Packers Offseason Chat w/ Dusty Evely!!!

20 minutes a day, 365 days a year. This is the Pack a Day podcast. What's going on Packers fans? Welcome into an all new episode of the Pack a Day podcast. I'm your host, Andy Herman. You can follow me on Twitter at Andy Herman NFL and the podcast at Packaday podcast. This is something that I don't do enough of and we need to do far more often. And that is bringing on the one and only Dusty Evely. You can find him on social media at Dusty Evely. It is great to be chatting with you, my friend. How the heck are you doing? I'm doing good, man. Doing good. You know, it gets this time here. You do a better job of this than I do, but trying to fill your days with what can I talk about football things now that like, not only is there no football now, there's no football for a while. And I know you got the draft stuff i typically don't do that so i'm currently in the stage of like how do i fill my time my football writing time what do i do so it's it's it's an interesting experiment every year so i'm i'm doing good if a little stressed out on that front but uh doing good man doing good you're smarter than me to take a period of the season off to refresh the batteries i don't i don't have that in my wheelhouse yet maybe at some point i will uh but yeah the the daunting task of trying to drive you know jump into the draft full steam is always is always daunting so i'm getting through prospects now. I do want to mention to everyone as well, before we jump in too far, we are recording this on February 18th. I know you're hearing this a lot lately as I recorded a bunch of episodes in advance, but again, this is the day after Rich Passaccia got fired or not fired, but stepped down, I should say. Maybe in the future, you know that he got fired. We do not know that right now. As of right now, it seems like he legitimately just stepped down. I don't know the exact date. I think this is going to air the following Thursday, but just in case you're wondering why Dusty and I are talking about something that is no longer relevant. It's probably just because we're idiots, but more likely it's that we actually just don't know it yet on both fronts. But let's jump in right away, Dusty. As you said, this is sort of an interesting part of the offseason. We're getting ready for free agency in the draft. I want to actually start, though, everyone's favorite topic, and that is how the Packers actually ended the season. And as Brian Gutekinds brought up, I think in about five times in his press conference without being asked about it. He said, lost five games in a row, lost five games in a row, lost five games in a row. And that did in fact happen. And of course injuries were a factor before we jump in. Like what to you, I know you go and you watch the film, you break down the tape. What went wrong for this team? Cause losing five games, we can't even, let's just nuke the Minnesota game and just say that one didn't exist. They lost four games in a row at the end of the year games that mattered games they mostly could have won and it did not go their way what did you see that was a letdown for this team i mean honestly it's stuff that's been biting them for the past couple years i mean it's it's like some disappointing stuff but just i mean there's been some injuries but also like there's just they're not executing at the level they should execute at there is still like there's still we always hear about like youngest team in the league and the rebuttal of that is yeah they played a lot of games together and like both of those are true but they still play like such a young team and that's like part of that i never know where to come down on that how much of that is coaching well you know positional coaching stuff like that because we're still having like not just like not not just young young guys but guys who've been there for a while we're still having like receivers running the wrong routes on like not like it's not a huge issue it's not as big as it was before but it's still an issue we're still having that that bears playoff game and it happened in the games leading up to that as well we've got just the offensive line just just blowing assignments dude just blowing assignments that i mean that bears game that playoff game that should be a war crime and that's like that was rasheed walker who's been there forever and has won that left tackle job and it's got and it's stuff that we've seen him do but was not doing in that game i don't think the bears are doing anything crazy and i mean i think that's true of like that stretch in particular is it was just lack of execution they had all year they'd been a pretty efficient offense but they had been lead in the league in terms of like explosive plus minus like all year i think up until like the last three games or something if you don't count the vikings game they still tied for like second in terms of like the explosive plus minus in the year if they weren't hitting those and they hit those less as the season went on like in that backstretch of the season they had a hard time keeping the thing afloat and if you can't like if you can't operate consistently down to down and then those explosives dry up a little bit you start running issues and some of those were i mean that i i hate going back to the bears playoff game a bunch but like we had a jaden reed drop pass again we had rasheed walker blowing a whole bunch of coverages and we are just his assignments on the line there i think the o-line as a whole kind of got better as the season went on i kind of liked where some of those guys ended up but in the biggest moments like the execution just wasn't there and if you can't be the i mean the run the run game was bad run game was bad all year and i think that got worse as the season went on too so that backstretch all right man love was a little banged up willis started that game um we're not talking about the clayton tune game because we just anytime i look at numbers i assume you're the same way anytime i look at numbers i just exclude week 18 from anything in terms of the packer stuff like nothing burger yep this doesn't mean anything to me run game like they couldn't block all year they haven't been able to block for two years and then josh jacobs was banged up like clearly banged up and couldn't make something out of nothing you don't have that basis you're second nate instead of second and six and like suddenly you've got to execute a little better than they weren't. So I don't think the talking point going in, and this is something I want to, I want to just bring up real quick talking about going into that playoff game was the loss four in a row. Like his lack of, is it the momentum going to kill him? I don't think the momentum had anything to do with that. Their execution in that game was roughly the same as it had been. Their energy was fine. I don't think the fact they lost four in a row at any bearing whatsoever on that bears loss, it was just a lot of the same issues that we'd been seeing honestly for two to three years now. And they just, if that run game wasn't good and they're a little bit banged up and they lost, they had so many key guys out, it just kind of piled up on itself. Like that, that seems like what that was their big undoing there is attention to detail and oversimplification. It probably is in some way, shape or form, but it just felt to me that that attention to detail in most phases was not there. And maybe execution is a better way to put it too. but it to me, it starts with the, the offensive line in the run game where, and just maybe even the offensive line, even more than that. When I look offensively where they have red zone issues, where they have third and short issues, fourth and short issues, they can't run the football. They can't sustain drives. Those sorts of things to me, I start up front and I go back to 2020 when they've got Bakhtiari and Lindsley and that really fantastic offensive line. And, you know, when they had the gold zone and everything was clicking yeah, up front, they were, they were dominant. They were fantastic. And they had legitimate all pro caliber players up front that could get the job done. And right now the one guy that you feel really most confident about Zach Tom, again, not to again, bake injuries into all of this, but injuries are baked into all of this. Zach Tom is out. Your best blocking tight end also is out in Tucker craft. And then you're, you're trying to musical chairs, some other stuff because Elton Jenkins at center, either didn't work or also got hurt. And then you're just not where you want to be on the offensive line. And I do think that that was a huge issue, but it also doesn't excuse some of the other attention to detail stuff like route running, like, you know, players being in the right spots, aligning correctly, the motioning correctly, all of that stuff. And so to me, it's frustrating because again, some of it you can't explain away, others you can't. And at this era, you know, year seven of Matt LaFleur, year three of the Jordan Love starting era with a lot of these players being in the similar positions, that's stuff that can't continue to happen. And I also wonder, just going back to Brian Gutekind's press conference at the moment, there was a moment at the end where, you know, where he talked about closing games, but he said, we're looking at everything. And he's like, I think we need to get back to the basics and almost rang like a, a Mike McCarthy. Like, we got to go back to the fundamentals, you know, sort of thing. And I, I agree with it. It feels like they've been so focused on, you know, whether it be week to week and, and, you know, putting in the scheme and figuring out every, you know, mismatch and things like that, which is great. That's what you want, but it feels like along the way they miss some of the attention to detail stuff. I mean, that was one of my big points for a while. I blamed, I think I talked to you about this. I blamed Robert Sala for that. That was like my big, they were, they were team, they did game plan game to game, but like the offense is the offense. And then Sala came in for like that, that stint after he got fired by the jets and he was the was, I guess that was two years ago. Right. Cause he was, It wasn't last year. And he was like the defensive consultant, basically, or offensive consultant. He came in and was like, how do you beat this? How do you beat that game plans became so hyper specific? Like around that time, that was just if that I remember that that was that stretch where they lost to Minnesota. And that was the we didn't know they're going to play that much man because they hadn't played that much man. And then the beaters in there, that to me felt so much like a hyper specific game plan. And that carried over into last year as well. I think they got a little better at that this year. but there is still like the my at my knock on the floor my my main issue with the floor and i like him overall i i really like the floor i love that he runs this my issue with him is and it's it's gonna sound complimentary and it kind of is he has such a perfectly designed offense it's such i can't remember who it was it's it's uh john muir dank or peter buchowski or someone i can't remember that talks about like the um it the it the dust in the microchip that is such like this perfectly designed system But if one thing goes wrong everything can go haywire and this the from the amount of plays they run which is still like one of the fewest in the league he's got such a beautifully designed beautifully concepted offense and everything flows together but then if something goes wrong it like his adjustment on the fly i do think he was better at that this year they just lost too many dudes but for a couple years there it was very much a like okay well i don't know it's well i don't know what to do here i mean but by the end of the year it was they lost tucker craft you mentioned the best best blocking tight end their second best blocking tight end was simply a blocking tight end that was john fitzpatrick and then he blew out his achilles and then you've got two guys in wiley and musgrave that can't block and their offense is predicated so much on like having at least one tight end that strong side tendon that could block and you don't have that like at a certain point you do just people don't want to hear it at some point you do run out of bodies and like this thing that is core to our offense we we need two tight ends on the field and one of them needs to be all passively blocked and you don't have some other roster that can do that that's a problem and you can't just plug canard in there so i mean i i do think they came out of that a little better this year but for a while it had been such a hyper specific thing that if something goes wrong everything goes wrong there is still an element to that even if they're pulling out of the like the games plans aren't aren't as hyper specific if which means they should be able to focus on the details but they are still having the problems are not as pronounced but they're still there and that i guess i don't want to overblow that that happens across the league right every team has that uh but we're just so focused on the packers we see it more but it does seem it does seem like it is happening in green bay with the team they have around them more than it probably should given how long those guys have been in this same system there there are there have been too many times in a post-game press conference where matt will say something like yep they did something we totally didn't expect and it was like yeah that that's what that's gonna happen like they're doing yeah that's that's literally their job is to throw things at you that you did guess what you did the same to them at different parts of the game too like that's that's what you're doing on their side and you have to have things that like you know when you see the ear you hear the theory the things where he's like yeah they they played a ton more man like matt imagine i told you going into the game you were going to get a lot of man like imagine how happy you would have been of like knowing exactly what to do just change to man beaters when you need to like run your six man beaters i know you carried some with you do it do they stop you i know i know there's some on that sheet somewhere like you got this it's okay um and maybe he's covering for something maybe he had you know man zone calls and maybe jordan got into the wrong call and read it as a man when it should have been a zone and he's just taking the heat i don't know there's there's probably some truth in there somewhere as well but uh to your point whether it be the the sort of the fly in the ointment or the dust and the microchip or whatever it is. It also does feel at times like he gets so hyper-focused on how to beat this team based on what he saw on tape. And he's got like all these little things that he wants to get to. And sometimes I just want to feel like just run your stuff that's been successful, like regardless, like figure out stuff that you know is going to work that your team executes well and make them stop you first and make them say like, you need to stop us and then if they do you know then great you have that the whole thing that you have game planned for that to get to specifically those looks after you maybe you've even got a look at all right are they playing more man are they playing more zone cover two cover four cover six whatever it might be and now you can get to some of that stuff it just it feels like they need to have a sort of core concept of like here's what we are here's what we're doing we're gonna have intricacies off of it but i just i want to see a little bit more of that we'll be right back hey friends it's time to shoot your shot on prize picks and get 50 in lineups instantly when you play your first five dollar lineup that's right prize picks is now giving you 50 in lineups when you sign up and play your first five dollar lineup now prize picks makes every dunk every dime and every board that much more exciting so don't miss this chance to get started on america's number one app for sports picks. 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I just want to see a little more freewheeling. I mean, my, my, listen, my, my base is like throw the ball more, but like they were bottom fifth in the league in terms of pass rate with a run game that sucked this past year. Like if you can pass the ball a little more i always equate that too with like more up tempo your space on it out a little bit more the quarterback can has has a little more control you can spread that ball out a little bit more like there is a more kind of freewheeling aspect to the game if you're able to operate in that way with the passing game but if everything's based on the run and not only based on the run if you're trying to run the ball that much whether it's good or not i think you're you can hit explosives off of that but i think if it's not working right you're constrained in a way that you're not if you just want to spread the ball out i understand not wanting to do that if you feel like the receivers aren't where they're supposed to be and you go three and out you've taken 20 seconds off the clock like whatever the reasons are there but it does seem like this offense is so much built brother so much built for just a spread pass offense and they won't do it and they keep running the ball and it's making me starting to make me mad i'm with you i'm with you and i think it's it's well said and i think it's appropriate and so it's to me year one in the jordan love era was what the hell is this what what are we looking at and then of course it was weird sort of semi handcuffed first half of the season then they let him loose and things look great and then year two it was like all right which which do what do we see can we see a continuation of the second and then he had all the injuries he had all the injuries and we didn't see it the first half of the season was injuries and littered not littered but had a lot of turnovers and you could tell he got a little gun shy in the second half of the season and was so worried about taking care of the football and i think still injured that he wasn't ripping it and getting those big plays. And I said, year three was going to be to me, probably the bar setter for the rest of his career of like who he is, what, what is, what is a Jordan love full season look like? I think we saw it. And we saw a really unbelievable version of Jordan love. I thought he was fantastic. And now to me going into this fourth year in Jordan love now, Matt, the keys go to him. Like you have to let him go and just win or lose you this thing because he is way too good. He's way too talented he's the driver he is what is ultimately going to get you there he was fantastic in that playoff game against the bears too and now it's it's it's his and you got it you got to hand the keys over i know you don't want to i know you've built this thing and i know you've developed him and have you know you utilize every rubber bumper along the way to make it now it's it's just got to be his and let him go and see what he can do and you also have now it was it was young receivers and they still have that but now it's tucker craft will be back at some point and he was emerging into a monster he was a monster when he went down but now you have christian watson and what year five reed and wicks both in uh year four you've got golden in year two saving williams in year two like you've got you now have guys who it wasn't just for a while it was the vets were watson and dobbs because they were second year guys like you now have guys that have been there long enough that if you want to open this up a little bit more everyone should be on the same page here at this point so that's that's the dream andy that's the dream yeah i mean there's no excuse for an offense that has a lot of christian watson you know jaden reed don't avian wicks tucker craft josh jacobs as your primary five weapons you know obviously sprinting not sprinkling but get matthew golden involved as well um but you know he's your youngest one but those other five have been there they're they're veterans they know the system they know the style with jordan at qb and that that entire group should be on the same page together and a i'm excited for it and b again i need to see it hand it over to jordan a little bit more and just see what he can do and for lack of a better term let him cook is there anything else maybe this was it but is there anything else from an evolution of the offense standpoint i know you are a nerd for all things packers offense and watching the film is there any other evolution that you'd like to see from the offense i mean that's pretty much it i was excited going into last year because they were i had my my theory going to last year was they were going power spread and part of that was wish casting on my part but they were gathering all those big bodies like they couldn't create movement with their five with six like they couldn't do that but with the big bodies they added last year with belton with i was assuming morgan was going to take over with uh banks taking over with i had such high hopes for out and jenkins at center they'd be able to pull all five and they can they can run into like that that you could with five and then if you want to add tucker craft to the mix whatever and you could spread those guys out and you run to light boxes like that felt like kind of where the league could have been going where this offense i think is best suited for with the line and that line never came together the run game had been so gap heavy they'd been leaning into more gap stuff it just fell off a cliff this year and so i don't know if that's something they want to tag for next year like listen we got these bodies specifically to move with five like that's why they got those guys is that still something they want to do i feel like just looking at the personnel they have their best option is that if they can move with five up front which theoretically they can do there's a lot of mass in there i think that's that's where i i guess That's where I would like to see it go. I think that's, for me personally, looking at them, that's what makes the most sense. Now, if they can't move with five, they can't move with five, and it's all dead. But that feels like that based on how they built That the next step of this We can still do our gap scheme but we can displace with five we can displace with six and now we can spread our guys out or run into light boxes or we got one matchups on the outside That's the dream, and I feel like they've got the bodies to do that if that offensive line can take off. So I think that's the next evolution in my head. I don't know if it applies to the field with the offensive line they have and with the way LaFleur wants to run this. In some way, shape, or form, that running game has to improve year over year from what we saw in 2025 and going into 2026. And they just have to make it much more efficient than what it was. I'm an idiot. So I still have some hope that Marshawn Lloyd can come back and be a factor in this as well. It would be nice. I probably should be smarter than that. And just, I guess ultimately I'm going into it with no expectations and just a hope. But it would be really, really nice if they could find a way to get him healthy and involved as well. Because I think he can be a really fun change of pace to Josh Jacobs. I always spend a lot of time on the offense I know you've been breaking down a lot of the defensive tape as well including what Jonathan Gannon is potentially going to be able to bring to this defense again first of all what was just kind of your initial reaction to the Gannon hire and then as it changed it all since you had the opportunity to go through and watch some of the tape I was like yeah that's fine I didn't I didn't have his strong feelings one way or another like it's fine I'm not he's such a like I mean the first thought was he's just seems like such a deeply odd individual that like i i don't i have no idea how to feel about this i guess the way the cardinal stuff went uh it was i mean i don't think he did a bad job there it's just the team was bad and then i was going through the defense was bad so i'm going through their defense they do a lot of fun stuff like it is it's exciting to see what they're doing and kind of how they were doing that um i i think that's that's my main takeaway is they didn't have bodies i mean they had buddabaker and this is like one of my big things for like what i hope he will be because he it's my big question with him is like who is he you had him in in philly that was like very static but he had by he had dudes all over the place just dudes and he went to arizona and it was i don't know how much of this was him and how much of this was was nick ralas they didn't have dudes they had buddha baker and so they structured a lot of their stuff over what can buddha baker do how can we generate a pass rush how can we have confusion it was all those three safety sets it was rotation it's like if you just watch like pre-snap versus post-snap like this past year i mean really his entire tenure you're there nothing was the same it's all guys rotating back so many they were in even like you could tell the talent wasn't there but communication seemed good I like the way the linebackers seem to play um yeah the talent washed a lot of those guys out it did not look good but looking at the structure of that if that's what he brings to Green Bay and you start like putting that in and I still think there's issues that that Packers need to have with their defense and defensive line linebackers specifically in terms of like doing this but if you just graft what Arizona looked like on the Green Bay and you say all right but this is like Xavier McKinney and there's like a Parsons and there's Edge Cooper. And you look at that, I, I got pretty excited about it the more I watched it. And that was with Babich as well, like teaming with Babich. And I think how those bills safeties looked and that that's going to be kind of his area of expertise. It's kind of fun. Now he comes in, it's just, it's static and he's the Eagles Gannon. Like then I will be a little upset, but I think again, cause I think, I don't know how much of that was Rollis. I think Rollis, one of the things you, you look at is, you know, Rallis was the play caller, but Gannon was kind of, I don't know about the architect, but he signs off on the game day plans and all that stuff. So I do think that he is going to be more like, all right, how can I put my guys in the best position to succeed? How can we like create confusion, cause chaos, do some of the stuff he's doing in Arizona? I think it'll be toned down. But after watching, I mean, I probably have gone through half of the Cardinal season at this point of the defensive season. If I go back too much further, it's a different defense in the early season doesn't matter. But I watch like, I think the last eight games, It's kind of fun. I've talked myself into it, Andy. We're not far removed from the end of the season. I've talked myself into it. I love it. I absolutely love it. One of the things, too, you mentioned kind of the oddities with Gannon, and he just seems like a weird dude. I mentioned this to Justice the other day when we were talking as well. The Arizona Cardinals, on their 2025 report card, graded 32 out of 32 teams by the NFLPA. That's that's hashtag. Not good. Treatment of families. D plus food and dining. D minus locker room. F minus training room. D minus weight room. F team. Or sorry. Ownership. D minus. The only thing, the only thing that they got a good grade on was head coach, which got an A. It's got an A. In fact, graded ahead of Matt LaFleur. 92% of Cardinals players felt like their head coach, Jonathan Gannon uses their time efficiently, a rank of 21 out of 32. So that was maybe on the lower side, but the players felt like Gannon is highly receptive to locker room feedback on the team's needs, ranking him seven out of 32 coaches in the league overall grade in a eight out of 32 teams in the league. So players, at least in 2024 going into the 2025 off season, liked him quite a bit and graded very well on a team that graded 32 out of 32. Overall Gannon was apparently the only thing it had going for it. I'll take it, man. I mean, that sucks. We're going to lose those report cards, man. I'm very upset. We're going to lose it. Those are going to, they're a million percent in a leak. Like only the really good ones are the really bad ones. I think the middle we lose, we'll get the really good and really bad. You might be right. But yeah, I would be stunned if we don't get some sort of, you're going to tell me that, you know, the NFL PA isn't going to find a way to, you know, a player here, there isn't going to find a way to leak some of that out. There's too many people involved. So I think we will. Fingers crossed. We still get what a stupid thing, by the way, just let it, let it be out there. Come on, have some accountability. You mentioned Babich as well. You know, I do think he's going to be a really interesting addition to that defensive back I do like the idea, assuming, and again, people in the future may know differently, assuming Covington is back. I do like his, you know, the multitude of things that he's done on defensive lines in the past with his ideas on the front up front with Babich on the back end and then sort of Gannon, the architect of it all. I do think that is a pretty good trio of minds to sort of meld this defense together. Yeah. And I think just, I mean, you talked about the different multitude of ways that Covington worked. I mean, that is, that seems true of all those guys at that very much seems like all these guys are built from the same cloth. Kind of, we want to put our guys in best position to succeed. You've seen that with all three of those guys. So I'm, I'm, I'm pretty excited about the Babbage one. Cause he interviewed for DC. Right. And so that was like a, I didn't know if I loved him as DC. Yeah. And then I was watching the safeties and like these, the Cole Bishop's like five foot six or something. And he's flying around doing everything. So I was like, okay, yeah, no, this is, this is pretty exciting. Yeah, no, he's, he, he did a good job there overall. And I think it was a really smart hire. Bummer to lose Downard and Ansley in that defensive backroom. But if you're going to replace them, you know, Babbage seems like a really, really good option to do so. Last one on this, you posted on, I think, on Twitter and over on Blue Sky. The blitz rate on first down passes last year, Packers were 28th at 18.8%. I feel like this is something that has to change a little bit, just a little bit more aggression on first down. I'm a huge proponent of first down aggression. I want to try to get you into a second and long, whatever I can, whether that's a second and 10 by forcing an incomplete, whether it's a run blitz to get you in second and 11 or second and 12. And if I give up a 15 yard play, awesome. It's a new first down. And I'm going to try to do the exact same thing over again and try on the, the, you know, three of the, you know, one of those first three, you know, first down opportunities to try to get you in a bad down and distance to try to get you off the field. And then that's on second and long third and long. That's where I can dictate terms a little bit more. I feel like it felt like green Bay didn't do enough of that. And I feel like I'm hoping that maybe under Jonathan Gannon, we'll see a little change there. We'll be right back. Yeah, no, the Cardinals, Cardinals were 31.8. They were eighth in league at Blitz and first down there. And that's the reason I looked at that was like Blitz numbers as a whole. I mean, it's so funny if you look at, you know, this is what I do. You look at like historical Blitz numbers in Green Bay. Joe Barry is one of the biggest Blitzers the Packers ever had. And that was just because he had five men on the line and most services chart a blitz if five guys come. But that was just the line five guys on a line and they all run in a straight line like that's charted as a blitz. So like that counts, but doesn't really count. So it's tough to tell with some of those. I did go back and watch some of those. I mean, Cardinals were doing interesting, fun things. It wasn't just five men on a line, all five coming. It was delayed blitzes. It was twists and stunts with a linebacker coming. It was a cornerback nickel blitz. Like they're doing some really fun, interesting stuff, I thought. And one of the reasons I looked at that is, I mean, that is first down to become, you know, was traditionally always a rundown. It's kind of more of a passing down. Now you're trying to, like you say, create those negative plays. It's also, I don't know, I was trying to separate DC from head coach in terms of what that is. And Rollis being the DC, he's going to call those plays. But again, game plan, if you're blitzing on first down, that's a game plan thing, man. Like, that's not like that. That's not the play caller going rogue and being like, we're going to blitz now every first down or else he's not going to have a job very long. So that very much is like, how, how does Gannon see first down? And to me, that was like a very good indicator of, all right, that he probably sees this as roughly the same way I do, which is the same way you just mentioned. You want to be aggressive. You want to get those negatives and then you dictate. And then if you've got Micah Parsons coming back and now it's third and eight, well, you don't have to blitz now. Nope. That's the whole thing. So that's, that's, that's my hope is that Gannon brings that over that very much. Okay. Again, I think you bring that over into green Bay. I want to meld together everything that we've kind of discussed so far, both on offense and on defense. It does feel like overall Matt LaFleur as a coach wants to have an aggressive brand of offense, hit some of the big plays down the field. It feels like he very much wants to eliminate those big plays on defense. So the opposing team's offense, you mentioned the net plus minus on explosive plays and how green Bay that's like outside of turnovers. It it might be the second best like indicator of success is explosive plays So that a good thing That one of of those you know you know house wins sort of thing that you you want to control in your favor But in doing so and how they've kind of operated with how much running they did on offense, despite having an inefficient running game and the bend, but don't break on defense to not allow those explosives, which maybe doesn't allow you to get some of those turnovers and some of those negative plays and to get you in the advantageous. And then the other thing I'll add on top of that is they were towards the bottom of the league in the amount of plays run, the amount of drives they had. And I, this is something for me that I feel like I, it's probably not going to change. This seems to be who he wants to be is more of a kind of grinded out coach and limit possessions and limit, you know, uh, you know, plays and drives and things like that. But I feel like they're a really good team from a talent standpoint. And maybe there's an opportunity when you are playing in playoff games, where maybe that is an advantageous way to play if you have an equal opponent or things like that. But in a regular season, when you are going against, you know, average or even below average teams like the Cleveland Browns, for example, shortening the game to me is a problem because you are basically, so it take a series in hockey or basketball. If it's a best out of three, all right, well, if it's a one of one, if it's a one game elimination, well, then, you know, you've got the team needs to upset you once. If it's a best out of three, all right, well then they, you know, they only need to win twice. But if it's a best out of seven, they've got to upset you four times. The better team is going to win in a best, a best out of seven far more often than not. And if I'm the better team and I'm going against Cleveland, I don't want to shorten the Cleveland should be the one that wants to shorten the game. I want to elongate this thing. I want both teams to have 11 possessions because if we both have 11, I'm going to get the better of that far more often than not. I feel like he has to change that up to some real extent because I think shortening the games and limiting the possessions is actually hurting this team. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned like the number of plays they were on. They were also with a bend, but don't break. I know FTN charts, the drive stats. They were, I think they allowed, I don't, I didn't see what it was by the end of the season with a few games left. They were second, second. They allowed the second longest drives in league to their opponent. They were, they were taking like their average length of drive. The Packers offensively, I think was like third and defensively they're given up second highest. And so you can, you look at that, You just see it compress. And that's why he said you get these, you watch these games, and Packers seem like the better teams. They did that, and they did that. They had eight drives, man. Like, it's just you're limiting what you can do, and that's why I wanted, and we'll see if Gannon is that. Again, the Blitz numbers maybe point to that. Give me a defense. I'll just spike some stuff, man. Like, if you're going to be a hyper conservative, we want everything planned out. This is the way we operate offense. And it seems like that's the way that they're going to be. That's what they want. Give me someone who will just create turnovers or cause chaos on defense. And if you give up a play over your head, brother, you give up a play over your head. Like, that's fine. Then you get the ball back and you go back down and score. But you need something. Create some sacks. Create some chaos. Create some confusion. Whatever you can do on defense to pick. If the offense is going to pick up the pace of play, by some way, shape, or form, the defense has to, brother. And so, like, that's my thing is, like, get someone who's either going to. If it's a one-play ADR touchdown and the rest of the game you're picking up sacks and getting turnovers, you'll take that. man you take the aggressiveness you take that trade off you can't be safe on both sides of the ball or you just you feel we got throughout the course of a season throughout the game certainly there's been games we're going into i can't remember what game it was maybe that browns game you go into halftime you're like each team has had two possessions yeah throughout the course of the season like everything just feels so compressed everything's so condensed and you can just feel that and some games more in particular i'm i'm 100 with you if you think you're the better team gun it man run your offense do what you want to do and then just try to spike them on defense So just try to create some negatives. I don't want to be a grinded out team. And I don't feel like that's in their, their DNA anyway. Like that's not the type of team that they are. I do feel like there needs to be a change there. So yeah, they've, they've got to figure out a way. I just think that to do that a little bit better. And for a coach that utilizes the, you know, it's the cost of doing business. You know, he says that a lot in press conferences. I would like to have that with, like you said, those ADR touchdowns, sometimes being aggressive and taking those opportunities and blitzing, you know what, you're going to give up an ADR touchdown. Guess what? That's the cost of doing business. You're going to have to overcome it. And hopefully you can get it by a couple interceptions that get the ball back and give you some extra opportunities along the way. But that, yeah, that to me is something that I'm hoping to see a change of. My concern is Mike Patton before Matt got there was more aggressive. And then Matt got there and he wasn't as aggressive. And then he hired Joe Barry and Joe Barry was never aggressive, never really aggressive. We know that. And then it felt like Halfley coming in. We were all kind of excited of, oh, we're going to see a more aggressive brand of defense. And then it felt like over time, it got more bend, but don't break more bend, but don't break. And it just feels like this is who Matt wants to be on defense. Maybe with Gannon, it won't be, but it just kind of feels like that's what he wants and that's what he's dictating. And I just, I don't know. I'm ready. I'm ready for something different. I'm a hundred percent ready for something different. Yeah. Last but not least, before I get you out of here, do you have an off season crush, free agent trade draft pick and position? It doesn't even have to be a player. If you don't wants to anything that you're just hoping for at this point man i've done i've done nothing andy i have i've uh the best version because that's how you're most dangerous when you know just enough to be dangerous that's that's beautiful i'm i'm looking backward i'm looking to see what the packers of this past year i mean they need i i know i'm serious dude i know zero names on draft um obviously no one first round because the packers are not a first round pick uh i would i would take uh in the third or fourth round just give me a plugger on the defensive line on the inside. Just give me a plugger and I don't care. I don't care who else they have. Give me a fast wide receiver or a small running back. Give me, give me a Tyler Goodson type running back in the sixth round. Like I know they don't like to do that, but that's like my ideal running back is Aaron Jones. Like give me another, just a tiny, small little dude. They'll just run routes and be a little, little scat back. Give me Darren Sprouls. Like that's all I want. I don't know if there's any guys like that in this draft at this point, but that's what I want, man. preferably one that can return punts and kicks too while they're at it to just give them a little bit of that extra dynamic as well uh dusty i cannot thank you enough what uh what off-season projects you got cooking what are you working on anything you want to plug on the way out yeah uh by the time this is up i'll probably have at least one maybe two pieces up around packing company my my way of looking back i got to try to get somewhat structured and every off dude i've been doing this for 12 years every off season i'm like well how do i do this and find a structure i should know by now um so i'm doing a call sheet series series over an active packing company where I look at what the Packers did, what was successful with the Packers run by down and distance throughout the course of the year, what was successful, how many average plays per game do they have? They do 22 average on first and 10, whatever, you know, seven on second and medium, whatever it is. And then I look at those and go, all right, if we want to build this out by like for our ideal call sheet, what did they run? What was successful? How many times do we run it? And then we build a 65 play call sheet. And through that, we're talking concepts. We look at clips from this past year, kind of what worked, talked about why it didn't. It is always a much bigger project, which I should know just by talking about it because that sounds like a big project. I always think I've got the data. This shouldn't be that hard. So I've got right now the call sheet's built. I've got all that stuff done. And now it's just, well, now all I have to do is like diagram up the place and stuff. Well, that takes forever. So I'm writing now, first piece will be up now, like the introductory one. And then by the time this comes out, hopefully the one that's first intent, what to run a first intent, what they ran, how that worked, all that stuff. and we'll work our way situationally all the way down. I don't have it planned out. I have no idea how long this is going to take me. You know, hopefully a while. So I don't have to think of something else to write about, but that'll be me for the foreseeable future is building the call sheet. So that's done. Posted that. I'm going to post that in the first article. That's just all the stuff broken down and everything, but that's what I'll be working on. And then Wednesday Packaday with Stephen Sir. You guys do an amazing job. I just want to say this. if this project does not end with you creating a long laminate play actual play sheets and then you anytime you're on camera from now on you just have to like you know hold it in front of your face like this so like you're doing the pod with the laminate so like sarah can get upset with you and be like dusty are you talking behind the laminate play call sheet again uh that's where this ultimately needs to end up at the end of things well nagy had was a matt nagy famously had like a room that was just all of his old call sheets like taped to the wall i'll just i'll have one of my walls. There you go. My call sheets. I'll do that. That'd be a pretty epic background, although you have a pretty epic background already. So I do have to give you that. Very jumpy. Again, I thank you enough. We have far too many Acme Packing Company people on our show. Tyler Brooks is just, I talked to him earlier today. Of course, justice is on way too much. You know, so we've got to figure this out somehow. I got to stop giving so much praise. No, I'm just kidding. You guys do an incredible job. Go find them all. AcmePackingCompany.com. At Dusty Evely on social media. You can find me at Andy Herman NFL. That's going to do it for us. But until next time, and as always, Go Pack Go! Bye.