Dean from Leavenworth, IN

Congratulations to Jason from Ammon, ID. Your end of column submission on Saturday deserves Inbox HOF entry immediately. No five-year waiting period required.

That's the II HOF Wes monitors. I'm in charge of a very different one.

LA from Sammamish, WA

Regarding Friday's answer, I trust the buses waiting for players exiting the airplane are on the tarmac and not on the runway. We don't need any more aircraft near-misses.

Sorry, my bad there.

Gary from Sheboygan, WI

Insiders, what did the coaches learn from the first half? What did the coaches learn from the second half?

They learned in the second half they have young depth players who can indeed respond to adversity, which was admittedly in question after the Jets game. They learned in the first half they can lose focus on the details too easily.

Jeffery from Monticello, WI

Hello II, even if he caught the ball and they scored this was a much cleaner game than the last one. If they can improve next week then the preseason did its job. With Anthony Belton getting chewed out by Coach LaFleur do you think he will learn from his mistakes or dwell on being yelled at?

He didn't seem to dwell on it in the second half, to his credit.

Daniel from Lakeland, FL

OL Anthony Belton had a rough day due to penalties. The coaching staff will reinforce the technique of line play. How will the staff handle the mental aspect of such a performance in a rookie? These mistakes must weigh heavily on the young man.

The coaching staff handled it by putting the rookie right back out there in the second half to keep fighting, correct his errors and play better. Which he did. I have no idea where Belton's career is headed, but if he becomes the player the Packers projected when they spent a second-round pick on him, that game might go down as an immensely valuable one for him to endure.

John from Ashland, OR

If offensive linemen can ask the line judge if they're lined up properly, how do they do that in the heat of the moment with the snap only seconds away? And how does the line judge respond?

As the lineman takes his stance, he signals to the line judge to ask if he's legal. The line judge will return a signal letting him know. That said, LaFleur partially absolved Belton on the alignment calls because he's basing his stance on the guard next to him, and LaFleur said the guards needed to move up a bit.

John from Stevens Point, WI

Well, it's a win. Looked like there was plenty to be proud of. But, really, how important was winning in the grand scheme of things?

The win was important in the sense that the players were rewarded for their response in the heat of battle and for righting a ship that looked all wrong for a while. It was also important for one young player who made a big play with the game on the line.

Malcolm from La Habra, CA

We have a 236-pound cornerback? Head sewn to the carpet level of stunned to read that!

Tyron Herring is not small.

Kent from Appleton, WI

What did the refs see on the Jelani Woods non-catch that I didn't see. Did he let go of the ball too soon in his celebration? Was this viewed as not "surviving the ground"? I didn't think that was still a thing. Please explain your understanding of why the pass was ruled incomplete.

He did not survive the ground, and that's very much still a thing. There were a couple of replays I saw after I got off the plane home that made it a pretty easy call, frankly. He didn't catch it and they got it right.

Erik from Anchorage, AK

Taylor Elgersma, for what he's had to tackle to play in the NFL, balled out in the opportunities he was given. It's only the preseason. What was your takeaway?

I thought he showed a lot, particularly his arm strength when he threw with conviction. He tried to fit in a couple of passes he shouldn't have, and he looked skittish at times. But for a second career preseason game (after only one possession in his first), that's to be expected. I guess the simplest way to describe it is this: I saw why the Packers wanted to sign him and give him an extended look this summer.

Al from Green Bay, WI

Did we learn anything in the battle for QB3 in this game?

I couldn't tell you who's ahead, and the competition isn't over, but both guys can take some pride in that performance. I commented on Elgersma above. Sean Clifford's just a gamer. He showed that his rookie year and it was evident again. Didn't surprise me he put together that late drive to score, taking it upon himself both on fourth down and for the touchdown. The QBs didn't hit every throw but if they did the battle wouldn't be for QB3.

Kenton from Rochester, MN

I'm trying to understand the whole Mark McNamee kicker situation. Why is he taking valuable game reps from McManus? Does he actually have a realistic chance to make the team?

Brandon McManus is this team's kicker, and the Packers want to see what they have in McNamee as a developmental prospect. Preseason kicks in a dome aren't "valuable game reps" an 11-year vet like McManus absolutely needs.

Rick from Shawano, WI

Do training camp practices and preseason games really mean anything? After four weeks of practice and two games I come away less impressed with the whole charade each year. All I see is injuries and no improvement in player performance except for an occasional outlier who had virtually no chance to make the team. Is it really worth the effort and detrimental effects to player health? The sooner the NFL goes to 18 regular-season games and less TC practices and exhibition games the better.

The preseason games are important for young players. Yes, there's health risk for them, too, but the personnel department finds out a lot more about what a player's got – good and bad – from preseason games than practice. They get valuable opportunities to improve, and whether or not they do is a key part of the evaluation process. As for the camp practices for veterans, the playbook needs to be installed, and going against first-teamers on the other side, especially in a joint practice when playbooks open up a little, is their best preparation. In both cases, there's no substitute for the real thing. There just isn't.

Richard from Canton, GA

Wes said it's a stadium he hasn't covered a game in. How many are you both "missing" for the complete set?

As far as current stadiums on U.S. soil, I've covered a game at them all (SoFi in LA last year was my final checkmark) and Wes now just has Houston's NRG Stadium left to go. He told me he's now visited 41 total NFL stadiums to cover a game, counting the canceled Canton contest nine years ago. If I count that one, I'm at 45. The other three I've been to that he hasn't were the Meadowlands, Qualcomm (San Diego) and old Texas Stadium (Dallas). It was interesting being in the Lucas Oil press box again. It had been 13 years since I covered a game there.

Josh from Playa Majagual, Nicaragua

I saw a number of articles before last week's suite of preseason games relating to odds on the "best bets" for every game. Have we really devolved that far as a society that one, anyone would be stupid enough to bet their hard-earned cash on a game with literally no discernable predictability, and two, it is legal for corporations to willfully defraud the populous of their savings by offering asinine betting opportunities? Shame on you, NFL, for enabling this!

The NFL doesn't enable the betting industry. The industry itself and its patrons do that on their own. The NFL does take all the advertising and sponsorship dollars it can, though. Even if gambling weren't illegal at Bushwood, I'd be staying as far away from these scoreboard-meaningless games as possible. Asinine for is a good word for August.

Patrick from East Dubuque, IL

What will be the hardest for Jordan Love to regain full use of his thumb … handing off with left hand?

Based on when he practiced with the thumb taped up last Monday, I'd say that's it. He didn't seem to have any issues with the exchange from center, which I thought was a good sign. On Saturday, he also didn't have that full wrap/cast on his left hand from Thursday anymore.

Thomas from Little Chute, WI

Do you think Jordon Love's thumb will be a season-long problem?

The surgery was done precisely to avoid that.

Jim from Woodbury, MN

After looking at some photos posted on this website of players walking to the practice field for the combined Packers-Colts practice, I have to ask: Is the Colts' practice field a meadow in the middle of a forest?

It's a massive clearing bordered on one side by a grove of trees. It's a neat spot. Nowhere to hide from the heat and bugs, but it's quite the setup.

Kerry from Lakewood Ranch, FL

The first two games are bigger this year than usual. One a divisional game and the other a conference game. They are at home with nine road games to play in the next 15. Not many teams make the playoffs losing their first two games at home. And the Packers aren't in the NFC South. The sense of urgency is obvious. Am I looking at this wrong?

Not at all. I don't want to speak for LaFleur, but I suspect his original preseason plan – which could always change based on the injury situation – of playing the starters some in the third game was at least in part based on the two-games-in-five-days-against-contenders start to the season. The implications of starting 2-0 are larger than normal, as are those of starting 0-2.

Ray from Phoenix, AZ

With all the injuries piling up, is there a concern the wounded will be rusty for the Lions game from the non-practice reps for several weeks prior to that game? It sure worries me!

It depends on when those players get back to practice. After the roster decisions are made, there are a couple of practices heading into Labor Day weekend. Then the players get some time off, come back for a practice on the holiday, get their mandated Tuesday off, and then the usual three days (Wed-Fri) of practices during game week. That's a lot of practice time to get back in the swing of things, if they're back during that last week of the month.

Dale from Prescott, WI

Wow! 14 in a row for the Crew sure was amazing! Now they need to avoid a letdown and a long losing streak the rest of the year. This team just never quits.

What an incredible run. It reached the indescribable stage over the weekend and almost continued with another late-inning comeback Sunday. Here's to hoping it eventually counts for so much more than a summer memory.

James from Chicago, IL

While it's not Insider Inbox romances, there are a fair number Packers-fan-love-stories that have their origins at Will's Northwoods Inn, in Chicago. A friend and I both met our wives over a Miller Lite and a Packers game at Will's.

A beer, a G and a Cupid's arrow. Sounds like a Netflix series.

Chuck from Menomonie, WI

"The crowd got a kick out of it, no pun intended." No pun intended my foot. No pun intended.

Ha, nicely done. We can both see ourselves out. Happy Monday.

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