Inbox: They've bought in, fully

Richard from Sarasota, FL

Good morning. Not a question but a comment. This area has been devastated from two hurricanes in the past month. Our area is like a third world country. No power, gas lines, grocery store shelves empty. And to top it off, the Packers bar was destroyed. It will be rebuilt hopefully in time for next season. In the meantime thank you for your daily column and stories. They provide an oasis from daily life here. Thanks also to all the people from around the country helping.

I honestly can't imagine what you're going through. All the best to everyone down there, and if what we do here provides any ray of sunshine to your day, my only wish is we could provide more.

Paul from West Allis, WI

Are the Packers building momentum? What are the points that the Packers will look to probe and poke for the upcoming game with the Houston Texans?

Probe and poke? That's a new one. Regardless, I think they'll look to stay balanced on offense and see this game as a huge test for the run defense with Joe Mixon coming to town.

Steve from Dodgeville, WI

Good morning II, the Packers had a great team game last Sunday but are yet to beat a team with a winning record. I know you can only play who you are scheduled and NFL wins are hard to get. Can you give me your best reasons for optimism with a 5-1 team coming in? Thanks for all you do! GPG

The Packers played as close to a complete game as you'll see in their sixth contest this year, fourth with their starting QB. Last year I don't recall feeling that way about a game the Packers played until Thanksgiving.

Jeff from Mequon, WI

Just want to make sure Don from Cedar Rapids, IA, knows that nobody will forget what Malik Willis did for us this season. No matter where or how it ends, watching those two games with zero expectations was so much fun. Onto the Texans, what can we learn from their loss to Minnesota that we can exploit?

Well, the Vikings jumped on them early with two touchdowns set up by short fields (INT and long missed FG), and then the Texans just killed themselves the rest of the day with penalties (11 for 88 yards). So keep getting takeaways and play cleaner football.

H.R. from Henderson, NV

What are the odds this week's game gets flexed? Texans-Packers really should be in the national spotlight. Stroud v. Love is a ratings dream.

Too late. Any flex decisions this time of year must be made at least 12 days in advance of the game. The league just announced yesterday that the Bears-Commanders game on Oct. 27 is being moved to 3:25 p.m. CT.

Santijav from Staten Island, NY

Think the team passing game will be unstoppable if the tight ends were more involved in the passing game. Patriots and Chiefs did great with it. Your opinion.

My opinion is after a game in which nine different players, including two tight ends, caught a pass from Jordan Love, insisting on more involvement from a specific position or player(s) misses the forest for the trees.

Ben from Guffey, CO

Two things: One, I think the concern over "dropping the two/three score lead" is a little bit of a misnomer. Only a few teams are completely inept at getting some scoring going when they're behind. It doesn't mean that GB's defense is playing passive. Two...Go Lions this weekend?

I'll repeat what I said Monday … I don't think the Cardinals are ever in that game if not for the route slip/INT, which was just bad luck. As for Lions-Vikings, hard to say this early. I'm just glad one has to lose this week. That's how I look at it.

Terry from Eau Claire, WI

I'm sure you want to stop this line of questioning soon but I held my question until now thinking someone else would bring it up but haven't seen it. Didn't Ronde and Tiki Barber play one another? I'd assume Ronde had to be involved tackling Tiki at the least on several occasions if not finding him in coverage.

I believe the Barber twins played against one another four times, and Ronde did tackle Tiki on occasion.

Zak from Huntington Beach, CA

I was surprised LaFleur decided to show the trick play with the direct snap to Tucker Kraft on third-and-1. It was the fourth quarter, we were already up by three scores and, seemingly, in command of the game. Now I'm curious how many versions of that play are floating around in ML's brain, and if some involve Kraft pitching it back to Love to hit 'em over the top with a deep shot.

Can't build on it until you run it the first time.

Mark from Greenville, SC

I haven't seen anything mentioned in the game coverage, but didn't the Packers make some adjustments on the O-line with Elgton Jenkins moving to center? Did I see that right? If so, what precipitated that change?

Josh Myers got hurt on the direct snap to Kraft, so Jenkins moved to center, Sean Rhyan flipped over to left guard, and Jordan Morgan played right guard. Myers came back in after a brief absence.

Ricardo from Ventura, CA

Given the fumble on punt-return duties by Jayden Reed, and the way Keisean Nixon has been successful this game and most of last season, do you think we'll see Nixon back there for the rest of the season?

I don't expect there to be any long-term declaration, but I think we'll see Nixon back there on punts again. He does play nearly every snap on defense, though, so it may be a lot to ask for him to take every punt return.

Dane from Louisville, KY

Did you happen to catch the play design by the Bears that created the touchdown to Kmet? Double play fake to the flat on both sides and it left Kmet wide open down the middle. If I didn't know any better, I'd say the Bears "borrowed" that one from the Packers. Great play designs seem to make their rounds through the league.

I don't think the Packers invented that one, either.

Mark from De Pere, WI

Good morning! Don't get me wrong here I'm a Packers fan through and through. There was a play where Jordan Love ran for a first down and got down. Krys Barnes flew over the top of him clearly trying to avoid contact. He was called for a personal foul. Do you think the NFL should take a quick look at these calls or won't that ever happen?

Are you suggesting that safety rules should be reviewable? Huh, never heard that before.

Mark from Westminster, CO

Two questions. The Packers' defense seems to do pretty well containing running QBs this year, what's the difference from previous years?

Discipline is the difference, and not just intermittently. Repeatedly.

Joe from Swansea, IL

It's one thing to say we're going to play a new style of defense founded on takeaways and more aggressive play. It's another thing to see it happen so quickly. How did that happen? Coaching style? Player buy-in? Scheme? Insights, II, please.

All of the above. The scheme is vision-based on the back end, which allows for reads on the QB and breaks on the ball. The players are being coached to go after the ball, punch it out, attack it. Also, they've bought in, fully, to what they're being asked to do, including rush in a controlled manner to contain running QBs (see above). On top of all that, they signed a player (Xavier McKinney) who's a perfect fit with high-level ability to be featured, and drafted others (Javon Bullard, Edgerrin Cooper, Evan Williams) who have proven ready to play right away with calls designed for their strengths.

Sean from Madison, WI

"[W]hich is why the coaches developed a three-safety nickel." Love it. Gotta have the right guys for your system and the right system for your guys. It doesn't happen by accident.

Bingo.

Tom from Olathe, KS

Jordan Morgan was a beast at RG. It is easy to see why he was a first-round pick. He reminds me of a young Quenton Nelson with his physique, technique, and nasty but clean style of play. I know he was rotating with Rhyan, but I have a feeling we have six starters now and the in-house competition for five spots just went way up!

I'm not going to touch the way-too-premature Nelson comparison. Morgan was up and down in his return from injury, but I noticed when going through the offensive film for my WYMM this week that he is one strong dude. There are plays where his strength jumps off the screen. Nothing wrong with how Rhyan is playing at the moment, but I understand now why the Packers thought Morgan could just move inside to guard as a rookie and hold his own.

Josh from Newhall, CA

Love's fourth-down completion to Watson was the cherry on the ice cream for me. I think I even said "holy __" out loud. That throw is the reason the team committed itself to him as the franchise QB. Not every QB can make that throw, and most won't even see it as an option. That was a superstar throw. Hopefully those who were saying it was a mistake not to start Willis for another game or two are quieting down now.... hopefully.

I had that play in my latest WYMM as well. To see the throw from the end-zone view is a real treat.

Yotam from Atlit, Israel

Regarding the 44-yard TD catch by Watson, at the postgame conference, it was said that they saw something in how the defense was set up and they adjusted the play for it. Did you see what was the defense/adjustment?

It was based on how the Cardinals leveraged their safeties against a certain formation/concept, and the Packers figured the safety would be left alone on Watson with the route adjustment. They were right.

Jeremiah from Middleton, WI

I have a question about something Mike said in the live blog. He said that the free plays Rodgers was so famous for were officiated incorrectly for years and that the play should be blown dead when the offense reacts to the defense jumping offsides/encroachment. Except I thought if the offense didn't react to the offsides, then it wasn't a penalty on the defense. So how do free plays happen then?

When the ball is snapped with the defender in the neutral zone but without any contact made and without the offense jumping early. I have no definitive evidence to back up my claim, only what I recall seeing with my own eyes. But I do believe Rodgers had a run of free plays on defensive offside when the offense also moved early, and the league quietly got the officiating corrected to take them away. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I am a theorist.

Mark from Amarillo, TX

That Hail Mary by Rodgers brought the memories back. To Lazard no less.

Four Hail Mary TDs is a record that might never be broken. I still say the one to Janis in the playoffs in Arizona was the most difficult and amazing throw I've ever seen on a successful Hail Mary. Maybe he'll hit a fifth one with Adams now. Wouldn't that be something?

Joshua from Milwaukee, WI

I had to turn the Monday night game off, and the NFL in general gets harder to watch every year. So. Many. Unmerited. Penalties. Can next year's "point of emphasis" be to allow players to decide the game? Can defenders be allowed to do something without fear of a roughing/illegal contact penalty? If I wanted to watch uninhibited offense with officials calling random infractions, I'd watch the NBA.

Ha, good one.

Tim from Elmhurst, IL

Hello, while I know you never run a third-down play with the expectation of not getting a first down or touchdown, but with all of Narveson's misses coming from the left hash going wide right why at that part of the field wouldn't you at least lean towards running plays to the right side of the field to have him kick from the right hash? Am I oversimplifying this?

Adjusting third-down play-calling based on a kicker's proclivities does not strike me as a viable answer.

Julian from Gastonia, NC

So many are clamoring for the Packers to play another placekicker as if they grew on trees. If they felt there was another kicker available who would be an improvement they would make the change. They may now feel they should have drafted one, but what's done is done.

No argument here.

Jimmy from Plover, WI

Mike, if you don't mind my asking, what did you do for the two years?

I got out of the business, trying to work a traditional M-F 9-5 in corporate communications with child No. 2 arriving. It wasn't the right long-term solution, and with a very understanding family I got back in as soon as I had the chance.

Jason from Ringle, WI

Just a comment regarding Bart from Stevens Point and the high school game between D.C. Everest and SPASH, the game was played in the village of Weston, WI. Great game! SPASH and DCE have always had great football programs, and Spoff surely remembers covering great games in the WVC in the mid-'90s when I played for DCE.

Indeed I do. Two Valley games I covered stand out as all-timers. A heavyweight clash between unbeaten Everest and Wausau West decided by a 75(?)-yard TD run in the fourth quarter by future Kentucky receiver Derek Abney, and a 70-63 shootout between Everest and Wisconsin Rapids, when Rapids was coached by the grandfather of then future/now former Badger and Packer Vince Biegel (Ken).

Chris from Waukesha, WI

"Razing Arizona" as the title for a Packers Unscripted episode. Well played, Sirs.

Thanks. I thought that was pretty good. Happy Wednesday.