GREEN BAY – The Packers' coordinators met with the media Tuesday. Here's a sampling of their key comments.
Special teams coordinator Cam Achord
On making sure Trey Smack's misses don't mess with his head:
That's why we picked him, right? I mean, I think that's anything when you have confidence in someone, no different than a returner, it's letting that guy understand there's a reason you're here. You were picked for a reason. You were selected to be the kicker in this aspect, and just let him have that confidence, understanding that like, hey, I have all faith and confidence in him. They haven't wavered on that.
On the Patriots' return game:
First, you start with Marcus Jones. He's very, very dynamic. He can break the game open at any point. I've played a lot of good returners; he's in that bunch – top three guys – in the National Football League. He only does punts now; he used to do both. Anytime he catches the ball, he can score. He's going to be a tremendous challenge for our gunners to get down the field and make sure we're preventing the returns and we're tackling the guy. He breaks a lot of tackles. He gets from zero to 60 now. So, he's a little bit of an elusive guy. Maybe doesn't run through arm tackles but he makes the guy miss, so we've got to great job controlling him with our coverage aspects, spreading the ball, because he does do field and boundary returns because he has that speed. Some guys are just real quick-twitch and don't have top-end speed. Well, he can do both. We've got to do a great job on him.
Defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon
On Brenton Cox Jr.:
I think he's doing a really good job. He's really in my mind a first-, second-, third-down player, an all-down player. He's really good in the run game. He's good when he has to drop and I think that he's starting to hit his stride a little bit here rushing the passer. I thought (coaches DeMarcus Covington and Vince Oghobaase) did an excellent job with those guys going into the last game. The rush plans were different for each guy that they were going up against and I thought they really executed. It showed up. I'm not going to give you all the nuts and bolts of it, but certain guys we wanted to rush certain ways and I thought they really took that to heart and they won at a pretty good clip.
On Ty'Ron Hopper:
The more he plays the better he gets. I think Sam (Siefkes) has done an excellent job with him and all those guys of here's a few parts of your game that you need to improve. Every NFL player, in my mind, does some good things and some things that they have to improve to help their overall game. What we identified for Hop, he took it to heart. They've developed a plan to get it done and he's done a good job of that and he's really impacting the game for us right now.
On Patriots QB Drake Maye:
Lights out, man. It's a top 10 offense. Obviously he's big, he's accurate, he's got a huge arm, you can't sack him. He gets out of pressure. He extends plays to throw, generates explosives. He extends plays to actually run. I think he leads the league in scramble yards. This is a huge challenge. I remember when he was a rookie in '24, we played him in Arizona, and he was running all over the ballpark, and it was frustrating. He's doing that right now.
On the pass rush and how it came together:
It's a evolving process. When we went through Phase 1, Phase 2, then we went from OTAs and then we took the summer off, kind of adapted. Here's some things we want to add. Then we went through training camp and added a few things, took out a few things that I always thought, 'Oh this is gonna be good,' and our guys, for whatever reason, it wasn't really good for us – take it out. Then I think week to week, they've done a good job of executing staples that we have and then taking a couple different things, the different wrinkles – the wrinkles are only in because of the opponent you're going against or who you have available, they've done a good job of taking the wrinkles, curveballs so to speak, and executing on that. And they understand the why behind why we're doing it and those typically change week-to-week.
Offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich
On the run game:
We had a couple days off this past weekend, went back and watched everything again, and I was frustrated watching it but encouraged at the same time because the yards are out there. We have the ability to do it. So it's a just a matter of us making the plays when they're there. The biggest thing when you see the lack of production in our run game, it's a lack of explosive runs. When you look at like, typically in a game, you'll have 2-yard run, 3-yard run, 4-yard run and then you'll pop one, you know what I mean? And that's where we've struggled -- we've definitely struggled this year, is hitting those big runs. I think having Josh back is going to help. The one thing I know about Josh, the more you feed him, the better he gets. So, again, it's frustrating, but at the same point, people are still playing defense to stop our runs. They're still putting guys in the box, which is opening things up down the field and we're not giving up on it. We're still calling runs. So we're making them respect it and I think it'll just be a matter of time, getting our offensive line kind of settled in, where it'll start picking up.
On Kevin Zeitler and his lack of playing time so far:
When we signed him, he was coming off an injury with his knee. So it's kind of a question mark and I think it took him a few weeks to get to the point where he's at now, where he was kind of working his way back into it. What happened was Laken (Tomlinson) came in and really did a tremendous job just helping out our team and helping out our offensive line and really helping us become productive in a lot of senses. So it just was one of those things where I thought he was going to come in and play, but Laken stepped up and did a nice job and it is what it is right now. Would I hesitate to put him in a game? No. I would not. He's ready to play. He's got a great attitude, he's been awesome throughout this entire process of just learning and working every day to try to get better. So yeah, I would not hesitate to put him in a game at all.
On QB Jordan Love:
He's processing really quickly, finding the open guys when they're there. I think he did a nice job this last week on some off-schedule plays, where he created some time, moved around, and hit some guys down the field. There's obviously a few mistakes that he had — a couple bad throws, bad decisions. So just like anything, there's stuff he's going to tell you he's got to work on. And the one thing about him though is, he does not lack confidence. He's going to go out there and just go shoot, and that's what makes him so good.
