Is this Packers team better than the Packers teams that lost the last two NFC title games? | You Pod to Win the Game
Yahoo Sports’ Charles Robinson and Jay Busbee discuss if this version of the Green Bay Packers can do what the last two could not, win the NFC and get to the Super Bowl. Hear the full conversation on the You Pod to Win the Game podcast. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
JAY BUSBEE: How would you stack up this team against the previous two NFC Championship Packers teams?
CHARLES ROBINSON: Better. It's definitely--
JAY BUSBEE: Yeah.
CHARLES ROBINSON: --well, here are the ways I think it's better. Number one, they're getting healthy. I know-- look, Valdes-Scantling didn't practice today. We'll see where the full sort of collection of health comes. But there are guys that Rodgers really trusts on this team. I think Cobb coming back-- I know a lot of people are like, oh, Cobb, whatever. You don't understand. When they went out and got Cobb, there was a reason why Rodgers said, go get that guy from Houston. And people-- even Houston's like, what? Like, they want this dude? This dude's washed.
JAY BUSBEE: [LAUGHS]
CHARLES ROBINSON: Like, yeah, we're happy. Awesome. Absolutely. We'll pay some of his freight. Like, you'll give us something for this dude? Get him off our roster. They were so psyched. And I knew it long before it was going to be made. I'm like, why does Rodgers want this guy? And it was just trust. It was like Tom Brady trusting Gronk, Tom Brady trusting Edelman-- every quarterback has a guy that they really, truly trust and believe in, and Cobb-- despite the fact that he's, like, Rodgers best friend-- it's just the guy he really trusts.
And so I think to have Adams-- that was a game earlier. Davante Adams-- the COVID game. He threw two touchdowns to Randall Cobb, you know? That's an Aaron Rodgers win. Because he was like, hey, go get me that guy. Adams is out with COVID-- cool. Two touchdown passes-- awesome. We win this game. So I actually think the comfort level of Rodgers with the pieces around him-- love the backfield. I love the fact that-- for Bakhtiari to come back, hopefully.
You know, we'll see. I mean, he was practicing. I assume he's going to be playing-- getting healthier, too, which is great. It's important. I worry a little bit about the run defense, but they weren't always healthy, defensively. And I really, truly believe there's an element of everything that's going on this season-- and I do think it will extend into the playoffs-- of the Aaron Rodgers revenge tour. I truly believe it.
JAY BUSBEE: [LAUGHS]
CHARLES ROBINSON: I do. I think Aaron Rodgers--
JAY BUSBEE: I think you're right. Yeah.
CHARLES ROBINSON: I think he got revenge on the front office, which now-- hey, they've made amends, at least to the point where they're talking. He feels good about the relationship-- feels better about the relationship. But there's a little bit of a revenge tour from that aspect. I think there was a revenge tour against the media, because it was like-- and first, it was all the stuff that happened pre-the-immunization-stuff.
He was pissed off about how things were portrayed before he came back into the fold. Then there's the immunization stuff, which, you know, oh, the woke mob. So he's like, now I'm getting revenge against the woke mob, and probably has what will ultimately be an MVP season, right? OK. That's the second leg of the revenge tour-- the media. Now the third leg is-- it's these [BLEEP] knocked us out of the NFC title game.
JAY BUSBEE: [LAUGHS]
CHARLES ROBINSON: First, I'm going to take Kyle and Jimmy and the 49ers. We're going to crush them. And in my mind, I'm like, Aaron Rodgers is a competitor, and there's no way he doesn't want to see Tom Brady come in. There's no way he's sitting there going, if we win this game, the next guy I want is showing up. I want Tom to show up-- the guy who was my best competition for MVP this year. The guy who knocked me out in my house last year. This is it. This is the Rodgers revenge tour. This is where it starts.
JAY BUSBEE: Suddenly, him dressing up like John Wick on Halloween makes a whole lot more sense, doesn't it?
CHARLES ROBINSON: [LAUGHS] Yeah!
JAY BUSBEE: I mean, he's got a body count.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Somebody killed his dog!
[LAUGHTER]
JAY BUSBEE: Exactly. Oh, man. They didn't even need to do that!
