2025 day one preferred real starter Joe Burrow 18.9%. Almost double for Jordan Love. Almost double the next highest guy. You go down this list. So remember the number 33% 32.7%. Cooper Rush, who had CD Lamb and no one playing receiver for the Cowboys, 15.4%. Less than half of those issues. Brock Pury in San Francisco, 14.6%. Sam Darnold in Minnesota, we talked about this, 13.6%. Anthony Richardson, they don’t they don’t even have any anything that great in Indianapolis at receiver, 13.2%. 2%. Jaylen Herz in Philadelphia, 8.3%. A quarter of the screw-ups, drops, wrong routes, miscommunications. Jared Goff, 7.5%. So again, Ben Johnson looks like a genius when the play works because the quarterback threw it to the receiver and the receiver was in the right place and made the catch. Do you know Do you know how easy it is to be a coach when that happens? 33% 7%. That’s Come on. a quarter less less than a quarter as often on third down. And yet Jordan Love Hoham top 10 DVOA top 10 EPA for play top 10 d all the advanced metrics. He was still incredibly efficient. The offense was still incredibly efficient. Top five by DVOA with this problem. like by efficiency. There wasn’t a huge gap between the Packers and the Lions offenses last year, including this. If they’re just league average on third down, not screwing up, this offense is going to be fireworks. I mean, it reminds me of the scene in Liar Liar where where Jim Carrey gets on the phone and he’s told, you know, one of his clients held up another ATM this time at Nightpoint and he screams, “Stop breaking the law.” Like, that’s his legal advice. He throws in an exploive that I can’t say. It’s a great scene. That’s how I feel about this team. just stop screwing up on third down and and all of those questions about oh playing against the best teams like this is what it comes down to when you play the best teams when you play the best teams in the NFC or the big games on your schedule could be against an AFC opponent they got the Ravens this year for example the Bengals the Steelers you can’t have onethird of your third down passing attempts get screwed up because of receivers. You just can’t. And I guess it’s a third of the incompletions. So we could be talking about this could be small sample size theater, but my guess is we’re talking about 150 attempts, which means we got to be talking about 70 80 incompletions. So, a third of them. Okay, that’s still that’s a that’s a decent number in terms of like if you just say you just say two a game, one a game, you could change a game, two, go from a seven-point game to a 20point game like that. So, just be just be league average. I mean, I think in some ways that’s all Matthew Golden has to be. That’s all Jaden Reed has to be. Dantavian Wixs has to be. Just be yourself with a league average screw-up rate. And in this case, like a league average screw-up rate would would do more than cut in half the missed opportunities on third down. Like the median number in here is like high 13s, low 14s. Jordan Love is at 32.7%. Just just don’t do it that much. They don’t stink that much. And and by the way, this is not just a receiver problem. Like Joe Burrow has really good receivers. He happens to be high on this list. Kirk Cousins in Atlanta had really good receivers. Trevor Lawrence, pretty good receivers. Now, Drake May, not so much. Caleb Williams, not so much. Just just be like kind of fine. And this offense is going to be awesome yet again. Like a lot of the Jordan Love. Oh, Jordan Love. What? He didn’t take the step we expected. Look at the freaking numbers, man. Look at how often the receivers let him down. Was it perfect? No. But in these high leverage moments, he was giving them opportunities, they could not cash in or it was they convert holding penalty or they have a they have a perfect play for coverage, a premier look and you get a false start or the offensive lineman blows a block. I I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. The biggest driver of third down failings for the Green Bay Packers this year had nothing to do with Jordan Love. And I would say the two or three biggest failings of the Green Bay Packers this year had nothing to do with Jordan Love. He’s he’s really good. The receivers need to do their part. I think Matt Laflur there have been some times when it was just sort of a little bit like that that’s what that’s the call a little too conservative and then on fourth down a little too conservative again and all of that is true and they were a top five offense last year. Think just pick the lowhanging fruit my guys pick the lowhanging fruit and this can be the best offense in the league. People People thought I was crazy last year when I said if Christian Watson is healthy, they’ll be the best offense in the league. Well, Jordan Love wasn’t healthy. Christian Watson was mostly healthy and they were still a top five offense last year. That’s how good the talent is. That’s how good the coaching is. That’s how good Matt Laflur is. Just stop shooting yourselves in the foot on third down. And legitimately, this can be the best offensive league. You’ll win those big games because this team is good enough to do that. They’re good enough to make a Super Bowl run right now. Right now. Right now. Before an all-in move. Make an all-in move. It gets even better. You don’t need it. This team is good enough right now to win a Super Bowl. All right. Again, happy 4th of July. We’ll be back next week. Normal week. Normal week. Our our series on the leap. ranking the the players on the Packers uh continue today more on Monday more and more and more and more as we get toward training camp uh over on the leap and lockdown Packers of course also we’ve uh we’ve got a top 100 list we’ve got positional lists coming out on the lockdown podcast network you better believe I got a little preview of the list we are going to have plenty plenty to talk about there my goodness the disrespect We’re going to talk about it. We’ll talk about it coming up next couple weeks here on Locked on Packers. Not all we’re going to do. We got rookie orientation series. Still got a lot of rookies to make it through. A lot of guys to talk about. A lot of fun to be had here on Locked on Packers. Follow me on the social medias. Peter_Bukowski. Follow the podcast. Wherever you get podcast, uh, and subscribe, please. YouTube, iTunes, all those places. Watch us on YouTube. Leave a leave a rating. Leave a review. Leave a comment so we can so we can get some feedback. Love the feedback. Subscribe. Always subscribe so you can stay locked on Packers.

Plenty of Green Bay Packers fans would love to see their team treat their title chances like some of the most aggressive NBA teams, but there’s a reason NFL teams don’t usually act that way. Plus, how many playcallers would you take over Matt LaFleur? And if the Packers receivers could just be normal on third down, this could be the best offense in football.

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Peter Bukowski, co-founder of The Leap, brings you a daily look at the Green Bay Packers year round with Locked On Packers! Go beyond the latest injury news into what you’re seeing on the field, how it works, and how it might change with new players or against a division rival. It’s the podcast for fans who know what happened, they want to know why and how!

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