Wild Card Saturday Preview: Rams-Panthers and Packers-Bears

0:28Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. these games. Let's get into it right now.

0:37It's part one of our wild card preview here on the athletic football show. Part two should be available in your podcast feeds right now. We did this last year. I think we had separated by conference last year, but it also happened to work out that the conferences played chronologically last year. Not the case this year. So we're going to be doing two different shows. We're going to start with the Saturday games on this one. The Sunday and Monday games will be on the other episode currently in your feed. These games are presented by BetMGM. And let's kick things off with the first playoff game of the weekend, Rams at Panthers.

1:14Rams are 10 and a half point favorites in this game. And I think that will probably hang over the discussion we're going to have about this game. But for each of these, all the six of the games we're going to talk about, I want to just try to set the table about how we got here. And so I feel like the Panthers, for ways both good and bad, kind of stand alone as a member of this playoff field that we're getting into this weekend. Yeah, this is a little bit of like, you probably shouldn't be here for, again, good and bad. Like this is a team that it was no guarantee that they would even be good enough to maybe get into the playoffs at the end.

1:48Like a lot did have to go right for them. Like all the spending on the defense, the identity that they had for the offense being really run first heavy, Tedrow and McMillan being as good as he was like a lot of things did have to go right for them to even be a near 500 team that on top of obviously how weird the week 17 week 18 stuff was with them actually getting into the playoffs we talked about this a lot in the preseason just about what success looks like for the Panthers and what the Panthers should be trying to be this year and I feel like they hit it exactly like you're I think your exact framing was you wanted them to be a team that was on the on the hunt graphic in the on the in the hunt graphic in week 18 or heading into week 18 and to not pick in the top 10 yeah and both of those things will be happening for the panthers and so the way that they stumbled into the playoffs was obviously strange it's been a crazy year like the fact that the panthers seemingly can't have two good games in a row and that there are these wild swings for them week to week it's indicative of a team that i think is still very young in terms of the age of the players in terms of its team building process the build, all of that stuff.

2:53So none of that should be surprising. But the fact that they got a playoff appearance as part of that overall formula, it's a nice little cherry on top for what has been an encouraging season for the overall progress from the franchise. Because that's the thing, even if we expect them to lose and we do. And again, I know I know they already beat this team. It's nice for a young team, for a first time head coach to get some playoff experience against a team and a coaching staff that has done it as much as anyone over the last decade in the Rams. Like I do think that them, even if the experience isn't going to mean anything for them this year, because they're obviously not going to go and win the Super Bowl.

3:27I do think if they have some sort of vision to get to really be like an NFC championship caliber team in the next two, three years with the way their build works, getting a little bit of experience for some of these guys in the playoffs is pretty nice. The Panthers are a team that I think is happy to be here. The Rams are a team that for a good chunk of this season felt like they might be the best team in the NFL. They had the best offense in the NFL for almost the entire season. The defense was playing at a really high level for majority of the year. And then they hit a little bit of a slide over the last month of the year here.

3:56They have a couple, you know, kind of strange games. They play really poorly against Atlanta. Obviously they lose that game to the Seahawks. They go from being, having the inside track to the number one seed and a block and a buy to now playing on the road in the first round of the playoffs. What do you want to see from this Rams team specifically? Not even like the way it looks against Carolina and matchup specific things. what elements of this Rams team do you want to see kind of come back in this game that would give you more hope in what they can be over the rest of the playoffs I think the offense they'll be fine like like I have a lot of faith that they're going to be okay especially like Devontae Adams coming back like they're going to be able to be the offense that they want to be and so even if they've had some weird stumbles I'm pretty okay there defensively when they were one of the better defenses in the league for the first three months of the season before they had a couple of rough stretches there at the end it was because their front was able to dictate every game and they were able to honestly protect a secondary that is it's not terrible but they have to play a particular way it's a lot of guys who like playing top down and driving on routes because they know the front is going to get home they know and that they're in really clear uh passing down in distances because of how good the run defense was but I think with the run defense having a couple of struggles and funny enough one of their worst games this year was against this Panthers team um I would like to see the front kind of buckle up a little bit more and really feel like the dominant force that they were for the like three months or so that it feels like they can dictate games again to some of the teams that they're playing the one injury related thing i would mention just outside of the davante adams stuff which is 100 worth throwing out there obviously he misses the final three games of the year getting him back is huge puka played like a superhero for the back half of the season but there's a reason they went out and got davante adams this offseason like you need a secondary pass catching option.

5:39The other guy that missed most of the back half of the season and is now off IR, he did not play in week 18, but sounds like he's going to play in this game. Quinton Lake is like a huge part of this team's defense. And so getting Quinton Lake back, they gave him an extension a few weeks ago, which was not surprising at all, because this is a team that they don't always commit to defensive players at a lot of different positions. They're willing to kind of cycle through off ball linebackers, corners, the whole back seven, they'll just shuffle them out. For the most part, Jalen Ramsey is like the only secondary piece they've really committed to since they've kind of come into this version of how they're trying to build the team.

6:17And so the fact that they were willing to give Quentin Lake an extension, I think really speaks to how they see him as like an important part of this thing. So getting him back for this game feels really important. And so that is the other thing. One, the front had been able to dictate games to a lot of teams and stuff like that. But then when they did get into second and nine, they could get into really light personnel because Quentin Lake is like kind of a linebacker. And so having other light bodies around him wasn't really a problem when he's not on the field. They've got some other guys who can do that.

6:44Like Jalen McCullough is decent in that way, but he's Quentin Lake is a different kind of guy. I think a lot of people are going to look at maybe us being dismissive of the Panthers ability to win this game and mentioning the 10 and a half point spread and say, well, the Panthers already beat the Rams this year. That is objectively correct. They won that game against the Rams. If you look at one layer deeper at the way that that game went, when the Rams had the ball in that game, they throw a red zone interception and pick six. The Panthers in that game completed three passes of 10-plus air yards.

7:19Two of those passes were fourth-down plays that went for 30-plus-yard touchdowns. And so the swings and variance in like three or four moments in that game is the reason that the Panthers ultimately end up winning it. Maybe that happens again. But that's one of those games where if you play it 10 times, the Rams likely win nine of them. And that's why it's a 10 and a half point spread. Exactly. Like the Rams, the Rams were moving the ball incredibly well in that game. They had the best rushing success rate in any game this season. 70 % per next year. It was insane. Like they got all that they wanted on the run game.

7:52They were consistently in the red zone. Again, you mentioned the red zone interception they throw, which that wasn't even like a bad decision or anything. It gets tipped up by Derek Brown and just like they it happens to go high enough in the air that a Panthers guy can get under it. And then some of the fourth and twos like those are good plays. Like Jalen Coker just beats Emmanuel Forbes one on one when they wad up the protection and basically just say this is the only route we're throwing. And so that's nice for them. The TMAC one. I think that is the one I'll give them a little bit of credit for.

8:18He's running like that big, deep over and Emmanuel Forbes is actually on it. and because of that, Bryce Young actually throws it like up the field and lets McMillan run under it, whereas I think Forbes is like trying to undercut it because that's what you usually have to do on those overroutes. So I'll give them a little bit of credit for that one, but it is like they hit on the variance scale a 10 out of 10 in a good way on both sides of the ball, even if that falls to like six or seven. You're probably not winning this game. We were talking about this before we started recording. I also think it's just worth pointing out that Stafford just didn't play as well down to down in that first game as he has for most of the season.

8:54That pick six is a terrible decision. It's a terrible decision in the moment, the fact that he lets that throw rip. And there were a couple other, and it was a driving rainstorm in that game, so obviously that plays into it, but he missed multiple open guys. Like there was a deep corner route to Terrence Ferguson at one point in that game that it's just the throw that, first of all, he double clutches it, and he's just, how cleanly he's seen things the entire season, that's just one of those moments where it was so out of character for like what we've come to expect from him this year. So the fact that you had those variance moments not go your way and you had a couple of plays from Matthew Stafford that were just not really in line with what we've seen from him all season.

9:33I just don't know if you get that game again if you're the Panthers. You probably don't. Cause like, I think he missed another one down the right side deep to Whittington too, where he just like overthrows it and sails it five yards out of bounds. And like, I think even on a good Stafford day, he gives you one of those, but he gave you like five or six of those in this game. I just, he's probably not going to do that again. I think there's a very narrow path for the Panthers to win this game. And I don't think that's surprising anybody when you have a double digit spread in a playoff game. That's typically how it goes.

9:57Let's explore what that path might look like, though. And let's start with when the Panthers have the ball in this game. If the Panthers are going to do this, what needs to happen for them on the offensive side of the ball? I actually do think they if they can run the ball well again and like not have this be a high volume passing game, because, again, they weren't good in the passing game last game because they were 20 times. Yeah, exactly. They threw the ball 20 times and they hit on like three chunk plays and that was kind of it. But their run game was really good. And I think we've kind of thought of them as a really like downhill power counter moving guys type of team.

10:29And they are typically really good at that. In this last game, it was a lot of like split zone out of the gun. It was a lot of they were just getting under center and running duo and not really pulling anybody or a little bit of weak zone. It was like we are running straight at you. And I think either in instances where Puna Ford wasn't on the field or if they're just running away from him a little bit, like just opposite side of the center, I do think that you can move some of the other defensive linemen that they have there. And so they can do that again. And then I will say they're not going to have the variance they had, like hitting, you know, the fourth and two chunk plays they had in the last game.

11:00I do think the Panthers having size on the outside against these Rams corners, that is like a good matchup that they could probably target again. And we saw that in the first game. I mean, even the touchdown obviously stands out, but one of the other, like they didn't have that many chunk completions in the passing game. But, you know, Coker was picking on, I think it was Forbes again, I'm just like a deep outbreaker from like a cut split on one point. Like you can get after this team on the perimeter if the pass rush isn't getting home. And I think even if Forbes has not been like a defined weakness as often this year as you might have thought coming into the season, that's still the area of the defense you can probably pick on if you're the Panthers.

11:34And so size on the perimeter, I think is absolutely worth throwing out there. then the run game is, it's key to any Panthers game. But in this one specifically, I think that trying to condense the game, trying to shorten the game, trying to maintain possession as often as you can is hugely important. Like you mentioned, they ran the ball downhill consistently the last time these two teams played. And he didn't play last week when we thought he might, but it sure sounds like Robert Hunt is going to play in this game for the Panthers. And so now you've got an interior with him and Cade Mays and Damian Lewis that is pretty much as big and as physically imposing as any in the entire NFL.

12:11And he hasn't played for a majority of the season. Who knows what you'll get from him? But I'm interested to see what it looks like at the very least. I am too. I really want to see what they can do. Because again, all the best Panthers games have pretty much been when they've been able to run the ball. Because they can control the game and allow it to get into volatile mode where they only have to make five plays in the passing game. And that's how they beat them last time. So if they can do it again, they might have a chance. But, you know, 10.5 points spread. It's there for a reason. Let's get to when the Rams have the ball in this game.

12:41What needs to happen when the Rams are on offense for the Panthers to do this? Honestly, man, just do what you did last time. I do think that you're probably not going to have as successful a running game as you did in the last time. One, because it's hard to repeat having the best game that anyone had all season long. But I do think, you know, the Rams are going to miss Kevin Dotson in this game. And so I think not having as much oomph there is going to hurt. The Panthers might miss Turk Wharton, though. So, I mean, that could hurt them a little bit. So maybe that's a little bit of a tradeoff.

13:08So, but I do think if the Rams can run the ball generally as well as they have for a lot of this game, I think that that can help them. Because honestly, like, I don't think the red zone interceptions are going to happen again. I don't think Stafford is going to throw a silly interception. Like, I do think they'll be a little bit more buttoned up this time around. There are a couple of different things that jump out to me when it comes to, like, what the Panthers do well and how that aligns with who the Rams want to be offensively. The Panthers run defense has been a good unit for a good chunk of this season.

13:36They're a little bit worse on under center runs. If you look at the next gen numbers, they're closer to league average. And obviously that's what the Rams want to be. And like you mentioned, the Rams had one of the best rushing success rate games in the entire season, the first time they played against the Panthers. So an area where the Panthers are typically very good, the way the Rams want to play and what we've already seen is not necessarily lined up toward Carolina the way that you would want. But if they want to win this game, that's a situation where Derek Brown has to take over the game in the middle of that defense.

14:05Like they need to be putting the Rams in as many second and nines, second and eights as they possibly can, because that is the one area where the Rams offense has struggled this year. If you get them in third and defined pass, that is not an area where they're very good. And that's where you kind of see the limitations of what they want to be offensively. And I do think part of that is like for as much as I love Matthew Stafford, it's like if you get a free rusher, unless he's replacing them immediately, like he's taking a sack. Like he does not have the mobility. Like there was one in this game where Carolina came out in an under front.

14:39And so they had their one technique to the tight end side. And then they had the defensive end split out all the way across outside the tight end. So it looks like there's this huge bubble to the Rams, slide their protection away from that. And then they just fire the linebacker and the nickel through that. One guy gets free and Stafford like he can't move, especially against the safety. He takes an immediate sack. So I do think in a couple of these second and longs, third and longs, if they can generate two or three free rushers, more often than not, those are going to turn into pretty bad plays for the Rams.

15:06The area of specifically that jumps out to me and watching in the first game back again, the numbers when I started looking at them weren't surprising because anecdotally, the Panthers did a great job in this area. they were really good at a lot of the play action stuff that the Rams were trying to hit. Specifically, they did a great job of like getting a ton of depth with their flat defenders and just taking away some of the more vertical shots that the Rams were trying to take. This year, the Panthers have allowed a 25 % completion rate on under center play action passes of 10 plus yards. 25%.

15:39That's the whole Rams offense. That's the Rams offense. And so that is the lowest mark by any single team of the next gen era. and overall, so that's 10 plus area play action shots. Overall, any sort of under center play action, the Panthers are number two in the league this year in EPA per drop back. Only the Seahawks have been better, and sometimes that stuff can be an anomaly. It's the number of reps you see from it over the course of the season, but when you go back and you watch the first game, it's like, oh no, they're actually really good at defending this stuff. That's one of the best things they do.

16:11Well, and the game plan we just talked about when they played the Seahawks, they actually did a really good job up against all their under center stuff, a lot of their boot stuff. Like these teams that are built like that, Carolina has come out and given them, given them a little bit of hell. And there were, you know, we mentioned a couple of the plays, like the one that he misses to Ferguson, the one that he misses to Whittington. The Rams did still have a couple of chances, but when you're only limiting to them to three good chances down the field, the game where they're used to getting six or seven, and then maybe Stafford misses one or two of them, that's how you get the Rams offense feeling a little bit less explosive than it normally would be on a good day.

16:45The other quirk from the last game that I was surprised to see, and I think it came on the heels of Tyler Higby getting hurt, so maybe that was the reason. The Rams only played nine snaps of 13 personnel the last time these two teams played. I expect to see more of that in this game. I think them trying to hunt out those play-action shots out of heavier personnel against base defense is an easier way to get after Carolina than it is when they're in nickel. because the guy that actually really jumped out when I was watching just the way they were playing some of these play action things was Smith-Shout Wade.

17:17Like the depth that he was getting on a lot of those plays, I think was taking away some of those throws that Stafford wanted. And so getting one more linebacker on the field and trying to be more vertical that way, I would not be surprised if the Rams are trying to tap into that. The last thing I'll say with the 13 personnel stuff too, I actually think it's fun in the sense that like, they'll go into 13 personnel and then the only receiver on the field will be like Xavier Smith or something. There's a reason for that. And they're giving their best guys a breather, which typically we always think of that with pass rushers, right?

17:46But I do think it's like if the offense is going to be as vertical as it is with Pukunuku and Devontae Adams, it's kind of fun that they give those guys a little bit of a breather every now and then. My joke was the reason that it's Xavier Smith or Tutu Atwell is that all they want from that guy when it's 13 personnel is we just need pure juice. Yeah, we just need you guys to grunt. I just want the fastest guy I can possibly find to be that single receiver so we can take a shot down the field. All right, let's take our first quick break here and then come back and talk a little Bears Packers.

18:17Packers at Bears Saturday nights. Packers are one and a half point favorites in this game. The line has moved a little bit back and forth, but it's always, I think, been one and a half points about either way. I think that's what the case. I think it opened. It's like a one and a half point Bears line. I have not been paying attention to it, but that's where we've landed, I think. Like talking about how we got here, let's talk about first just the potential outcomes here for somebody in my position or just Bears fans overall. We've talked a little bit about this over the course of the week, but this to me, playing the Packers in this sort of game, is like the widest range of emotional outcomes you could possibly have for any playoff opponent if you're a Bears fan.

18:57Is it the wildest swing in a single game that a Bears fan has probably had since the Super Bowl? because i don't even know if the last they played the packers in the nfc championship game yeah 2010 okay i guess that's recent enough but that still feels to me like the same era it's been a very long time yeah i mean that was 15 years ago but they that game i mean there's no reason to like reach red territory from that game but that game was just it was such a strange game that was the game where jay cutler gets hurt and caleb hainy comes in and you have the bj raji interception and like the moment that color was not going to come back in that game it didn't feel like the Bears had a chance.

19:28And so it almost feels like inconsequential when it comes to like the rivalry itself, because you can explain it away pretty easily. If you're a Bears fan, this one doesn't seem like it's headed that direction. I think that this is going to be an important moment for the shared history between these teams in this era. And if you're a Bears fan, like the idea of beating the Packers and having that be part of whatever this season has been feels important, right? Like it feels like it would be a crucial step to this season, like meaning everything it possibly could, like exercising that demon as part of this entire thing.

20:05But at the same time, the thought of losing to the Packers and then having to hear about it the entire off season where Packers fans are sitting in there and they're like, this was the most important game of your entire lives and you lost. Like everything was building to this for you. It's just another, it's just another game for Packer for the Packers and for Packers fans and it's another loss that you can just kind of throw onto the ledger so the fact that those are the two potential outcomes here there's a lot there's a lot here this this is a they're a complex and rich situation for Bears fans it's honestly it's kind of rich for both because I feel like if the Bears win this game it is I think every Bears fan at this point is probably pretty bought in on like what Ben Johnson is and stuff like that.

20:52But if you win this game against the Packers, especially after you've, you know, you've seen them three times now, if he comes out with this bespoke game plan and kicks the shit out of them, you're going to be like, oh my God, he is, he is the crown savior of Chicago. I think everyone already thinks that I do, but this will be like, it'll put everybody all the way over the line. If the Packers lose this game, I think Green Bay is going to have Matt LaFleur's head on a stake, which I think is unfair. Like he's still a great head coach to me, but I do think they're getting a little bit like they're feeling like it should have been their time.

21:20That kind of speaks to the divergent paths that, and I guess just kind of the different paths that these two teams have taken to this game. For most of the season, the Bears were an incredibly lucky football team that was fortunate to be winning as many games as they were. I mean, just think about some of the moments this year, the game they won against the Raiders, the game they won against the Bengals, the game they won against the Giants. A lot of it was turnover driven. And I think if you actually dug one layer deeper and looked at what the Bears were down to down on both sides of the ball they were not a team that should be winning double digit games but I do think over the course of the year on offense they have developed into a unit that is like truly dangerous the run game is the most efficient run game in the NFL if you look at the number since the buy they have a 50 % rushing success rate which is that's one of the best marks of the last like five to seven years so there there's nothing fluky or kind of fake about that like that is a very real thing that they've developed and we'll talk about this a little bit when we get to that side of the ball but I feel like the young guys on offense you you've really seen the strides that they've made Ben Johnson talked about it this week where it's like Caleb is a different quarterback now than he was in the preseason and I think even then he was like midway through the year and I the numbers aren't necessarily bearing that out like if you looked at the actual EPA per drop like whatever you want to look at I think that they've been pretty similar for like the back half of the season.

22:45But I do think anecdotally, he is playing some of his best football right now. And I think that's really important. And so the Bears were a lucky team until they weren't, right? And now they've turned into a team that's actually pretty good. And the Packers, I mean, there were a couple of stretch for most of this season. I think we had a pretty firm belief that the Packers were still one of the best teams in the NFL. I think they were a really good team that was unlucky until they weren't. And now they kind of feel like they're not as good of a team. I think that's right. I think the Bears were a lucky team until they actually turned into a pretty decent team.

23:15I think the Packers were an unlucky team that until they turned into a team that is maybe a little bit worse than we wanted them to be. I think a good part of that is just the downside that we've seen on defense. And I think some of that is Micah Parsons, but overall, the defense just has not played as well down the stretch. And against this Bears offense, that's a real consideration. It is a serious consideration because one of the biggest complaints that I've had with, I think for a lot of the year, the Packers front four has not played very well, but they've had other ways that they could work around because the back end for the most part was tackling really well.

23:46I don't think the back end is tackling very well right now. Obviously, in the last Bears game, Evan Williams didn't play, who is their best tackling DB. And so if he plays in this game, that maybe changes things a little bit for them. But the corners just I don't think have been tackling very well. I don't think the nickel has been tackling very well. Like, I think they're struggling a little bit there. And so if the front is going to struggle as much as it did, especially in the second matchup that they played, Like they, some of what Jonah Jackson and Darnell Wright were doing to whoever was lined up there, usually Colby wouldn't.

24:15It was pretty disgusting. And I, if I had to lean on one side or the other, I really do think that they can probably get something close to that sort of rushing efficiency again. And obviously the last game these two teams played against each other, the Bears did need a series of incredibly lucky breaks to ultimately win that game. When you have to recover an onside kick in any moment to win a game, you were very fortunate to win the game. But I think that it's been painted as this as a matchup where the Bears offense really didn't do much. I mean, it's six points deep into the fourth quarter.

24:44If you actually look at the way that the rhythm of that game went, though, part of that was there just weren't many possessions to be had on either side of the ball because both running games were moving the ball really efficiently. And so I think by the end of the game, you only had like six or seven possessions per team. And on almost every single one of those possessions, the Bears were moving the ball into Packers territory. You have the weird snap to Monungai on that fourth and one on the first drive. God, yeah. You have an intentional grounding that torpedoes a drive. The Bears had a third down where Darnell Wright had a false start in Packers territory.

25:18Like the Bears offense did have a lot going for them in that game. And so this idea that it was a non-starter and they only had six points through three and a half quarters. I don't think that's really a good indication of what the offense looked like down to down for most of that game. Yeah, that's the thing. And this is not a criticism of the decision for them to go for the fourth down. where the Mononga snap happens and stuff. But like if they just kick a field goal there, like they don't have to go into overtime the way that they do. Like they just win the game. Like it's just over. And so I do think that the Bears moved the ball really well.

25:45I thought they had a good plan. And also even with some of the passing game stuff, like they, it's still a little bit more up and down than you want. But I feel like they are calling a lot of the right plays. And it's just Caleb has two misses a game that you would not like him to have. There is maybe one moment where he's coming to the backside of a route and he expects that Luther Burden is going to be in a certain spot, he's a little bit off or maybe he slows down, something like that. It's a lot of these small, if they could just rein in these five or six execution errors and make them two, this team scores 30 points pretty comfortably.

26:18Last thing I want to hit that, but the last thing I want to just mention here about the last matchup, no Luther Burden or Roma Dunze in that game. The Packers were also extremely banged up. Zach Tom didn't play in that game. Evan Williams didn't play in that game. And so there were injuries on both sides. both teams look relatively healthy as I think almost totally healthy as we get into this one CJ Gardner Johnson's going to be out for the Bears but Kyler Gordon seems like he's going to be back that point let's start with when the Bears have the ball in this game that point about how it's one play here it's one play there when I went back and watched the last matchup and watched the Bears offense specifically in that game the thought I just kept coming back to is they're so close it's right there like they are they are so close and I don't know if they get there in this game.

27:00I don't know if they get there this season because to me, it's just like a calibration error. And some of that is it's a young team. It's still a really young team. You have a quarterback in year two who's in year one of an offense where the actual term they used in the preseason when they were telling people about it was drinking from a fire hose, right? Like they threw everything at the entire offense and it took them a while to pare down. This was always going to be a year where it was a process for how, where they were going to land by the end of the season. And I think the tangible progress they've made is incredibly impressive, but they're just not quite there yet.

27:36With Caleb specifically, when I went back and watched that game, to me, it's when they pressure him. And the Packers blitzed on about 43 % of dropbacks in that game. It was their highest rate in a single game this season. Before the two touchdowns, he was two of eight on the plays where he was pressured. And a lot of that is throwaways. but when I watch Caleb right now, his play speed is just not what it needs to be all the time. And sometimes that's him playing a little bit slow, not seeing things quick enough, getting off of something a little bit slower than he should. His eyes aren't going to the right place as fast as they should be.

28:11Sometimes he's playing a little bit too fast where a little bit of flash of color kind of sends him into, if not panic mode, then again, throwing the ball away quicker than you might want him to. It's a calibration thing. And when you have an offense that's this young and this talented, sometimes that matters. Sometimes those four or five moments where they're just a tick off ultimately are going to dictate the game and determine how it goes. But overall, when you look at the entire unit, the way the quarterback is playing, the way the young pass catchers are playing, the way the offensive line is playing, they are extremely close.

28:45And I don't know if it's going to happen this week, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it happened this week. especially because like I again I know this is mostly us talking about the players and it's a really young unit like I mean almost every skill player on this on this team it's a skill player the offensive line is for the most part is I mean you have a rookie left tackle and you still have a young right tackle but that's where a lot of the experience on the offense is concentrated and so and but that's the thing where it becomes important with like a lot of the routes and stuff is like even like Colson Loveland's great him and Caleb like disagree on like where a route should be every now and then same thing with Luther Burden maybe there's instances where like Kyle Manunga is late getting out of the backfield when he shouldn't be like it is a lot of certain stuff like that I will say the idea that Ben Johnson is getting a third bite at the apple against the same defense one that now doesn't have Micah Parsons obviously he didn't in the last matchup either there's a chance that they just go like flamethrower and just hit like play after play after play I think the run game that I can see that happening because I feel like they've tapped into exactly what they want to be on the ground against this team you saw it in the second half of the first Packer game, and then you saw it throughout the second game.

29:49There's a lot of horizontal movement within the run game. Some of that is we're ghost end-arounding with Alamna Zaccheaus that's holding the linebacker for a half beat longer than you want. They're changing the strength of formation very quickly before some of these plays where a tight end is fast motioning across. There's a jet motion going back the other way. And I think that eye candy specifically and that sort of movement combined with what the offensive line is giving you, the linebackers are the problem here the linebackers and the second and third level defenders are the problem here and so the Packers the Bears are going to win on the first level against the Packers if you can move those linebackers a gap more than they want to be moved to some of the motions and you can hold them a tick longer than they want to be held that's where the run game can just explode and I do think they have the plan to make that happen or potentially make that happen I think that's a great point because to me it's it's holding them because the best way a linebacker can help his defensive lineman especially if you're going to get a lot of the double teams that the that the Chicago Bears are going to give you if you can step downhill immediately and make that guard come off and so it gives your defensive lineman a little bit room to breathe that's how you can start to muddy things up and I think when the Packers have played well on run defense it's been because guys like Koi Walker and Edron Cooper have been able to give them that if they get held for one more beat and that gives Drew Dahlman and Jonah Jackson just a little bit more time to move one of these guys that's how you get a Bears game where they're just getting six, seven yards of pop.

31:15And so maybe they don't get a huge explosive, especially like if Evan Williams is back, but I can absolutely see a game where they're just rushing for like 56 rushing success rate. And they're just like getting five and six yards all the time on them. Obviously this isn't true for every single one. Almost every non-successful run I watched from the Bears in that second game was an execution error. It has nothing to do with like what the other team is doing to you up front or what you can do to them. The Bears can move this team. It was guys coming off a combo wrong or just like it was a lot of timing.

31:45Or the backup left tackle loses. Yeah, it was a lot of timing issues. And so, again, I think the calibration is so close to being there where they could potentially explode in a game like this. When it comes to the passing game specifically, the two things that I have in front of mind, one, again, what do they look like against the pressures? The amount of unblocked pressures in this game, some of that is cover zero where you're going to get some of that stuff. But the intentional grounding, they just leave a player in the B gap when they have six guys to account for six pass rushers. And so, again, those are self-inflicted errors.

32:16If they can avoid some of those in pass protection and just, again, feel a little bit more settled against some of those pressure looks, that's a big part of this. And the Packers have done a really good job the last couple games of getting underneath some of those bigger in-breakers that the Bears want to hit. That is the foundation of the Bears passing game, is those bigger in-breakers, both off-play action and not off-play action. The Packers understand that, and they're trying to take that stuff away. if the Bears can be methodical Caleb's hitting checkdowns Caleb's taking what's there consistently throughout the game and you combine that with the run game I do think that there is a chance that they can just kind of grind the game down over the course of four quarters which the one thing I'll say about Caleb in that sense is like I think later in the down I think he actually has good calibration of like what's a good decision like he knows when it's a good time to get to his checkdowns when to bail out of the pocket I think he throws the ball away a lot and knows not to like put the ball in trouble I think like early in the play where the where the right move is just like, hey, can you just throw this slot option route and get us five yards?

33:15He just like doesn't want to do that sometimes. And I do think if he could get himself to just take some of the boring stuff, like as soon as the ball is snapped, I do think that that would help them in this game. I think the Bears have Bears offense has a real path to have a huge game this weekend. The problem is, I think the Packers offense also has a pretty defined path to have a huge game this weekend. They lit them up the last two times that they played. I know they only scored like 21 points or whatever the last time, but this, both times that I've watched this Packers offense against the Bears defense, I've thought that they've had really good plans.

33:45And it's like, this is a Chicago defense that is obviously not very talented. And so they've at times tried to like oscillate between the two worlds. Sometimes you just heavy blitz and you bring cover zero. Well, that's how you got the Christian Watson TD the last time that they played. They are a terrible man blitz team. It's so bad. It's one of the worst like man blitz teams I can remember watching. The fact that because they still don't get home when they never get home. They never get home when they do it. It's it's remarkable. And the numbers back that up. They are allowing a 52 and a half percent drop back success rate when they bring man blitzes this season.

34:18The Bears are, which is I think is the third worst rate in the league. They are very, very bad. And that's inherently a type of defense where you're also like inviting explosive plays by the offense, which again, the Christian Watson play like you if you give up a successful play there, chances are it's just one on one in the open field and the guy just has to outrun a guy. And that's exactly what happened there. and then on the opposite end of the spectrum I thought especially in the first game I thought that they played when the Bears tried to do some more of their two high stuff maybe play some cover too I do think the Packers did a really good job of moving whichever split field safety they're trying to manipulate getting him out of the way and throwing around him behind him whatever it was to facilitate some of those deep shots that they like to get whether it was they hit one to Melton in that game a different one to Christian Watson like they did do a good job of getting those guys out of the way.

35:02It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't defense. And that's the problem. And the Packers specifically are the sort of team where, okay, if you're going to play a lot of man and you're going to blitz a bunch because you don't trust your pass rush to get home, we can tear you apart if you're doing that. Jordan Love specifically, it's been his best season against man coverage throughout his entire career. And he's been one of the best quarterbacks in the league. So we have an answer to that plan. If you want to sit back a little bit and play a little bit more shell and play a little bit more zone, We are more than happy to run the ball 45 times at five and a half yards a clip the exact same way that we did the last time We played that's the game.

35:36Matt LaFleur wants to play. I think in his heart of hearts And I still think if i'm the bears and i'm dennis allen That's the game. I want to make them play. I don't think I want to give up Five or six explosives the way that I did in the first game I think I want to play a lot of zone if i'm gonna blitz that's fine The bears are a much better zone blitz team than they are a man blitz team and so I bring some pressures is fine but I'm not going to give them easy answers against man coverage if that's the way that I'm going to play. I do think that works again for like the overall shape of how the Bears want this game to go because I think if you let the Packers run the ball not let them but you know what I mean like they play that style of game and then on your side you run the ball incredibly well you shrink the possessions in this game.

36:15If we say both teams have six or seven possessions and you tell me like can the Bears get two maybe three stops there I could be like okay if the Packers have nine or ten possessions and that's how this game goes. It's like, how many stops can they really get? You know what I mean? Like I just, them limiting the possessions and trying to give their offenses just like, if they can score on four or five of their drives, like I just, I think limiting possessions does actually favor the Bears here a little bit. One thing that Bears fans have talked about a lot this week that is worth throwing out, the Bears are eighth in the NFL in EPA per play on defense at home.

36:45They're 30th on the road. That might just be noise. That's a lot of turnover luck because the Bears are still 25th in defensive success rate at home. They're 32nd on the road. And so the defense has been better at home. And the Bears, if you look at like high leverage moments within the game, they're a decent third down defense and they're a decent red zone defense. That's what happened the last time these two teams played. The Packers stalled out in the red zone several times. That's what you're going to need if you're the Bears. You need one or two turnovers in this game, and you need to make sure that on two red zone trips, they're coming away with three instead of six.

37:19And I do think they can do that because the Packers, even all year, I think when they were a little bit better at certain parts of the season, they do stall out like in the red zone a little bit. Cause I think schematically they run the ball pretty well and they're able to like move guys and stuff like that. But honestly running the ball inside the 10, it's kind of just like, can you move the guy or can you not? And I know the bears, you know, run defense isn't great either, but I don't think that they can just will themselves to points there. And then they don't just have like a, we can go to this guy in the red zone and Devante Adams.

37:46They used to, you know, at times be Tucker craft, but obviously he's not playing. And so I think if you can stall out one or two drives, like inside of the 15, again, like you said, let them get three instead of six, that you're going to need a couple of those. The Bears need a huge game from the offense, I think, to keep pace. I think there's a chance they get a huge game from the offense. And I think that despite how low scoring the last couple of games have been, again, because there haven't been that many possessions, I can see a world where this is actually a pretty high scoring game. It feels like both teams have been like boiling to something where like we could get like a 35, 38 type of game.

38:22The overrunner is 45 and a half. So not low, not high, you know, but I could definitely see a version of this game that's pretty high scoring. Worth mentioning that there is a chance it snows on Saturday and snow games are not. They're not like the muck it up factor that are like a rain game is right. Like teams are still able to move the ball pretty consistently in the snow. And so I don't think some snow on Saturday is necessarily contradictory to the idea. There could be a lot of points in this. when both these quarterbacks can throw the shit out of the ball. So I don't think that's going to be a problem.

38:55Again, I talked about it a few different times this week, but the fact that I have to do the show immediately after we finish this thing on Saturday, we'll see how that goes. But we'll be sitting right in these chairs the moment that game ends. So encourage you guys to come check that out. Also encourage you to check out part two of our wildcard preview that should be available in your feeds right now. For this one, that's all we got. Appreciate you listening. We'll talk to you soon.

39:27We'll see you next time.