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Transcript
All right, Albert, the next game, uh, that I wanna talk about is not the best game on the schedule, but it is the game that I have circled and I have underlined because it's the game that I wanna watch the most, and that's the Bears and the Packers.
And the reason why I want to try to make a big point before we talk about this game.
Media in general, we're not having a great month, OK?
And I want to separate you and I from Stephen A.
Smith and Graham Bensinger and like, you know, there's people over there, you know, the bad guys whose job it is, you know, yeah, uh, right, and then there's people over here that are trying to Kind of live in the sport, uh, trying to cover it.
Sometimes we're critical, but we try to be fair and critical, sometimes we just try to tell great stories, you know, I think that there's, I hope that there's a nuance here.
What I hope doesn't happen.
Is that the, the bad guy sector ruins the Ben Johnson, Matt LaFleur rivalry.
Because it is good.
It's healthy.
We need it for the sport.
I think Ben calling his shot on Green Bay the second that he got this job, the two of them being seemingly incapable of like shaking hands with one another.
Ben, this week, signing Scotty Miller to the practice squad, which like, might fly under the radar for anybody, but then if you're a Packers fan, you realize Scotty Miller is the guy who caught that Tom Brady bomb at the end of the half in the, uh, Uh, in the playoffs a couple of years ago, like everything that Ben is doing is a calculated 3D chess move to poke the Green Bay Packers, and I love it, and I think that we love it, and we can't ruin this because it needs to exist in a healthy space forever.
That's my, my, so I'm asking you, I'm asking you, and if you're listening to this show and you host.
Hot take 101.
You know who I'm talking to.
Leave this thing the hell alone and let us enjoy it.
I, I may not be an expert on a lot of things.
I think I am a little bit of an expert on rivalry, um, so.
You just go to a school that I am, I am an expert on.
Well, no, but our rival people hate them more.
That's true.
Ohio State Michigan, so I, I wanna preface this by saying I, I, I generally like Kyle Whittingham , but when he said, I don't hate Ohio State, like was it one, I, I was like, Oh, this guy's cooked.
That's it, it's over, because I, John Cooper was the coach at Ohio State when I was there.
And like, he initially tried to treat it like it was just any other game, and then it was herky jerky every time the game came up, like, he would handle it one way this year, and then that way the next year, and it was, and it just got, and it was in everyone's head , you know.
And I think like with real rivalry, there is a I think the way that you respect a rivalry.
is you treat it like one.
You treat the game like it's important, you treat the opponent like it's the enemy.
That's how you show respect to the opponent in the rivalry is we take this very seriously.
And that's what I love about this, is that it is an important week for Matt LaFleur and his staff.
It is an important week for Ben Johnson and his staff, and that is regardless of the standings.
That is, I want to beat their ass.
And like that to me shows.
An understanding of the job that you're in, you know, and I think that can be really important with jobs in football at all levels.
It's not just, are you a good football coach, do you understand the job that you are in?
And I think in this case, like Ben Johnson and Matt LaFleur understand the jobs that they are in.
And that the fact that they're, that that has led To a level of hatred might be strong, but it's somewhere in that neighborhood between two guys who barely knew each other before any of this started, is great for football.
And it's great for all of us.
It's great for, I think, I think it amps up the level of competition that you're gonna see.
It amps up the stakes, it amps up the storylines.
Um, look, I mean, There have been a lot of irrelevant Packer-Bar games over the last 40 years, right?
There have been a lot of Packer-Bar games that like you wouldn't have circled, right?
And in most cases, it's because the Packers are beating the Bears' ass, right?
Isn't this better?
Totally.
It, it makes me feel like we, we haven't had something quite like this since Rex Ryan and Bill Belichick, and even then.
Well, I guess it's kind of like it now, right?
It was Rex Ryan talking and then Bill Belichick avoiding, and I do feel like that is a similar vibe to, to what we're, what we're getting from Matt LaFleur.
It's like Matt LaFleur is trying to not engage, right?
He's not taking the, uh, he's not taking the, I'll give you a good example from earlier in my career, like when I first started covering the Cowboys, Dallas Morning News in '07, uh, TO was going back to Philly.
And I remember my job, um, and this was probably, I was probably like a month in when the Cowboys went to Philly.
And so, they had me do a story, um, going into the parking lot in pregame, and like just getting seen and getting seen like specifically on TO.
And I, the level of anger, like, you know, people had the TO dolls like hanging, all that stuff, you know what I mean?
Like, all of this stuff that probably wasn't necessarily appropriate, but like, did like color, like this is what the rivalry is, burning jerseys, that type of stuff.
And Like that honestly is fantastic.
Like, that's a level of if you're talking about like wanting fan enga like that's the highest level of fan engagement, you know what I mean?
Like, and so I think it's great and I can't wait to see what it looks like on Sunday.
Here's, here's what I think is the part of it that nobody's talking about.
Matt LaFleur can.
And I'm not saying that Matt LaFleur's really on the hot seat.
I mean, I did my first hot seat rankings, and like, yes, he's in the top 8 of coaches whose butts are probably feeling a degree of warmth, right?
This was not a long-term extension he signed in the offseason.
This was a bridge or a band-aid to prevent this season from being a lame duck season, right?
Um.
I feel like we're talking about it, like it's this massive disparity.
Um, and especially after the Bears kicked the living shit out of the Jets with Tyson Baigent at quarterback and had more first downs than the Jets ran plays, we, we view the Bears as above a dogfight in this particular scenario.
But if you look at the matchup, The Bears have the better quarterback on Sunday, um, or the Packers have the better quarterback on Sunday.
Uh, the Bears have a better running game.
The Packers have better wide receivers that are healthy.
Tight end, you could say is maybe a push.
Bears have a better offensive line.
Um, but then you go down the list and it's like Green Bay probably has a better special teams unit.
Green Bay may have a better back end of the set, like, and all I'm trying to say, and Green Bay has got more urgency too coming into this one, right?
Green Bay should win, should, should, should.
Um, should be more of a, we should be talking about the Packers as more competitive in this game than we are, and why I brought that all up is just to say this, Matt LaFleur can, can bring the fan base right back into his arms by beating Chicago's behind on Sunday.
Like, the stakes are gigantic in that way, right?
That's what I'm saying, yeah, and like, so it's.
Tickets as low as 370.
Um, I think you're looking at the same screen as me, so it's the, it's the biggest ticket one.
And like what I'm really interested to see, like, I think this is, so this could be the last game without Micah Parsons, right, for the Green Bay defense.
Jonathan Gannon's been under some criticism.
I'm interested to see what he has for Ben Johnson, because one of the most impressive things of the early part of this season, I'm gonna pull the numbers up because I don't think we had it on the pod the other day .
is almost how quarterback agnostic the Bears' offensive performance has been.
So they've won with 3 different quarterbacks, right?
Sorry, Ben, I'm not counting Case Keenum as the starter, um, for Sunday.
You're gonna put him.
He's gonna come after you, not me this time, um, so I mean I'll pull it up.
But it's, it's really, it's wild when you look at, and hang on a second here, I gotta find it .
Um, yeah, so here you go.
Uh, with Caleb Williams in week one, they scored 59 points, 552 yards, 26 1st downs against Carolina.
With Case Keenum in week 3, 27 points, 375 yards, and 24 1st downs against Philly.
And then with Tyson Bagen in week 4, 23 points, 492 yards, and 34 1st downs against the Jets.
That's staggering.
Like that, all three of those performances, maybe like you take the Philly one, like that maybe that's a notch down.
For some teams, those would be the best day you have on offense all year, and Ben's doing it with 3 different quarterbacks.
It's remarkable.
