Mostly bad week for "new school" quarterbacks, and Rodgers' missed opportunity

What happened this weekend in the NFL. The Bills’ EJ Manuel looked more like an NFL quarterback than Geno Smith and Terrelle Pryor combined in a win over Carolina, which perhaps only proves that his Panthers counterpart only seems to have regressed since his rookie season. I’ve already said my piece about Smith; as for Pryor, he has yet to demonstrate a capacity to move the ball through the air—even against Jacksonville, currently the worst team in league. I’m not going to leave Andrew Luck out of this. Shouldn’t he at least look better than he seems to? I know that last season the Indianapolis Colts won considerably more games than was expected, and no doubt Luck had something to do with that, although I’m not entirely certain it wasn’t more “luck” with a little “l.” Watching Luck thus far this season still has me wondering why I have this nagging feeling that he is just not very “consistent”—when he gets on the field, there is just no telling what is going to happen. If Luck had first class weapons, maybe things would be different. But for now, he’s still a question mark. 

Meanwhile, Seattle—at least on the scoreboard—throttled rival San Francisco 29-3. Perhaps the score was a bit misleading; before the thunderstorm delay, the 49ers at least moved the ball a few yards, while Russell Wilson was O for five and an interception. After the “break,” whatever “momentum” the 49ers had was lost. Helped along by four additional 49er turnovers, the Seahawks only had one legitimate scoring drive, to open the third quarter; it featured just one completed pass by Wilson, although for 51 yards, without which his bad stat day would have been merely awful. The only other drive of length was helped along by 55 yards worth of penalties on the 49er defense. I frankly don’t know what this game means in the grand scheme of things, but overall it was contributed to the other nonplus performances during Week 2 by our “new school” quarterbacks.

That includes Robert Griffin III, who for the second straight week looked merely ordinary. He ran the ball four times for a grand total of 1 yard. For the second straight week Green Bay faced “new school” quarterbacks, and for the second straight week it nullified the supposed attributes which makes these quarterbacks “special.” Sure, Griffin III eventually put-up passing numbers ala Colin Kaepernick, but the Packers should have won last week for the reasons that Packers won this week: Aaron Rodgers is not regarded as the best quarterback in the league for nothing, and he was allowed to do what he wasn’t allowed to do often enough last week—throw the ball often, and often. When he is on, why pull the plug as Mike McCarthy did last week? Rodgers threw for 335 yards in the first half, a performance marred only by James Jones fumble at the goal line. I actually was hoping that the Redskins would mount a “comeback” in the second half, so that Rodgers would keep throwing and become the first Packer quarterback to reach 500 yards passing in a game. 

He came oh-so-close, and had his opportunity late. With the score 38-20, the Packers were driving down the field. Rodgers completed a couple of passes that put his tally at 480—which just so happened to be the same team record total for one game set by one Matt Flynn. The ball was on the Redskins 20 with 3 minutes to go. Why not go for it? Greedy guys like Peyton Manning or Tom Brady would certainly have done so in the same situation. Instead, the ball was handed off to James Starks who promptly lost 3 yards on the play. Second-and-thirteen, now the Packers would have to throw the ball, I hoped. But my heart sank when Starks was handed the ball again, and ran 13 yards for a first down. Perhaps the coaching staff wasn’t aware of it, but Rodgers still had a shot at surpassing Flynn’s team record, but he took the knee for the final three plays. 

I remember how Rodgers seemed something less than completely enamored by the way Flynn seemed to be outclassing him in that Detroit game; he “fixed” part of the issue last season when he also had his 6-TD game, and this year he can at least say that he tied Flynn’s yardage record. But Flynn did both in one game, and it remains the “standard” in Packer history.