Episode 23: Packers vs. Eagles Showdown, Bears' Breakthrough & NFC North Playoff Drama

This episode dives into the thrilling conclusion of the NFL regular season and sets the stage for the upcoming NFC North playoff battles. We analyze team performances, key players’ roles, and what it will take for each team to emerge victorious in wildcard matchups.

• Recap of Chicago's long-awaited victory against the Packers 
• Detroit Lions' statement win against the Vikings 
• Jordan Love's uncertainty and potential impact on Green Bay's chances 
• Importance of running game and avoiding turnovers for success 
• Implications of Minnesota's matchup against the Rams on player futures 
• Predictions for the outcomes of the upcoming playoff games 

Make sure to return next week, because we are heading north!

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Chapters

• 0:00 NFC North Playoff Picture Analysis
• 12:06 NFC North Playoff Predictions

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Are you still talking about football? Yeah, but without NFC North. Then let's talk football. Welcome back everybody.

Speaker 1: 0:08

This is Headin' North, the NFC North podcast, and I'm your host, d-tron, and that's a wrap, folks, the 2024 regular season is all wrapped up and, like we were already aware, three of the four NFC North teams are in the playoff. The playoff picture is set and it is wildcard weekend Saturday, january the 11th, sunday, the 12th and Monday, the 13th. Now that we know where, who and when, let's talk about what it's going to take to make the difference in each of these matchups. But first, before we do any of that, we're going to talk about the theater. That was Week 18 in the NFL regular season. Lions and Vikings clashed and boy, it was a game until it wasn't anymore and Chicago finally did it. Chicago, stand up. We'll cover all of that in our two-minute drill right after my sponsors tell you about their stuff.

Speaker 1: 1:02

This episode of Headed North Podcast is sponsored by OffRackShopcom. Offrackshopcom is an online thrift retailer that specialize in men and women's clothing, shoes, accessories and more. So if you haven't already head to our description. You can find a discount code for your next purchase at OffRackShopcom. All right, you guys ready for the two-minute drill Put on the clock, we're going to recap week 18. So, chicago, like I said, you finally did it After 11 tries. The 12th was the charm. If anyone went from zero to hero in this story of David and Goliath, it had to be Kairos Santos. Week 11, with three seconds left, kairos lined up a 46-yard field goal and got it blocked by the Packers. So, fast forward seven weeks. Kairos finds himself with two seconds left on the clock, from 51 yards out and bang. There's no better way to head to the offseason than to exercise some six-year-old demons for your whole franchise. Big story though Green Bay. Jordan Love left left the game and it was due to an elbow injury. Green Bay has hopes that Love will be close to 100% because they're going to need him as they go into Philadelphia in a very hostile crowd.

Speaker 1: 2:18

The second game that we got to discuss, the one that everyone was looking for Minnesota and Detroit met in the Motor City and apparently Detroit heard all of the criticisms about their defense, the injuries and how they're only able to win in a shootout, and they took it personally. Minnesota found themselves in the red zone four times and they only came away with two field goals. The Lions defense clamped down when it mattered. Jameer Gibbs provided 23 rushes, five receptions, 170 yards and four touchdowns. The Lions come out of it with the win, the first round bye, and they send Minnesota to LA for a first round wild card matchup, even though they got 14 wins. That's crazy, all right, guys.

Speaker 1: 3:03

So the two minute drill is all wrapped up and I'm gonna get it kicked off with the Green Bay Packers and they're hoping Jordan Love is gonna be 100% to go in Philly, because last game he left early due to an elbow injury. He hit his elbow on a player's helmet. It didn't look that bad, but certainly he had some nerve going something. With the nerves going on on the sidelines trying to get it stretched out, couldn't get it figured out. Either way. They're expecting to have him back against philly and I hope so because there's pretty low likelihood, even with playing well in the games that he stepped in, that malik willis is going to be able to come into philadelphia in that kind of environment, on the road, with all of this at stake, and play well, and just that would be a hard ask for any backup quarterback.

Speaker 1: 3:53

Uh, it's going to be a hard ask for Jordan Love to go in there and do it, but Philly is not out of the woods themselves. Their quarterback, jalen Hurts, is coming off of a concussion. He's been out for the last two weeks now. Certainly he wouldn't have played last week, but the week before that you you may be looking at a situation where he's got a bit of rust as he gets ready to take on these Green Bay Packers. Now there's concern for both of those leaders, for their teams, but I don't think this game is even really going to be about the quarterback. I think it's going to be more about the running game, just like when these two teams met the last time which, by the way, is kind of ironic. They start their seasons off together and they're going to be the reason that one of their season doesn't continue. So I think that that's a cool storyline that you can think about as well, coming off of that first game that they played in sao paulo, brazil again a first for the nfl first game there and now these two teams meet up again in the playoffs.

Speaker 1: 4:48

Uh, it's in the first meeting. Saquon scored three times, he rushed for two, he caught one, and Jacobs had 84 yards on the ground. He didn't see the end zone, though there were big performances from all of the stars, really the first time that they met, and they'll need that same level of performance from the stars. But Green Bay will also need that same level of defensive performance and more if they plan to beat Philly Fast forward. So, looking at Sunday, you've got 2,000 yard, saquon, 1,000 receiving yard. Aj Brown and the rest of the crew will absolutely be ready, but Green Bay will be missing Christian Watson, who is someone who scored in their first matchup against each other with a re-aggravated knee injury and it was a non-contact injury. So that is a huge loss for the Green Bay Packers. He's the deep ball threat. While he doesn't get a lot of the target share, he is certainly the one that can stretch the field for you. So they're going to be missing Christian Watson, for sure. But how can Green Bay win if you if you come to the show for that you want to hear some optimism? Well, here's how Green Bay can. If you come to the show for that, you want to hear some optimism? Well, here's how Green Bay can win.

Speaker 1: 5:57

Philly only lost three games this season. They lost against the Bucks, the Falcons and the Commanders, but in their first two losses. Saquon was kept under 100 yards rushing and Jalen had a pick in one of those games. They also had some key contributors who were out. Against the Falcons they didn't have AJ Brown. Against the Bucks they didn't have Devontae Smith and or AJ Brown and in the loss against the commanders they were without Jalen Hurts. They were missing players. That's not going to be the case this week, so really all they have to lean on is keeping Saquon under 100 yards rushing and turnovers with all of the weapons that the Eagles have. Man, keeping Saquon under 100 yards means that the DBs for Green Bay are going to be really challenged to go to some man-to-man situations. They're going to need to stuff the box against the run if they're trying to keep him under 100. It's going to take some game planning for sure. Ideally, they can get Hurts to throw interceptions, which is the second part of the keys to win is getting turnovers. Green Bay was the only team to force Jalen into more than one pick this season and they'll need to do that again if they want a shot to win this game. I personally believe that LeFleur is a better head coach than Sirianni and he's going to have to call a near flawless game on offense to get a win and I think I think they actually will get the upset in Philadelphia, calling that Alright. So now that we got Green Bay's future out of the way, it'll be decided on Sunday.

Speaker 1: 7:39

The Rams and the Vikings won't square off until Monday. That is a bit of a change from previous years where Wild Card Weekend didn't extend until Monday. But this game needed to be moved, and it was. It was moved because of the devastating wildfires that are happening and tearing through southern california. The game will now be held in arizona at the arizona cardinals arena. I think it's state farm arena. The site change was absolutely necessary, but I don't know that it necessarily helped the home team. The rams are going to play in arizona, where there are lots of winter birds who go there from minnesota throughout the year, so they may have a larger minnesota viking presence in arizona than they may have gotten in la.

Speaker 1: 8:25

But about the game, what is at stake here? There's a lot, there's a whole lot at stake, actually A first playoff game for O'Connell as the head coach of the Vikings, an ability to speak to how resilient this team might be after the tough loss that they had in Detroit this past week. If the Minnesota Vikings can get through the Rams and they get a third shot at revenge against the Lions in the next round, the future of Sam Darnold may also very well be in the balance At the end of the year. If you meltdown and have back-to-back losses and get bounced one and done, this could be the difference between Sam Darnold getting a long-term contract with the Minnesota Vikings and them trading JJ McCarthy, him getting franchise tagged for a year, or them allowing him to hit the open market. So I know sounds like I'm pressing the panic button and I know Minnesota's probably not panicking at this moment, but they're also going up against a Ram team that accounted for one of their three losses this season. A playoff one had done is a real possibility for minnesota. So what do they need to do to win? Well, they need to get turnovers.

Speaker 1: 9:41

Matt stafford as I mean. I've watched him play a lot of his games as my old quarterback. He's got a thing about slinging the ball. It's one of his best qualities. It's also a very reckless quality that he has. Matthew Stafford had a run in the middle of the season this year where he threw at least one pick in six straight games and they lost three of those games to teams that are not nearly as stout or creative on the defensive side as the Minnesota Vikings. Brian Flores' defense has been a steady part of their success.

Speaker 1: 10:16

This team this team all year has experienced strong play from their defense and it is no secret that they are going to need to lock down two very good receivers and I'm not well well, one really good receiver and one elite receiver in nakua on on the offensive side of the ball. They need to get back to establishing the run early and get some eyes off of jj. People are able to double team him or scheme around jj because the run game hasn't been effective, at least as of recent. So they're going to need maximum effort from their whole receiving core. But really it's going to come down to Aaron Jones getting some traction on the ground and being able to force the defense to step up where they can hit some shots in the zone or over the top with JJ. In the last matchup, aaron Jones only had 58 yards on the ground and he's failed to hit 50 yards on the ground in his last two games. Plus he's sort of nursing a quad injury.

Speaker 1: 11:18

All of these things are going to be important if Minnesota plans to shake off that loss from Detroit and go into Arizona and beat the LA Rams. Also, what's up with Addison? He shrunk in that Detroit game. He had like one reception all game where he was coming into that game. Over his last three games he was averaging like six receptions per game. They're going to need everybody if they plan to beat this high powered offense that the Rams have. So here is where Sam Darnold can really earn the paycheck that he's been lining up all season with the winning performance that they've been able to put together. This is going to be Sam Darnold's time and hopefully he allows Aaron Jones to help him get there.

Speaker 1: 12:06

But here's my predictions. My predictions are this Jalen Hurts is going to come out rusty and that's going to be the reason that Green Bay is going to be able to jump out to a lead and ultimately be the reason why they upset Philly in Philly in the first round. I also think that the Minnesota Vikings will advance in this game and I don't think it will be as close as it was in their previous matchup. I think Minnesota will end up getting ahead by two touchdowns and run away with this. Well, that is it for the show. It's Saturday, probably, if you're listening to this, maybe Sunday if you're listening to it. Heck, you may even came late and listening to it on Monday before the Vikings game. Either way, I appreciate you coming along and listening to the show and, as always, if you decide to come back next week, which I hope you do, make sure you've got your bags packed because we are heading north. I'm Detron Peace. Are you still talking about football? Yeah, the Battalion, nfc North. The list of football.