Week in Review: Sean Rhyan and the Green Bay Packers are out for blood
Miss anything at Go Long this week? Links to all stories, all podcasts are inside.
Too often, the Green Bay Packers get punked in January. It’s become an exhausting scene.
A bigger bully on the block pushes this team around… too often at Lambeau Field.
Matt LaFleur knows the identity of his team needed to change. And while all of our attention has been fixated on the quarterback position, getting tougher starts on the offensive line. Specifically, it starts with right guard Sean Rhyan.
On our trip to Wisconsin — where Go Long also hung out with Kenny Clark & Evan Williams/LeRoy Butler — I popped over to Rhyan’s apartment complex near Lambeau Field. What a wildly fascinating guy. From the Taylor Swift ballads to the Werner Gunthor training to Richie Incognito film to one rusty cigarette lighter from the Vietnam War, a lot goes into his werewolf transformation on Sunday. It is needed.
Hope you enjoy.
All links from the week at Go Long are below.
Every Sunday, Sean Rhyan reads a message on a lighter... and morphs into something else. Good news for a team that finally wants to bludgeon opponents.
‘Kill ‘em all:’ The Sean Rhyan Code
GREEN BAY, Wisc. — Personality does not square with the punishment inflicted on the field. He’s introspective. He’s conscientious. He’s polite. Soft-spoken. This barrel-chested right guard for the Green Bay Packers is a quintessential gentle giant, inviting me right into the common room of his apartment complex with an extra…
Where has this gone wrong? Our Bob McGinn talks to scouts and execs across the NFL to figure out why Kyle Pitts — a fourth overall pick in the 2021 draft viewed by many as the No. 1 prospect — has been nothing but average in Atlanta.
Inside the sad case of Atlanta Falcons TE Kyle Pitts: 'absolute freak' to 'major disappointment'
This is the continuation of a 2023 series looking at active players and their current situation vis a vis what it was entering the NFL draft. The comments from personnel men were made in the months leading up to the draft for my NFL Draft Series, which dates to 1985. Scouting football prospects is an inexact science, particularly when it comes to off-the-field considerations. It has been said that no two evaluators view a player exactly the same way.
Could this be a Super Bowl preview? What a matchup at Ford Field. I caught up with an old pal, Jim Monos, to get us set for everything Bills and Lions. Sean McDermott has unquestionably evolved this past year. Was the Rams relapse a cause for concern?
Sean McDermott, Dan Campbell and a TITANIC Bills-Lions matchup
Both cities are starving for a Super Bowl.
The Lions and Packers have taken two very different approaches to injuries. We discuss the value of a vibrant pro scouting department, Sam Darnold’s latest WOW moments, the slumping Chicago Bears and more on the Ty & Bob Pod. Full film reviews, as always:
Ty & Bob Pod: Dan Campbell's 'Northern Savages,' Packers-Lions (growing) hatred & Sam Darnold's future
This is a game of attrition. Injuries are a fact of life.
Matthew Stafford was exceptional in a shootout win over the Bills. These Los Angeles Rams are peaking at the right time again. Here’s the Monday AM column recapping the games.
Matthew Stafford, the L.A. Rams and separating fact from fiction
For years, this is when he took a sip of truth serum and the results were ugly. The holidays were reserved for an abrupt Matthew Stafford regression that’d vaporize any two- or three-game cushion his Detroit Lions held in the NFC North. It was clockwork. Late in the fourth quarter, Stafford sidearmed an interception into heavy traffic. Aaron Rodgers smelled blood. Detroit faded.