Five Questions with Leroy Butler. Now here's Tom Silverstein.
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Five Questions with Leroy Butler.
We are in separate locations.
I'm at home and you're up in the North Pole
somewhere,
finally done with
Santa. You know, you deliver all your gifts and everything.
You know what, Tom? Thanks for asking because I do
have a large family.
I have seven kids, well,
six daughters. And my son,
obviously my son's my favorite.
He's named after me. Better not
say that in front of
your girls. Oh no, they know.
If you want to be my favorite,
just do everything I ask,
like whatever. So he does everything that I ask.
His name is in the stadium,
like mine. And for the most part
he understands that he's a
daddy's son and but mom runs everything.
Full disclosure. But you know I'm a sucker,
Tom. If you want whatever you want,
just be a good person.
Everything's great. But the grandkids
were. I got 6 grandkids
now I'm talking to them on FaceTime.
When you get like a 2 year old holding the
phone all up to his nose and
because he don't want no one to help him,
I'm like just let him do it.
It was great though. It was,
it was, it was a lot of fun and it's
still going on because I didn't know this.
I don't know if many guys know it,
but now they return packages and they got to go
back out to the mall
and back online shopping. So it never stops.
All
right, well, I'm just going to stick up for your
daughters and say
they are forces of nature.
I've met several of them
and they are
impressive, impressive, impressive people. So anyway,
let's let's move on to football.
And
now, now I got a disclaimer.
OK, I got Janet on speed dial.
You be nice to me,
'cause they won the game.
They won the game, so you'd be nice.
OK, all right. They did win the game.
And if you want, if you want to be,
you know, Mr. Positive here,
let's let's talk about the offense first before we go
to the defense.
Because you know, I, I,
I actually looked it up today and
the Packers have more snaps
from rookies, rookie skill players than any other team in
the NFL this year.
And
yeah and and by a lot.
I mean, they have over 2000 snaps just by their
rookie receivers and tight ends
and
that says a lot about or or what says a
lot is that they're still functioning
as an offense. You know,
they they continue to lose guys.
They didn't have Jaden Reed,
they lost team Wicks, but they're still getting contributions all
over the place and they had to rely a little
bit more on Romeo Dobbs this game.
But you know, they they've gone eight straight games over
300 yards
total yards. So I I think we're starting to see,
you know, the potential of what this offense could be
in the years to come.
Alright
Tom, wait a minute. You gotta say that again.
They over 2000. What for
over 2000 snaps from
rookies? Yeah, from. And we're just talking skilled player positions,
you know, I mean,
Jaden Reed has over 500,
Musgrave has almost 500, Tucker Craft is more than 500.
Dantavian Wicks has like 300.
I mean, we're talking about a lot of snaps.
That's a lot of snaps.
Yeah, it is. It is.
And somehow,
you know, they're, they're producing yards and points.
I I mean, they're not prolific,
but they put 33 points on a pretty good defense,
don't you think? Yeah, I think yardage wise,
the
coordinator
for the Panthers, I can't say his name properly.
I'll let the media guys
help me with that. But that young man has a
lot of respect in this league,
is being a coordinator and people like his system,
the way he can get guys to play.
And it's just seemed like to me that
I have to give a lot of credit to Matt
Lafleur
because he's thinking, you know what,
my defense, they're not world beaters right now though,
we got a score. And the thing about it,
having the young guys, Bo Melton,
I mean, are you kidding me?
I mean, Wix goes out like you talked about.
I mean,
Tucker Craft as a rookie,
a tight end and no quarterback has had to go
to throw this to these,
you know, lower level young guys
because you would think they would struggle as they did
at the beginning of the year
when it was a struggle just to score in the
first quarter.
Something changed. And I think a lot of that had
to do with #10,
to be honest with you,
because you think about weapons.
It gets, it gets kind of confusing because when you
talk about a quarterback time,
most quarterbacks need at least give me a true
#1 that I can always go to
in a bailout. Well, that's number nine.
OK, he's injured. Well, OK,
he's put him to the side.
But then give me another #1,
Jay Reid, 11, OK, then he's not playing.
OK Can you give me just somebody that wants all
the smoke?
I can give it to him in a crowd or
by himself,
13 Wicks. He gets a chest injury.
So now you're thinking how you going to get through
the game.
So my thing is got to give something that they
hadn't seen before and that's
#33 when Aaron Jones is there.
Tom first, that's their first stop.
100 yard rusher this year,
right, in a long time.
Yeah,
it changes a lot when he's in the game,
and that's why you can offset it a little bit
with all the receivers going down.
But the offense right now is dragging the special teams
and the defense towards the finish line.
I mean, he's, they're doing all they can to just
to
'cause if they have a bad game,
they lose the games, right?
Right. You know, if they don't,
if Romeo Dobbs doesn't make that
controversial catch on the sideline,
yes,
it's. It's not a game.
And honestly, I sort of felt like if Carolina hadn't
ran out of time,
they might have won that game in the end.
If they had gone to overtime.
Yeah, yeah, I apologize. Go ahead.
Because, you know, sometimes I like to ask you questions.
Let's go back to DeVito against
the Giants
and they're driving down for a field goal to win
it.
It's the same thing mentally a driving down for a
field goal to tie.
I still gotta be aggressive.
The only time you could be a little passive when
you need a touchdown like you did against Kansas City,
right?
So I'm thinking to myself,
they gotta, if they throw it in the middle,
the game is over. They don't have enough time,
but I didn't think the guy was going to be
that wide open even man,
or go back.
How can a guy catches a ball and still get
out of bounds to preserve time
on the sideline? That's that's what you're protecting against.
That is what you 100%
don't want to give up.
Is that that throw? You're right.
And they gets what, 17 yards out of it?
Yeah it get out about and that's why I go
back to when
the Giants game that cost you.
If you you can't play prevent when you need 3
to win or to tie
you got to play your stuff
and that's when you need the pass rush
to really get there. If you're going to rush four
or if you rush three.
Worst case they catch in the end
in bounds time. The game's over
and that's kind of the thing that was puzzling was
so we saw a different
style of play, a different
philosophy, you know, same scheme,
but a different philosophy, which was pressure,
the quarterback pressure. Bryce Young send four,
send five guys, six guys play a lot of man
to man defense.
They played more man than they probably played all season
long.
And
I, you know, you're going to get beat in that
kind of,
but, you know, at least you're giving yourself a chance.
You're giving your pass rushers a chance.
But then it seemed like at the end they got
a little conservative again and they started playing the zones.
And you know, the one thing we found out with
this team is they cannot play zone defense.
They just, they just really struggled with it.
And I don't know why.
Maybe you can explain it.
Well here's the thing about addition
by subtraction or the reciprocal.
OK, Jair's available
and your two first round pick corners are available
21 and 23. So Adam Thielen,
as we know when he played with Minnesota is a
vet true vet on the inside.
It seemed like the game plan was to get Adam
Thielen on 25 and we like our match up,
Spread you out, get the ball thin and just feeling
and just pray to God
that 25 covers and that's where the ball's going.
But even put that to a side,
it just seemed like the younger guys when 37 and
35 was out there.
You play more man up
and you just challenge receivers and again you go,
they get paid too. They're going to make some catches
but seem to be a little bit more stress on
them and the
the the plate particularly and we're not going to do
excellent OS,
but this would be one
that I would have lobbied for you to draw up,
was when 36 made the hit.
That was a 15 yard penalty.
It never should have happened
because they're playing a combination like a Cover 2
and Jair jumps up to the flat and he threw
a rat behind it.
That's a great. That's a great question because I specifically
after the scrum,
when we interviewed him about the coin toss,
which was
a whole nother story where he ran.
Yeah,
but I went up to him and I asked him
about that particular play,
'cause I was very curious.
You and I have talked about that play where sometimes.
So it's basically it's a high,
low play, right? He's kind of
in the middle between the low guy and the high
guy
and there's a guy running over towards the sideline,
over, you know, his shoulder and then there's a guy
underneath
and we've seen him drop back into that zone and
make an interception on that play kind of sucker the
guy in
well. So I asked him about that and he said,
well, it's a different deal because it was third and
two.
He said I've got to play
the sticks on that one,
you know, he said I can't get too deep because
we're still defending
the first down, It was third and two.
So you tell me what whether that
that was his explanation for how that play went.
If you're going to be a top corner
or a platinum person on the field,
play both
every corner. Can't do it,
it's true. But you always play deep to short.
He got a first down anyway,
but had you give up a first down for like
3 or 4 yards?
And you can see, maybe not on television,
but in my film study,
I did the right thing,
'cause there's a guy deep
coming behind me for, well,
how far would you say 17 yards,
18 yards, 17? Yeah, something like that.
That's a big difference. High
to low,
not low to high. And maybe you thought,
'cause he's a rookie, you can bait him.
But no, you got the confound of what the books
say,
deep to short, high to low,
because you're helping the safety.
I can't get all the way over there.
I can get over there to make a hit,
but I can't get all the way over there
to go up. The guy fakes the seven and bends
it back to the post.
I'm dead meat, right? Right.
We can't over pursue. You got you responsible for the
seven route
and the out route. If we ask him too much,
fine.
But when you're the best
cover both. I said that to Fritz one day.
I said, how am I supposed to
defend Shannon Sharpe on the bootleg
and play the run? He looked at me like,
I thought you told me you was just great,
safe.
He was right. I can do both.
I can cover Shannon
for the bootleg and play to run.
I can do both. Everybody can't do what I do
if they can't, but that's why I'm out there.
I expect you to do both.
I can't put all this stuff on Joe Berry.
Some of this stuff sometimes as players
we got to self govern and we got a whole
accountability.
Because you can't, there's no reasoning.
If I were, if you had asked me that question
that you asked them,
I probably was gambling a little bit
because I know better.
I know better.
OK. So on a route,
that's how I would answer that.
Yeah. So
I I think in my opinion what we saw was
Matt Lafleur having some influence
on what Joe Barry called.
So he told him let's
be more aggressive, let's play some more man.
You know, we'll do some six man pressures
and you'll start that year and you'll have Eric Stokes
and they can both play grass
and a man. And I think what we found out
was that one, you know,
that worked in the first half
and then I think Carolina made some adjustments and then
I think
we saw that both Stokes and and Alexander are not
the guys they were before.
Their injuries. They're not there yet.
They're still struggling, you know,
I mean there's they're still getting their legs back.
They're still figuring out
how to play. Now the question is,
do you have to just go through those
those,
you know, hurdles, those bumps in the road because to
get them back to where you you want them
or do you sit there and play Carrington Valentine half
the time instead of Jair?
This is going to be
something, I think that a message or
something. I want everybody in the locker room to understand
what I'm about to say.
This is bigger than anything you can imagine.
You playing for history. I'll explain it.
You weren't supposed to be here.
You lost a Hall of Fame quarterback,
Went to The Jets? Fine.
Hall of Fame, arguably, if not Hall of Fame.
OK, the best wide receiver.
He left the offense and the team
was supposed to be a disaster.
It was supposed to go back to the 70s or
the 90s when we were four and 12 in
1991, or 6 and 10.
It was supposed to all come crashing down,
and some people thought it would.
When you were two and five.
This ain't supposed to happen.
Let's make history. Let's make history by
We're in the thick of things.
And if you win these next two games,
history
20-30 years from now, how good were they when Aaron
Rodgers left?
How good would that receiver
when Devante left?
How in the hell
are they in the conversation?
You know what Madla floor great coach.
39 games broke Seaford's record Three years.
Number one overall seed playoffs.
He don't get no credit for that
in the barbershop. They're saying yeah,
but you're the Hall of Fame quarterback.
Aaron won all those games.
Fine.
If Matt Lafleur
get these group of babies
in the playoffs,
that's history. So that's that's what I need guys to
embrace.
And that's what's frustrating.
I need to tell them.
I need the guys to understand how big this is.
You're not supposed to be here,
but you're here now. You deserve to be here.
Embrace it. So the vets,
they could probably learn something from these young guys to
the offense,
like you said, they got all these guys in
and they're still competing.
So what are you, what are you saying that the
defense has not,
You know, I guess
there's there's any kind of way you can look at
what's happened with the defense.
You can blame it on Joe Barry.
You can blame it on the players.
You can blame it on both.
But what do they do?
What? What do they do
against the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears
to turn that around to they have two
to do something. No, they have to.
They have to. I apologize.
They have to realize this.
Yes, it's a team sport,
but it's only one guy in that helmet.
I'm going to make the difference
for us to win.
To like 58 Mcduffie sitting there,
you know, you thinking OK 59 is not going to
play step up 4th down.
That was a big play on 4th down.
I need guys to say
it's on me. That's how we going to make it.
Of course it's a team game,
but you have to realize that
what you're going to accomplish
is for the culture and the history of the Green
Bay Packers.
You're not going to have a great game all 17
days.
And Mike Holman said the best
You can have a bad game.
You can have a a
bad play,
but it won't happen on Thursday,
Saturday, Sunday or Monday. Then the game days.
Pay attention to detail.
Study
and trust your brother,
because now the Minnesota Vikings,
they want TJ Hawkinson is out
hurt his knee.
So don't look at that as oh boy,
they don't have one of their weapons.
No, they beat the Packers without Jefferson
the first time
Jordan Addison, a rookie, scored down the scene.
They're not releasing their quarterback because they want to play
that mind game.
It don't matter to us who the quarterback is,
but the offense Tom has the
the special teams who has more penalties than anybody
and the defense just like a ball and chain around
their leg and they're dragging them.
Like, come on guys. So I just need every guy
to look in the mirror,
not the mirror, just shows just the shoulders up,
the one that shows your entire body.
I'm going to take this game over
and I'm getting us to the playoffs.
There is no Plan B
plan. EA is the playoffs and I think scenario wise,
if they went out, don't they have a good chance
of making it like
9895? Pretty good chance they need.
They need the Rams or Seattle to lose One of
those.
Could happen. Could happen. Yeah,
it probably helped them that San Francisco lost last night
'cause.
Now they'll be playing
win all the way through the end of the
season
and they play the Rams again,
so
you know. So going into this game against the Vikings,
you know there's a chance
they've gone with Nick Mullins the last couple of weeks.
He's through 4 interceptions on Sunday.
I think he's got 6 interceptions in two games.
They're not going to play Josh Dobbs.
They might go with their rookie Geron Hall.
I I I want you to construct a a game
plan.
They're not going to have Hawkinson,
which is a huge loss for them.
Addison's little banged up. Justin Jefferson should be fine.
What do you do, construct the game For me?
I'm putting 23 O 18
on Jefferson because it worked.
So
Jair can redeem himself and
do what I know he can do.
That's why I called him my nephew.
I know he's capable of taking a game over.
I know he capable of getting a pick six.
So lock up Jefferson. Everything else
we got to rush. We got to get home with
four time
52909155. Let's go
979395. You get to push
5559. You guys got to say,
you know what? It don't matter.
It don't matter where they put me.
I'm going to make a difference.
And the wild card is #7
if Quay Walker, who's banged up
if he if he's playing at a high clip.
I'm going to play a lot of what we call
fire zones,
5 minute pressure, because it don't matter the quarterback
because Mullins is a veteran.
But whoever you put out there,
rookie Dobbs, it don't matter.
I'm going to give you some different looks
and I'm going to make sure
that there's no running the football.
You got to shut the run down
because what's the best friend of every quarterback?
A running game. But
if he's pressured to get the ball to Jefferson
because the running, the game is shut down,
he'll throw you a couple
and you just got to catch them
and the defense. At this point,
you got to win the game.
You got to win the game because for some reason,
if they start the blitzing Jordan Love,
like the first time, they were faking the blind floor
up and back. And I got to guess
they passed that part. Now
they've seen what the blitzing looked like against Kansas City.
If you blitz me, yeah,
I'm gonna hurt you. He's,
he's faced a lot of blitzing teams this year and
so he's pretty,
pretty used to it. Yeah.
Should be interesting if they can get Luke Musgrave back
on the field this week,
how they would use the two,
him and Kraft. And to me that's going to be,
that's going to be a Matt Lafleur.
You know, test if
he has to figure out how to how does he
get the most out of both those guys and what
kind of stress
can he put on the Vikings defense by having both
of them in the game together?
What do you think is the,
you know, what's what's the quandary that
Brian Flores faces if both those guys are in the
game?
Now we have to also remember
Musgrave's not going to be 100%.
You know, he hadn't played for five weeks,
so. But if you can get them both on the
field,
what?
How do you use them?
Well, you know, Musgrave is one of my favorite.
So to me, before he was out,
he was your deep threat down the middle.
You can go with three wires.
You can go with three tight end,
one wire. See, that'll be #9 Watson on that surface.
I hope he's available because he'll run past everybody.
Remember his rookie year when he goes down that wide
open and get a chance to redeem himself
when he couldn't come up with the ball?
Three tight ends with 81 being that third tight end
or big bend
and I will run the ball and I will play
action and I'm going 88 right down the middle.
Put stress on their safeties to come.
And they got some of the best,
one of the best safeties,
of course, but their safeties are pretty good.
But I will put a lot of stress on their
linebackers to read and react.
Is it, is this the bootleg right here or did
he give it?
Did he give it or was it the bootleg?
Keep them off balance. If Jaden Reed is the keto
time 'cause if he's in motion,
they don't know if it's the jet sweep or it's
the scream.
They have no idea. They're guessing.
Keep them guessing. If it were me,
I would substitute every other play
and always put somebody in motion.
But the three tight end,
look, I like that because at any time
if they go a heavy package,
heavy defending, like bringing linebackers,
fine, we'll split them out.
And I put 88 out there by himself.
If it's a a safety
or a linebacker, that's where they're all going,
'cause he got fresh legs too.
I know he may be a little rusty,
but he got fresh legs.
But him and 85 together,
if they want to split them,
they don't know which side is the
the bootleg side, which out's the hand off side,
Tom, that's because George Love is amazing with his ball
handling.
Sometimes you never know if he gave it or not.
Use that to your advantage.
If you got all your tight ends help,
yeah, it'll be interesting because Flores likes to use
3 safeties in his nickel,
you know, and
they've got some pretty versatile guys at the safety position.
They got some injuries at corner,
which we'll see who plays in that game.
But I also wonder whether there's going to be some
receiver match ups that they might want to take advantage
of.
So I agree with you
from the standpoint that rotate,
rotate, rotate, just keep bringing in all kinds of different
kind of personnel and stress them
with your personnel. I think that's one thing they can
do.
Now, if they get Jaden Reed back,
if they get Watson back and if they must come
back,
but you want Jaira Alexander on on Jefferson.
Do you want some help on him?
What? Depends on where he goes.
If it's all intermediate, no.
If it's help deep, fine.
But anywhere that's in the mid area,
it's a chart where he catches all his passes and
where he likes them.
You got to be all over him,
all over him. And I'm all right at times,
you know, getting a 5 yard,
you know, automatic first down,
that's fine. I just don't want to give up
65 yards,
just make it difficult for him
to just run through these uncle.
They see the same film we're looking at.
Guys are wide open and these guys are not All
Pro or all world,
although Evans is a future Hall of Famer.
Maybe because the guy may have 100 touchdowns by now,
but
when you're man to man on a guy,
you got to make whoever this quarterback is and not
Kirk Cousins.
If they don't put it exactly where it's supposed to
be,
it's going to land in your hands.
Yeah. Yeah, make it different.
Thing they haven't done this year is is turn the
ball over much at all.
This is your first playoff experience will be this week,
Sunday
night.
So everybody can see,
right? For everybody to see
this is a great opportunity.
I mean, you can make history because this ain't supposed
to happen.
It's supposed to be bad.
But you're not. So forget about Carolina.
Move on. But I need you to know this bigger
than each player.
It's not the history and the culture of this is
a playoff When and you end for the next two
weeks.
You never know what can happen to the NFL.
It's been a lot of upsets,
lots of upsets. Just don't let you be one of
them,
All
right? Speaking of history, it's
been
30 years since
someone, I can't remember who it was first jumped in
the stands at Lambeau.
I'll call it Janet. I think it was Reggie White,
wasn't it? He was a part of it,
yes. You think about that day,
Tom, and I've been knowing you
well over 30 years.
That was nothing planned. Or
'cause I'm a defensive guy,
you never think that you would even do like celebrations,
stuff like that. But I remember homeroom
stressing it. One of your defensive bags,
lineman, safety or whatever, Get an interception or a fumble.
Don't lie out of the ball because you're going to
fumble.
It's too cold. The game was frozen.
So what I saw, I caused a fumble.
This evidence is the quarterback
now. I think it I caused a fumble.
Bryce Pop and Tony Bennett,
you'll see them. They're running around and they fall because
it it was
the field was frozen.
So when I'm looking around for the ball,
I'm like, oh, I see Reged.
I go over toward Reged.
I didn't fall. By the way,
thank you, God, God is good.
But when I saw him,
he was struggling with Steve Wisniewski and we caught eye
contact.
He's going to allow the ball
and I'll never forget getting that ball and running down
the sideline.
It was so loud and
I just can't imagine the people in the front row
say,
wait a minute, this guy's not stopping what you just
scored.
It's a big, big play and I just remember
throwing the ball down and jumping up into the stands.
And what I will never forget was humbly saying this.
I think it's the best celebration because it had to
do with the fans,
without the fans. There is no leap without the fans.
There is no Leroy Butler.
I mean
it's just,
it's just everything, the fabric of what we stand for
our fans to jump up there and hug a shareholder.
That's why it was easy for me to name Leap
Vodka,
Leap Vodka and my e-mail Everything podcast,
Leap 36 podcast. I mean
everything is Leap. People in pick and save,
they don't even say Leroy Butler.
What's up, Leap
for 30 years?
I mean, it's just, it's been amazing because of,
think about it, It's hard to do 30 years of
anything
but to play for one Franchise 1 fan base.
It's the only way I could give back to them
to say I love them.
Robert Brooks really
gets a lot of credit,
too, 'cause he made it famous when he put the
record.
I jump in the stands in
95. Yeah, 'cause it didn't really take off right in
the beginning,
You know, people didn't call it that or anything like
that.
It wasn't until Brooks,
you know, because he was scoring all the touchdowns.
Exactly. Exactly. That's
right.
Yup. And so shout out to Robert Brooks.
I mean, he put in jump in the stairs.
He did a video about it.
I think Gilbert Brown's actually in the video
and it just was the brand of
what that started 30 years ago
has taken off now because Robert and and also Robert
was smart enough
to trade market so no other team can steal it.
Well, it seems like it was hardly 30 years ago,
but yes, it was. Yeah,
yeah. And I'll bet you Brooks can still probably get
up into the stands.
I know you can't, but I bet you Brooks can.
You know, did you see
the front, the Journal Sentinel?
I did. I did, yeah.
And I think there was like a ladder in the
background there.
We can't see that, though.
We can't see that. Yeah.
Shout out to the young lady
who wrote that story.
Richard Ryman wrote it. And Sarah Klepping took the picture.
Yes, Sarah, I've I've
met, of course. So put out on JS online if
you're interested in
seen the history of that
so thank them very I I appreciate them.
So let's get a prediction.
Oh boy. What the Packers are right now is
I mean this playoff mode.
Playoff mode. Jordan Love who I think will be.
I think they may get 2 Pro Bowlers in.
Jay Reid has a shot,
but I think Joy Love will be a Pro Bowler
and these are the games that you want to see
your quarterback step up
and the defense, you got to keep them somewhere in
the teens you have to.
It can't get in the shootout because in the shootout
anything happens.
I like the Packers to win
29 to 20 and Andis Carlson kicks
3 or maybe 3 or 4 field goals
and you'll be going into
the Bears game with a win and get in game
the following week. But I look for
29 to 20. There
it is. All right. Anybody want to thank before we
head out?
Yeah, pick and save. Of course pick
andsave.com is amazing. Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of of
Milwaukee who does all my Butler versus bullying thing when
I visit schools and things of that nature.
And again, go please go to
leapspirits.com Anywhere you can find leap baca.
You can celebrate like I did,
celebrate like you scored and pick up the vodka anywhere
you can get alcoholic,
anywhere. You download
a podcast, Please check out the Leap 36 podcast.
And I want to also thank Terzala,
one of the best brewing companies on the South side
of Milwaukee.
They have some of the best signature bearers.
And shout out to Randa and Charlie Behrens.
They're for some of my biggest supporters.
I appreciate them. So thank you to the fans so
much.
We really appreciate it.
All right. And we will be back.
You'll be blogging, right? Yes.
I'll
be live blogging from
U.S. bank Field on Sunday night.
Remember, it's a night game,
7:20 PM kickoff, and it's going to be wild.
It's going to be quite the
event and I think the atmosphere will be pretty electric.
So you know the Vikings fans are going to be
looking to just stick it to the Packers.
So we'll see what happens a lot,
lot to be determined.
So we will be back after that
and everybody have a really nice week and a happy
New year.