Packers may need to alter game plan vs. Cardinals
Peter King believes the Packers will need to utilize the ground attack against Arizona to keep the ball away from Kyler Murray considering the players Green Bay is expected to be without due to COVID-19 and injuries.
Video Transcript
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MIKE FLORIO: Time now for PFT on Yahoo Sports. Peter King. Mike Florio. The biggest stories in the NFL. And week 7 is done. Week 8 right out of the gates. Thursday night, the 6 and 1 Packers traveling to Arizona to take on the 7 and 0 Cardinals. This one has lost a little bit of the luster with Davante Adams, the great Packers receiver, on the COVID Reserve List. Also, Joe Barry, the Packers defensive coordinator with COVID. And who knows who else is going to end up testing positive and not being available. But I don't think the Cardinals are going to shed any tears, Peter. They've weathered their COVID storm. And they keep winning. Hey. You show up and you play. But what are you going to be looking for when two of the best teams in the NFC get together on Thursday night?
PETER KING: I'm going to be looking at my Green Bay depth chart because some of these guys we're not going to recognize, Mike. I mean four of the top five most important Packers, their presence in this game is in doubt. Left tackle David Bakhtiari, Davante Adams on offense, and obviously on defense, Za'Darius Smith, one of the best pass rushers in football, and maybe the best corner in football, Jaire Alexander.
So you have those four guys missing. And you're playing on the road in a short week against the best team in football. Good luck. I think what has to happen in this game, Mike, is that this needs to be a game where Green Bay keeps it away from Kyler Murray, where it becomes a game of short throws between Aaron Rodgers and, let's say, Robert Tonyan and it becomes a game where the running game in Green Bay, which isn't asked to win games very often, on Thursday night is going to have to win this game for Green Bay.
MIKE FLORIO: And we're going to learn a lot about the Cardinals. They keep winning. They keep winning. I've picked against them. I thought they were going to lose by now. And this is a test. This is an elite team. But it does make a difference when they don't have the defensive coordinator and when Davante Adams is out. And again, who knows who else is going to end up not playing. One thing that keeps coming back to me, Peter, the COVID issue obviously isn't going away, given the way they're testing the players, unvaccinated every day, vaccinated once a week, guys get knocked out, they're gone, the game keeps going. There hasn't even been a suggestion this year, about a game being rescheduled, postponed.
You know, somebody asked me, what if Aaron Rodgers tests positive on Tuesday? I assume he was one of the crew that was tested on Monday because they break it down into three days. You're going to do your most important people first, I would assume. But NFL doesn't care. NFL is getting these games in. They're not moving anything. They're not changing anything. This year, the train keeps rolling. Have you heard anything to suggest otherwise?
PETER KING: No, I haven't, Mike. And it'll be interesting at the NFL meetings this week in New York to get an update from how the league stands right now on what exactly would constitute a postponed game or something like that, and particularly a $60 million game like this Thursday night game for the NFL because basically that's what one of these Thursday night games costs.
And so to postpone it, to move it, is a very expensive proposition for the League. And I think it'd be just like what happened last year when Denver had all of its quarterbacks out, and the NFL said, you've got enough healthy guys. Find somebody to take snaps from center. And that became the famous Kendall Hinton game. I don't hear a peep out of the NFL about postponing or moving games, even when teams get wracked by COVID.
MIKE FLORIO: And they can't bump it to Friday or Saturday. The broadcast antitrust exemption prevents the games from being televised on Friday or Saturday until after the first or second week in December. So that's not an option. They would have to go to Sunday if they would do it. But it's not. They are going forward with these games. The magic number, Peter, is somewhere between 46 and 11. And I don't know where that number is.
But they got 69 total guys available on the roster. And the attitude is, hey, you've got to plan your roster accordingly. If you don't have enough quarterbacks, you should have had another one. You got to have a plan. And you've got to go forward. And I think it's somewhere in the 30s before they would get to the point where they wouldn't make a team play. And I don't think we're going to see that many positives for any one team this year.
PETER KING: Just remember the one thing that the League said before last season, that we are going to get these games in. And they ended up getting every game in. They did not have to have the week 18. And I think they are on the same path this year.
MIKE FLORIO: And with none of them being postponed this year, including Thursday night. Great game. Hopefully, enough Packers are available to play. Packers at the Cardinals. That's it for this PFT on Yahoo. Thanks for some of your time. We'll see you next time.
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