Montgomery: Packers 'definitely have more in us'
Green Bay Packers wide receiver Ty Montgomery debuted as the co-host of Monday's Clubhouse Live, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin’s live weekly football show. Packers rookie linebacker Blake Martinez was Montgomery’s guest.
Among the topics they touched on were battling the Jaguars, life choices and being a defensive leader. The show can be seen live at The Clubhouse Sports Pub & Grill in downtown Appleton or at clubhouselive.com.
Here are select and edited answers from the interview:
Q: The offense struggled at times, and there were admitted communications issues during Sunday's victory at Jacksonville. Can some of those problems be attributed to guys simply being on the field for an extended time after limited playing time in the preseason? In other words, will time be needed to develop that chemistry and rhythm?
Montgomery: It might, but hopefully it won't come to that. A lot of the guys that are in the room on the offense that are playing a ton, they're professionals. They've been doing it for a long time. So I don't think it's going to take them too long for them to really get everything down that they need to get down.
REPLAY: Watch Clubhouse Live with Ty Montgomery, Blake Martinez
Q: If you were Mike McCarthy, what grade would you give the offense following Sunday's win?
Montgomery: We got the win. We scored more points than they did, obviously. I'm going to give us a 'B' because I think we definitely have more in us. I think we can definitely put more points on the board and just seal the win and not have to get it down to that fourth-and-one (defensive stand).
Q: You made the decision as a young high school athlete to stay away from alcohol and drugs and implement a strict and healthy diet. What's your message to a young athlete today who wants to follow a similar path while also trying to handle the peer pressure of perhaps making wrong choices or decisions?
Martinez: A lot of people want to be the cool kid and don't think about doing the right things - and how that can affect you in the long run. So, my thing was just taking that road from OK, I don't want to be with all of these cool kids now where in 10 years, I know a lot of my high school friends are not doing anything, dropped out of college and a lot of these things. It was one of my sights just to set a path and not kind of (deviate) from it. And it made it that much easier because you had that experience of guys falling off. I actually had a really close friend who got real deep into drugs and now just got a felony for drug trafficking. And I did not see that whatsoever. But it's one of those things where you learn from it, and I think experiences like those helped me out a lot.
Q: Much has been made about you wearing the communications headset and being charged with relaying Dom Capers' defensive calls to your teammates. Do you have the freedom to change a call based on what you see and read from the offense?
Martinez: (Laughing) Not yet. I want to get to that point, but I definitely don't want to mess with Dom's calls. Whatever he calls, I know it's going to be the right one.
Brett Christopherson: 920-993-7117, or brett.christopherson@gannett.com; on Twitter @PCBrettC