Why Mina Kimes thinks the Packers could have played better against the Steelers 👀 | NFL Live

Why Mina Kimes thinks the Packers could have played better against the Steelers 👀 | NFL Live

In his first career game against the Packers, Rogers had a solid performance, was outdooled by Jordan Love. He went 29 for 37, including 20 straight completions at one point with 360 yards and three touchdowns. He became the fourth different quarterback in Packers history to complete 75% of passes with 350 yards and three touchdowns in a game and the first since Rogers did it himself in 2019. Marcus, what was different in the second half for Green Bay? Well, first of all, uh, Pittsburgh, uh, news flash. Tucker Craft plays for the Green Bay Pack. That’s number one. In case y’all didn’t realize that yesterday, I’m going to tell you today in case at some point in Jamar Jason for the I mean, Jesus Christ. Listen, the explosive plays for Green Bay in the second half were phenomenal. And I think the one-on-one matchups that Jordan Love was able to find, you saw guys using their body. You saw the big catch by Christian Watson down the field. It was a lot of just winning going on and the ease in which Jordan Love played the game. The protection was there. He was comfortable in the pocket. They were super explosive. They figured out that they were going to attack these matchups when they were in manto man in this second half. And everybody talks about the second half adjustment. The second half adjustment was we going to see if these corners and these linebackers and safeties can cover. And they exploited it. And I thought it was a phenomenal job by Jordan Love allowing his guys to make plays down the field. Yeah. Tucker Craft has become a top three tight end in the league. And the way that Matt Laflur uses him, it’s very similar to the way that Kyle Shanahan uses George KD or used to use George KD early on in San Francisco. Motion him over down in the red zone. 4×1 RPO. And this is just a simple read for the quarterback, that backside tight end. They get pressure front side with that ball fake. Kick the ball. Pittsburgh never adjusts number-wise. You’re just throwing this ball to the flat. Now you’ve got him out in space. No one’s even remotely close to him. That’s almost a walk-in touchdown outside of those last final six or seven yards. This is the the play that everyone talked about last night. Motion him outside in. He’s covered by a safety. We as an offense know it’s a manto man. He’s got a corner route. Mentioned it before. Great job by Jordan hanging in there. I love the fact that when the ball goes up, Tucker Craft immediately puts his eyes high to go track and find the football. That’s an incredible adjustment. And then the yards after the catch. I didn’t know he had this in his game. Just an unbelievable job of strength. Fourth and one. He’s on the inside part of the bunch. There’s that 4×1. If you’re not using it in the NFL, you’re behind the times. I love the hesitation, the down block by those two outside guys. This is a huge play in this football game. Kick it to him in the flat. This reminds me so much of George KD. It reminds me of how Owen Daniels used to be used under Kyle Shanahan back in the Houston Texans days. And then the motion again across its man. Tucker Craft up top inside. Watch his release. Okay. when he releases in those backers pressure, that defender is going to widen. This is an outstanding job of pinning that defender on the outside of that receiver, the vacated space in the middle of field, and Jordan Love finds him. The the utilization of Tucker Craft has gone and surged ahead and he’s become one of the best tight ends in football. MK, I I thought we was going to watch the whole damn game. How many plays did you see? Hey, well, y’all two would like that. A lot of professors. You’re talking about time. How many plays did you see? You’re talking about time. We just watched we we watched Chugger Craft highlights. Hey, but by the way, that shows you just how he had a lot of highlights to be fair. He had a lot of highlights in this game. Go ahead, RC. I don’t I don’t want to talk I don’t want to talk about Pittsburgh Steelers. Well, I know. But like when did the defense is going to make you when did when did the Pittsburgh Steelers defense become the Patsy or or the fish? when the teams start circling their schedule and being like, “Hey man, we may be struggling against this defense and this defense, but look, this week we got the Pittsburgh Steelers.” This game was about closing. And Marcus talked about all the time the Green Bay Packers won. Well, the Pittsburgh Steelers were losing all the one-on-one matchups, all the bust in coverage. and Terrell Austin is in this position where even though you have one of the highest players, highest paid players in the league and TJ Watt and a future Hall of Famer, they aren’t creating pressure without adding people to the rush. And so now you’re putting the back end at a disadvantage. And think about saying this three, four years ago, a defense with TJ White, Cam Haywood, Jaylen Ramsey, Darius Slay, Joey Porter Jr. gave up 20 straight completions. There has been no answer for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the last two weeks against the run game and then we watched Emanuel Wilson be able to salt this game away in the four-minute drill. Yeah, and Jordan Love ripped up the blitz with ease. Um, it feels a little crazy to say this after the Packers put up 35, but I still feel like it could have been better. I mean, if we were talking about this game after the first half, we’re having an entirely different conversation. And I think all I want to say about Jordan Love was magnificent. I think Matt Laflur, who’s an amazing play caller, does need to ease up a little bit on the Governor. I mean, right now on early downs, Jordan Love is 29th in average depth to target. In this game on first and second down, he had an average depth to target of three and a half yards. And to me, some of that is Lafleur having a little bit concerned about the offensive line from earlier in the season. Maybe a little bit too much faith candidly, in the run game. Jordan Love to that intermediate part of the field. That’s where this offense should live. and and they have great yards after the catch. Watson coming back will help that too. I think it will and it clearly made a difference already in this game. He looked fantastic. But I think just moving forward against better defenses, better teams. You can’t give them a half the way Green Bay did. I’ve heard that chant for 18 years. So, um, Packer fans travel really well. Uh, first time in a while I’ve used Silent Count for a home game. Um, that’s a credit to those Packer fans. He knows it well. And by the way, he said he has all the respect in the world for a lot of the people there in Green Bay. But another bad game for Rogers against a good team. He falls to 1-2 on the year against teams that are 500 or better. His QBR 21 points lower compared to games against teams under 500. This year he’s averaged almost two more yards per attempt against losing teams. Some of that has to do with the fact about who’s on the other side like you know Micah Parsons. Oh, they got the sound going for us here as we welcome you in. We got Marcus Spirus. Turn up that IFB, my friend. Mina Kims, Ryan Clark, Peter Shreger, Dan Oloski. The cheerleaders have hit the field and that means we’re getting closer to kickoff. That’s always a good thing. Oh, yeah. He did a great halftime performance by the way, the creator of Techno. All right, RT, why wasn’t that Steelers offense clicking yesterday? Well, the one thing about the Steelers offense is they have no one that can naturally create explosive plays outside of DK Metaf. You even go early in that game, the big throw to Roman Wilson. It was a scramble by Aaron Rogers to get outside the pocket. And so, when they don’t connect on one-on- ones like we saw with Valentine in the end zone, it gives you difficulties if you’re the Pittsburgh Steelers with opportunities to get chunk plays. and teams in this league are too good to think that you can nickel and dime them completely down the field. And so begin to create explosives in the second half. The the Pittsburgh Steelers could no longer keep up. And and RC, think about the team that you don’t want to have to create explosive plays against, which is Green Bay with that pass rush. The pressure was prevalent last night as well. Michael Parson’s impact on the game. Rashawn Gary kind of becomes the forgotten guy who is wreaking havoc every single week. But I I just love the way that they use Michael at times. You saw him lined up in the middle of the line of scrimmage, standing up, coming off the edge, three people trying to block him, two people trying to block him, and it all makes sense. It kind of goes back to what I said about Denver. They’re running games using him to create opportunities for other guys. And when a fourman rush can be paired with an offense with the potential to be as explosive as uh Green Bay is, you got a recipe for a team that can make a deep run in the playoffs. Adding number one in that trade may be the difference in Green Bay being playing in the Super Bowl. I think we all have been relatively encouraged by Pittsburgh’s offense this year. Does last night give you hesitation though? Because like last night, what you saw was there’s there’s a very specific style and way that they have to got to win a first downer. You have to be efficient. Like if they can be efficient, they’ll be fine. But what you saw last night was inefficiency on first down, somewhat inefficiency on second down, and then all of a sudden we’re in these average distance of second and eight, third and almost 11. That’s how you end up 1 for 10 on third down. And so I think as much as I’ve loved some of the things that Pittsburgh has done, last night gives me a little hesitation of like, all right, there’s only one way to RC to your point, like there’s only one way that they can play offense. I’ll tell you, I’m new to this show. Uh, you guys won the Emmy last year. I I love the analysis. RC not missing a beat when there’s an entire techno punk going behind. That is Emmy worthy. And I respect I respect the focus you guys have to tie it all together. That was the focus that the Packers defense had. They’re down. Okay, now it’s my turn. They’re down 1914 in this game and all of a sudden they down another gear and to to Marcus’ point, Parsons is unblockable. There’s three different guys on him at that one point where he gets to the quarterback. But it’s all three levels. Edgar and Cooper to me, he could be a defensive player of the year. He’s that good. He’s all over the field. And they parted ways with Jaier Alexander. They made some decisions. Eric Stokes no longer there. Their defensive backfield was lights out yesterday. This defense is not going to get as much hype as maybe the offense when Jordan loves completing the ball 20 times in a row, but gosh are they good and so is this music. You know, it’s fantastic. You didn’t miss a beat. Right in. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Just about Micah, I feel like Micah in Dallas had more statistical output, but I feel like the impact is still as good, if not better right now. Yeah. You think about, first of all, he’s lined up across from a guy that can flat out get it, too, who’s held in a high regard as a rusher. So you got to determine who you going to slide to. Protection those linebackers though between Quay Walker and Cooper I think is making the thing making life a lot easier for those guys up front. Feels to me like he’s coming in with a closer type impact too like later in these games. I don’t know if we the stats and they rotate. You can keep them fresh. Yeah. Mina on the Packers side though as well. Jordan Love came alive as Packers offense in the second half especially. Why was that? Pretty good. Jordan Love was pretty good at this game. Um, I want to focus on not Love, who was amazing, but Tucker Craft. The the Packers have something really interesting, which is their best weapon against man coverage is their tight end. Uh, in this game, eight of his nine catches all against man coverage. Every single one of those 134 yards. And you might be watching that and saying, “Well, that’s the Steelers. They stink in man coverage.” Yet, they seem to play a lot of it for some reason. But he has been the primary target share, target getter, pardon me, versus man coverage the entire season. And that’s a nightmare for opposing defenses. He’s too big for most linebackers. He is too power or too fast, pardon me. He’s too powerful for most defensive backs. Very few defenses in the NFL have a DB or linebacker who who’s an answer for him in the passing game. A and for me that allow or for the Packers probably that allows them to hunt mismatches based on their opponents in a way that’s really unique. And you think about last week the fourth and two play right the sale route to Tucker Craft. It’s because they knew they had a winner. He was able to beat the safety. And I think when that is your outlet in those situations, it’s a very comfortable place to be for Jordan love. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

On NFL Live, Marcus Spears, Mina Kimes, Peter Schrager and Ryan Clark join Laura Rutledge to discuss Jordan Love and the Green Bay Packers defeating Aaron Rodgers and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

0:00 Packers vs. Steelers
1:30 Tucker Kraft and the Packers offense
5:55 Aaron Rodgers vs. Packers
10:29 Jordan Love vs. Steelers

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