Matt LaFleur Was NEVER On the Hot Seat!

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Today, we're going to be going over everything that we learned from the league meetings, Packers specific and a couple of things, non-packer specific as well. And we're going to start with one topic that took place actually after Justice and I recorded yesterday. Ed policy sat down with some of the media in Arizona and talked for really one of the first times. Right when he became the new president and CEO, he's talked, he's done some of the question things on Packers.com. But this was one of his first ones in, I mean, a long time and one of his first ones period, I think his second or maybe third one period that he has done. So this is not an insignificant event and we don't know when we're going to hear from Ed policy again. And the big thing here is that he had the opportunity to be asked about Matla floor, Brian, Goudekin's, Russ Ball, but I'm going to focus specifically here on Matla floor. One of the biggest things that we learned is that Matla floor was never really on the hot seat. I'm not going to say never. If last year would have been rewins and, you know, 14 losses. We, I don't think we would have seen a Matla floor extension, right? He probably would have been terminated in that instance. But Ed policy stated that he made up his mind a while ago that there was never a situation in which Matla floor was in a winter go home or do or die sort of situation that the bears game at the end, his job was never on the line that he was going to be back as the Packers head coach. That was decided well before that final playoff game. So that is a very interesting takeaway from this. Now I've had an interesting journey covering the whole Matla floor situation talking last year on numerous occasions of how absurd I thought the entire conversation was that I didn't think there was any chance barring barring. I said this, you know, what midway through the season with people, I mean, when we were prior to the Broncos game and there was the fire Matla floor stuff that was always beyond absurd to me. But I said, unless they end on like a five or six game losing streak and are out in the first round of the playoffs and have a embarrassing loss or something like it, like that would be about the only situation where I'd be willing to have the conversation. And lo and behold, not that I tried to speak it into existence by any stretch of the imagination, but the Packers lost their final five games of the season, including a game to Chicago Midway through where they had a brutal onside kick recovery failure and completely blew that game. And then copy and pasted that loss to Chicago into the playoff loss in Chicago and had a huge what was it 21 to three lead at halftime and completely blew that game for their fifth consecutive loss, a first round exit, and what was basically a very embarrassing loss in that final game. And I came out after that and I immediately following gut reaction episode right and I said, I don't know if they can go back to Matla floor. That is a brutal loss. That's five games in a row. And I said, I would be open to it if they wanted to go in a different direction. I don't know if he has the ability to win that locker room back. And then, you know, cooler heads prevailed as the week went on. I'm like, you know, I'm not sure overall how I feel about it. I'm open to it. But I probably now lean a little bit more towards Matt coming back. And one of the big reasons was I just didn't really like the group of coaching candidates that were out there. And I think it was a great group of coaches. And therefore, I came to the conclusion, I think I would stay with Matt, but I understood the conversation. I understood the conversation when you have a end of the season like that, even with the injuries. It felt like there could at least be a conversation about it one way or the other. Like I said, I think I would have ultimately came to the conclusion to as I went through the week of I would have brought him back. But the situation that we talked about to even have that conversation hit and it hit in spades. But for Red Policy, that was not a discussion point. In fact, he was surprised and shocked that Packers fans felt that way. And that's how I felt midway through the season prior to the Denver game. That's how I felt. I thought the entire thing was absurd. I didn't get it. You guys know that I talked about it at Nausium. I thought I thought that entire conversation was just way out there. Then you get to the end of the season. And you see a lot of the same mistakes that have been made in the past. And you're like, all right, well, now maybe it is a conversation. Well, it wasn't. It wasn't a conversation. Ed Policy knew all along that Brian Goudekin's Russ Ball and Matt LaFleur were the trio that he wanted to lead this team into the future. Regardless of what you may think of that, whether that's the right move or the wrong move, I do like and appreciate the fact that Ed Policy is not going to be somebody in this role that is going to make those quick gut decisions, right? That, you know, he thought he was going to go in one direction. And then all of a sudden, that last game happened against Chicago and boom, it's a 180 and we're going to fire somebody. The thing I'll add on top of that is that for Ed Policy, it already just one year in feels very, very much like he is following in the footsteps of Mark Murphy and Bob Harlan. This feels like status quo at that position. And I'll say once again, you may not like that. You may have wanted some big change. You may have wanted Matt LaFleur to be fired or Brian Goudekin's to be fired. You may want a little bit more urgency and the ability to flip that switch and say, screw this, we're going in a different direction. But that is not how the Green Bay Packers have operated. They've operated with a very firm and steady approach, a consistent approach. It is not about big sweeping changes. It's not about like this thing, you know, is just kind of grinding the gears and rolling along and not upsetting the apple cart in any way. And if you are frustrated by that, or if you feel like, hey, I'm not sure that that's the best way, I get it. I really do. I can understand how, you know, sometimes we maybe want to see a little bit more, maybe urgency is the word, maybe a little bit more holding, you know, people, you know, maybe accountability. I don't think accountability is the right overall phrase there. I know some people would say it is. I don't think that that's true. But maybe, but what I will say is that this is an organization that has put together a lot of winning over the period. Really, if we want to say Bob Harlan, Ron Wolf, you know, Mark Murphy, Ted Thompson, Matt LaFleur, Brian Gutekinz, and now Ed Policy. And obviously, you've got Mike Holmgren and Mike McCarthy in there. And, you know, the power that be at president, the GM, the head coach, this has been a very, again, consistent approach. It's an offensive head coach that's a, you know, pretty bright mind in his time, Mike McCarthy, Mike Holmgren, Matt LaFleur. It is a GM that has come from the Ron Wolf tree, Ron Wolf, Ted Thompson, Brian Gutekinz, that understands the culture of the Green Bay Packers. And again, now the president's CEO seems very similar at policy to what we saw with Mark Murphy and what we saw with Bob Harlan before him. And I think overall, for a franchise like this that's seen that type of winning, I think that's overall the right idea and the right approach. And maybe that leaves us frustrated and leaving a couple Super Bowls or maybe a Super Bowl here or there, left wanting for that. I'll put it that way. And that is not ideal. You want Super Bowls. But I do think that this is a team that values competing and winning overall and having that chance every single year and going and having the opportunity to be a postseason team the vast majority of the time. I don't know how to always reconcile those things. In a vacuum, if you were to ask me, hey, if you had a 10-year, a decade period of time and I could guarantee you a Super Bowl, but like the other nine years are going to be not great. It's going to be frustrating. Maybe there's a year before and after the Super Bowl that go well. And then you have seven years of just really rough play, no playoffs, et cetera. Maybe a playoff year with an early elimination, maybe a playoff year with an NFC championship game loss or something and a Super Bowl win. 30% of the time you get in the playoffs, 10% of the time you win the Super Bowl, 70% of the time you don't make the playoffs. In a vacuum, I would say sign me up. In a vacuum, I'd probably just take the one Super Bowl and nine playoff non-appearances. Because I think the Super Bowl is that important. I could understand the argument the other way around of just saying, like, hey, in a 30-year period, you're going to make the playoffs almost every single year, but one out of 15 years, you're going to make the, you know, win a Super Bowl. I mean, that's the crazy part of this. And maybe we're, what, you're starting in, what, 95? You know, I guess we're still in the 30-year period, 20-25, 1995 to 20-25. It was a little bit before 95, 92 is kind of when the Fav era started. So we're, you know, 33 years, 34 years into this thing. Even still, there's 32 teams you're expected to, you know, win one Super Bowl to 32 in an idealistic, maybe not idealistic, but you get my overall thought process here. One out of, there's 32 teams, one out of 32 years. Green Bay is one, two in that 33-ish time frame. They've been to three and they've been to the playoffs how many freaking times? Like they've been a very successful franchise. And this is an organization that, while I think, you know, Lambo will always sell out, if you have that lull, if you have another 70s where this team is just abysmal, just God awful, can't compete early 80s, mid 80s, and they just are not capable of being a competitive team. I think that puts a lot of stress and strain on the organization. We're already hearing Ed Policy talk about, you know, the financials and making sure you can keep the Packers in Green Bay. A prolonged stretch of really bad play is probably not ideal for this organization. And so keeping things on the level and maybe, again, not upsetting that Apple cart so much makes some sense. You may disagree and I'm not here to disagree with you. I'm just sort of laying out the lay of the land for what I see with the Green Bay Packers. And I think there is a group of people in a portion of the fan base that really sort of dislike that steady hand, even keeled approach that want swift action. And I just don't think this is the organization for you the way that it's run. And if this is an indicator from Ed Policy of how things are going to be, I think you have your answer of that this is going to stay very status quo. If you thought Ed Policy was going to come in and makes whole scale changes and he wants his guys and he's going to want his GM and he's going to change the structure up and you're going to see some things start moving now that the Mark Murphy era is over. I would put that idea to rest. His first big decision was to extend Brian Goudekin's Matt LaFleur and Russ Ball following a five game losing streak to end this past season and a pretty embarrassing loss after a 21 to three lead at halftime against their arch rival, Chicago Bears. Matt LaFleur and the Packers in 2025 gave Ed Policy really the opportunity to do what he wanted. If they would have won their last four, four of their last five and maybe still lost in the first round or maybe lost their foreign or O but won their playoff game against the Bears and then maybe lost against Seattle, if any of those would have happened, I think it makes it tougher. I'm just like, all right, maybe it's not the right time or place to make any whole scale changes. But in this scenario, the Packers opened up Ed Policy the opportunity to do whatever the heck he wanted. If he said, hey, we just went all in for Mike Aparse and we still couldn't win a first round playoff game, the coach has got to go or the GM made the wrong call or we're going to nuke this all and we're going to start from scratch. He could have done so. I don't think there would have been a huge groundswell of anger towards Ed Policy that he was going to do something different based on how that season ended. He probably had a mandate to do something. So if there was maybe this idea that he wanted to come in and he wanted to get his guys, he wanted to make his changes, it would have been hard to do so if they just won, right? But they didn't. They lost. They lost five in a row and they could have probably made changes. And he still said, no, these are the three that I want. These are the three that are going to lead us into that Super Bowl era again in Green Bay, bring a Lombardi back to Green Bay. Well, see if he's right. It's his first major decision. But the first thing we really learned, one of the main things that we learned is that Matt was not in the hot seat. And number two, really, he's not on a Prove it contract either. Per Ed Policy, this was a quote, very significant commitment to the trio, Balguidi and Matliflore. So I'll just add on top of this. If you're going into this season, thinking that Matt is firmly on the hot seat in 2026, I think you're probably sadly mistaken. It's not again to say that there couldn't be a catastrophic season. And if they go three and 14 and he loses the locker room, sure, they're going to have to come to terms with a big buyout for Matliflore and having to start over. I don't think they would do it with Goody, but at three and 14, who knows? There's always a door. There's always an option. You never say never in the NFL. You never know what's going to happen. Never would have thought that there's the potential of Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers playing or coaching and playing together for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the year 2026. Now, I would have said never to that, and yet here we probably are. So there's always that opportunity, but barring something extremely catastrophic, even another nine and eight season with a number seven seed and a first round exit, I'd be willing to bet you Matliflore is going to be back in 2027. And Brian Goodykiss and Russ Ball will be back in 2027. Again, per Ed policy, this was a quote, very significant commitment to that trio. So if you're hoping, again, for a coaching change, I think you're probably looking at 2028 at the earliest, again, barring something extremely catastrophic. We'll be right back. Number three, third thing we learned. Packers are probably done in free agency until after the draft. I talked about this a little bit with Justice yesterday of just how the next window of free agency is probably going to take place after the draft, but Brian Goodykiss was pretty clear on this. This was in regards to maybe bringing back Trayvon Diggs. This was the question that he was asked with how he sort of answered this. But as part of that answer, he said, quote, as we work through this draft and get to the other side of the draft, we're going to continue to look at ways to improve the football team. That sounds a lot to me like, from now until the draft, we are focused on the draft. And then we will take a look at it in the future after the draft as to whether or not we want to still add somebody to this team. For two reasons, right? One is you don't want to add something to the team now that then you draft and you're like, all right, well, that was redundant. We didn't need two of those. And now we have two. So you kind of want to see what you get in the draft first. But number two is that you don't want to jeopardize those compics. And the Tuesday following the draft compics are no longer a thing when you sign free agents. And that makes sense to again, that second wave of free agency. But Goody said it pretty clear, again, quote, as we work through this draft and get to the other side of the draft, we're going to continue to look at ways to improve the football team. So just take that time out and take a pause. Free agency is at a, you know, right now just in that almost in a bi week, right? And it'll pick back up two days following the NFL draft. And that's when Goody will take a look again at maybe adding some players via free agency to this team depending on what happens in the draft. Number four, we talked about this with Justice and I talked about on the live show. So I'm not going to go into it in great detail, but there are players who are not happy with their roles in the team. There was discontent with the players on the team. As we talked about, this happens on every team, not everyone's going to be happy. It is a huge part of what you need to do as a head coach to manage the egos. I talked about this a little bit on the live show, but there's two things at play here. And I've talked about one of these in the past quite a bit, but all of these players were the all everything in their grade school, middle school, high school, and probably in college too. Not just in football, but whether they were playing basketball, wrestling, track, you know, soccer, whatever else they were playing, they were the all everything in that too. And so now you get to the NFL and all of a sudden, you know, saving on Williams, for example, right? All everything. He did Wildcat. He did your returning. He did wide receiver. He was unbelievable at TCU and all throughout his high school and middle school career and everything like that. He's a freak athlete. He can do anything he wants and he's a star. Even his freshman year, he was pretty darn good right away. And then you get to Green Bay and you're like the number five, six receiver somewhere in that range. You were third. You were top 100 pick. That can be a tough pill to swallow. It's the first time in your life that you are not the guy that you're not even getting snaps. You're not getting playing time in any sort of significant way. I'm not just signaling or singling out saving on Williams here. This is just for a lot of players who aren't getting that playing time. Imagine Catano LaDopo. You know, Catano LaDopo, you know, pretty darn good player. And he's buried on the depth chart as a number five safety last year. You've got Williams and McKinney and Bullard and Zane Anderson all ahead of him on the depth chart. He's a good player. And what we've seen Catano LaDopo step in, he's played pretty darn good football. But yeah, here he is as the number five safety on the team and relegated to special teams duty. That's a very hard thing. The other thing that's worth noting is we are now in the transfer portal era, not only in college, but in high school. And we are seeing kids, whether it be in college basketball, college football, they don't like how things go one year. See you later off to a different team. Oh, I didn't like how that went off to a different team. I didn't like how that went off to a different team. We're seeing kids play four schools, three, four schools at times in college. And almost at minimum, it seems like pretty much everyone ends up playing for at least two things don't go their way. See you later. They have an exit. They can go elsewhere. They don't have to sit around and be on the same team with the same coach that didn't play them. Now you get to the NFL. There's nowhere to go. You're under contract for years for draft picks, three years for undrafted free agents, five years for first round picks. If you, if they pick up your, your, you know, player option, you don't have an out. You're just on that team. So you can get some discontent in those situations. But there does seem to be a couple of cracks in the foundation and Matt LaFleur is going to have to address it. He addressed it this past week. I do think that some of these things are going to take care of themselves naturally is a lot of players left, whether it be on the offensive line with Elton Jenkins and Rashid Walker leaving at wider Seaver with Romeo Dobbs being gone, running back Emmanuel Wilson being gone quarterback with you know, obviously the Malik Willis to Miami. Yeah, he's, he's gone defensive end. You've got Rashon Gary and Kingsley and Ibarre that are both gone defensive tackle Colby Wooden's gone, even if Hargrave is in linebacker, Kway Walker's gone, even if Zaire Franklin is in a corner, Nate Hobbs is gone. Even again, if Ben St. Juice is in it, safety's ain't Anderson is gone. Some of these things are going to take care of themselves just organically, but guess what? You're going to have a whole new crop of draft picks. We're going to have to come in and earn their keep. And those draft picks will not be used to not being used and being an active on game day and fighting for a roster spot and things like that. This is going to be a constant. And I think Matliflore is right. He's going to have to open up the lines of communication even more. And he's going to have to get this team really built together with a cohesiveness that maybe wasn't there a season ago. And that is going to be a huge key piece of 2026. So wherever that discontent is coming from, Matliflore has to address it. And if he doesn't, I could see this team spiraling in 2026. And if he does and gets it fixed, I could see them playing at a whole different level than what they were able to a year ago. Number five in the no surprise, no crap sort of category. The Packers are very focused and honed in on finishing games in 2026. I said, no kidding, right? We've, we heard it from Brian Goudicans early in the off season. We heard it echoed again from Goody. We heard it from Mat. This is a team that needs to finish games stronger. They didn't do that a season ago. They have to do it better. And if they don't, again, it's going to be a huge issue coming up this year. So Mat is, I can guarantee you, focused a billion percent on finding ways to, you know, not only start games strong, but to play throughout the entirety of them, four quarters of football. And yes, for those who are thinking it starts with it, it absolutely starts with Mat. Man, I missed the days of all gas, no break. I really do. Those were great. And it didn't feel like there was enough of that. I think Matt's got to say, Hey, I'm not taking my foot off the gas. If you guys don't take your foot off the gas, we're, we're all in, we're, we're going for it. We're going to, we're going to put our foot down and we're going to stomp on the throat and we're not letting their foot off. So that, that to me starts with Mat. He's keenly aware of it. That's great. Let's see if he can ultimately fix it this upcoming season. Number six, Packers are stripping down everything on offense. You talked about this a little bit already, but it's an interesting situation when you have everybody returning on offense. I mean, all the players that are here are returnees. Skymore is your only addition on offense. I'm sure they're going to draft a couple players, but you're starting offensive line, returnies, quarterback, starting running backs, starting wide receivers, your top three, four, five, probably wide receivers, all these players are going to be returning your top, whatever, all of your tight ends at the moment. You would think that this is going to take another step from what you've already accomplished to take, you know, the next step in, in adding some new fun wrinkles to what you've already built. Real talk. This is something I was a little bit afraid of back in 2023. In 2023, when you made the transition to Jordan, and you had the youngest team in the league, talked a little bit about it at the time of saying, I'm not focused right now on trying to win a Super Bowl in 2023, build the foundation of this team and get all of these young players that you have so much talent on that group, playing with unbelievable fundamentals and get them playing the right brand of football. Now, that did not happen in its entirety. They did sort of find the core of their team. That was an important piece of that year, and Jordan was such a huge piece of that year and just his development. So they did pieces of that, but it almost felt like they got that taste of some opportunity to make the playoff, and then they beat Dallas, then they barely lost to San Fran. And then you came again in 2024, and it felt like it was now our work. We were this short a year ago, we're now a year older, a year wiser, we're going Super Bowl. And it felt like there was still so much growth for this team that they needed to accomplish, but they weren't ready. And it just felt like really, whether it's been since the end of that 2023 season when they were making that push to the playoffs and then beat Dallas, from that time until now, it just felt like it's been this sprint towards trying to win games at the end of the year and just winning, winning, winning, winning. Winning is great. I love winning, but with the youngest team in the league three years in a row, it felt like your best opportunity to really grow this team to get them to be a Super Bowl contender was taking 23 and 24 specifically, and really pounding in and focusing on the fundamentals and making sure that the technical side of things was exactly the way that you wanted it. And then 25 and 26 and beyond, where you're now we're cooking, we've got the fundamentals down, everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing, and we can take off to an entirely different degree. And instead, it feels like 23, 24, 25, we're so focused on winning, winning, winning, winning, winning, that it almost feels like now in 2026, they have to take that step back again and refocus in on the fundamentals of everything. And like I said, to me, that's a bit of a failure that they, they got too far ahead of their skis. And they, they were so urgent. And so now, now, now, and they didn't take that step back to say what should be the real focus. And it's hard. It's really hard because in the NFL, jobs are always on the line. And you're always worried about, well, what if we have a bad year? So winning is important at every, every step of the way, every stage, I get it. But it felt like there was a real opportunity in 23 specifically, but in 2024, but as well, just take a little bit of a step back and say, I want growth. And I want the coaching of these players and the fundamentals and the technical skills to be our, the core of the team. And then we'll get there in 25 and 26 with opportunities to ramp up in an aggressive way. But now it didn't happen. And it seems, seems like they're going to have to take a step back and really focus on those fundamentals moving forward. Number seven, Packers could still play an overseas game per ad policy, either the, the Lions in Munich in Germany, or the Saints in Paris, which we've known, we know that those are the two teams that they play that still have opponents that have not been determined yet overseas. But at policy saying there is still a real opportunity that they could play in either Munich or in Paris. It's not the worst case scenario, right? Like take the Lions game, would you rather play that in Detroit? Very tough place to play or on a neutral site. And same thing. Yeah, I'm probably a little bit less. I'm not worried about necessarily playing the Saints in New Orleans, but they've done some nice things in the off season. You never know what Tyler Shucks going to do this upcoming year. And New Orleans is no simple place to play either. So not, not maybe the worst case scenario in the world if it happens, especially because you already have an extra home game this year. So you could have instead of, you know, back in the day, eight home games, eight away. Now you have nine home games, eight away, but you could end up with nine home games, seven true away games and one neutral game, which is a real advantage for Green Bay if it ends up happening. So we'll see if they do, but that is still a possibility. Number eight, the Packers did like Zyre Franklin and Benjamin St. Juist a while back. Brian Gutekin's talked about Zyre Franklin and wanting to trade for him before he even became a starter that they liked him that much early on. So that's interesting. And then Benjamin St. Juist is somebody that they liked in the draft and liked coming out. And then, you know, said that, you know, they really liked the way that he played this past year, actually took him a little bit longer than they wanted to actually get him signed on the dotted line. But these are two players that they've been on for a while. And now they get on the roster. We'll see what they can do. But again, these are things, these are players that the Packers track for very long periods of time and keep their scouting reports and their notes and are always constantly monitoring the league. And these are two players that apparently they've had their eye on for some time. Number nine, the referee issues continue to loom. We do not have a referee agreement. The NFL did pass the rule where if there are replacement officials that the booth can get a little bit more involved and correct and, you know, the powers that be can get a little bit more involved in correct mistakes that the replacement officials made. Sounds like they're at some point will be some hiring of replacement officials as well. This is not slowing down. Andrew Brandt, you know, always says deadlines per action. The deadline is May 31st. That's when the true deadline is, you know, hopefully things get done before then. But keep an eye around then we've got, you know, maybe a two month period of time here for cooler heads to prevail and both sides to get something done here. I don't think anybody wants replacement officials. I don't even know if the replacement officials want replacement officials, but hopefully they can get something done here. Number 10, we learned about a bunch of rule changes. None super significant. We did get the Micah Parsons rule approved, which is great. It's not really the Micah Parsons rule and it wasn't, you know, brought up by the Packers or anything, but it could help him. You can now open a 21 day practice window after the second game of the season. So if Micah does go on the physically unable to perform list before he would have had to sit out, sat out those first four weeks, and then you can start the ramp up period. Now he can sit out the first two weeks and the day after that second game, they can open up his 21 day practice window and he can practice for up to three weeks and then get activated after that. He could get activated after those two weeks, right? So two weeks and start practicing them. He has two more weeks and then after that four week mark, they could actually activate them, but it allows him to ramp up during that period where he has to stay out and not play games. It's a really smart update by the league. Makes all the sense in the world. And that could be very beneficial for Micah Parsons. Next one, Replay Center can correct mistakes by the replacement rafts. We talked about that. Teams can now speak up to five players via phone call or video call during the negotiation window that today, the legal tampering period, they can now speak. Yeah, I don't even know why this matters. Everyone's tampering illegally before that anyway. The league office can adjust procedures and deadlines to the 53 man roster cut down to accommodate for international games. That was approved Saturday and Sunday of Labor Day are now business days in the NFL. Hopefully not for you. You hopefully still want those off, but for the league, those are now business days. The NFL is now going to allow league personnel to consult with on field officials about disqualifying players for flagrant football or non football acts that go unpenalized during the course of the game. So there was like a egregious helmet to helmet that the referees missed on the field. The league could whistle down and say, Hey, we need to get this guy out of there. He should have been kicked out of the game. You guys didn't see it, but we did. So make sure that this guy is out of the game. Could see a few more and flags thrown after the fact. We'll be right back. And the last one, actually two more teams kicking off from the 50 can kick the ball out of the end zone and the receiving team would then get it at the 20. This is so that they could also feel that in the end zone and they get it at the 20. This is to prevent it from teams trying to kick it on purpose out of bounds. If it was a safety or you got a penalty and the ball was kicked from the 50 teams would specifically kick it out of bounds so that the receiving team would get it at the 25. Now you have the incentive to kick it through the end zone. So the team gets it at the 20 eliminating it. So weird optics, right? Where they're kicking it out of the, you know, kicking it out of bounds and getting a penalty for it. And then last but not least, onside kicks are now allowed at any time with any score. So you could even be leading. You could be up by 21 if you want to declare an onside kick you can do so. You still have to declare it, but any score, any time of game you can now declare an onside kick. We talked about number 11, but Matliflora does not know by Rich Passashi a left. All right, sure. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. Schema things probably doesn't matter all that much seems a little bit unlikely, but Kami Acord was on Rich Passashi as list of special teams coordinators to consider. They did go with Acord apparently had a lot of fans throughout the league. Hopefully that is a move that works out from Matliflora. The Dolphins, Miami Dolphins, Green Bay South, they plan to extend HN and there is zero effort on the Dolphins part to try to trade him. So I know a lot of you are really hoping that HN was going to become a Green Bay Packer via trade or something. It sounds like he is not on the blocks and that Miami does in fact want to extend him. Could that be posturing? Sure. Either way, I don't see anything getting done and actually do think HN will stay with Miami. Packers are not selling the naming rights to Lambeau Field. Ed policy reiterated that. He said at least not in the near future. So maybe sometime well down the road if they absolutely desperately need the money. He did say there's other aspects that they are willing to sell, whether it's like the practice facility rights or maybe some of the atrium stuff or whatever. He did say that they're going to have to be creative with that. He said they're going to have to be creative with ticket prices, but no. They are having no plans at the moment to sell the naming rights for Lambeau Field. Number 14, owners and Ed policy continue to push for an 18 game season. There's a lot of talk about that, that the owners are in favor of it and you're going to hear more of that. Everyone feels like that's going to be a foregone conclusion that it's going to be an 18 game season with two bi weeks and eventually noteworthy. There is no Super Bowl date picked out for 20 27 season yet. Is that because they think that it could get pushed back because of an 18 game season? Maybe, maybe not, but just know it's coming at some point. We're going to get an 18 game season. There's going to be two bi weeks. Season is going to be probably one preseason game shorter. Maybe I don't know when they're going to start, but probably go until president and stay and the season will get longer. So just know it's going to happen. There continues to be more buzz about that. No more double Monday night football games. So you know how they've been doing those double headers on like four or five games a year, a Monday night football. No more. So this is not due to player safety or they sold it as well. You know, fans were just having trouble deciding what game they want. It's nothing to do with that. This is fully trying to get more money. So they took those games, those additional games that were going to be double headers on Monday night football, and are creating a package to sell as a standalone group of games like, you know, the way it was at the Wednesday before Thanksgiving or whatever, like just adding more random games throughout the course of the year that they can now sell to the highest bidder. So they're just trying to make more money here. That's all this is, but there will no longer be those double double header Monday night football games. Also, Fridays are not short weeks. If you play on a Friday, that is not considered a short week game because so teams are limited to the amount of short week games they can play. I think it's two per season, something to that effect. That's great, which means you can only play on, you know, like a Sunday to Thursday twice. But if it's a Sunday to Friday, the league no longer classifies that as a short week. That is a long enough week for player recovery, apparently. So they changed the verbiage on that. The Jaguars will play in Orlando in 2027. The Seahawks are your hard knocks team for 2026. The Patriots are your hard knocks team for 2027. And last but not least, Mike McCarthy is confident that Aaron Rodgers will play and be the Pittsburgh Steelers starting quarterback in 2026. Feels like a foregone conclusion. You never quite know with Aaron Rodgers, but that does seem to be the prevailing thought at this point in time. Those are your 20 takeaways from the league meetings. Matla floor never on the hot seat. Matla floor is not an a-proved contract. This is a significant commitment. Packers probably done in free agency until after the draft discontent from players with their roles on the team. Packers are focused on finishing games in 2026, stripping everything down on offense and going back to square one. Packers could still play overseas. Packers liked Zyre Franklin and Benjamin St. Juice, even before acquiring them, well back and have been keeping their eyes on them for a while. Referee issues continue to loom. Rule changes went through a lot of them. We went through those. Matla floor does not know why Rich Passatia left. Dolphins plan to extend HN. Packers are not selling the naming rights to Lambeau Field. Owners and Ed policy continue to push for an 18 game season. It's not on the docket this year, by the way. That would be something in the future. No more double Monday night football games. Fridays are not short weeks. Jaguar is playing in Orlando in 2027. Seahawks hard knocks in 2026. Patriots hard knocks in 2027. And Mike McCarthy confident Aaron Rodgers will play in 2026. Did I miss anything? Let me know if I did in the comments, but I think those are your key takeaways for this year's league meetings. I'll be back with you guys tomorrow. I think we're going to be going over some draft defensive tackles and which ones would potentially fit Green Bay. If I get my draft study done, I have a few more defensive tackles I want to go through. I should have time to do that. So I think that's going to be our topic for tomorrow. Look out for Ty Dunne coming on later this week as well to talk about his wonderful, wonderful article with Jovanne Bullard and some other Packers topics also. Shout out to our all prone Hall of Fame members, PJ win, Brandon Paletta, boom, handle, Donnelly, Lori, Lord, David McCluskey, Alex, Peter Rattaka, Jason, Ramin, B Brown, Porter, we can pack her. Dan, guestford, Chris, Rager, Izzy Roberts, Ian Ewing, Willie Winkles, single, the Gables, storm, pack attack cast, Chris Weisch, Craig, John, D metropolis, Ada, Radomsky, Devon Lane, Alexander Newell, Richard Morales, last Nino, Beast Bumblebee, Steve Bates, John, Mark Ladell, Nemo, Donald Decker, Damon Hartley, Zilch, Zillertson, large Charles, Jay Koner, Will Glass, Imperium collectibles, Carlo Delgado and Benjamin Sargent. I'll see you guys tomorrow, but until next time. And as always, go pack out.