There has been talk going about
that Aaron Rodgers does not have a particularly close relationship with his
family. His recent donation of $1 million for relief to victims of the
California wildfires did not go down well with his brother, who let it be known
that the passing out of charity begins in the home, starting with their own
mother. This seems to suggest that Rodgers hasn’t been sufficiently “generous”
in spreading his money around to family members; of course, if you want to get
into that, one could point out that Madonna, living in her English castle, has
a homeless brother living on the streets. There must be a backstory explaining
the estrangement of Rodgers from his family; for some, the truth sets one free.
It set me free.
After being unable to express
what was deemed to be sufficient lamentations upon a recent accident/illness in
the family and accused of being insufficient in familial feelings, I couldn’t
take any more of the lies and recriminations and self-deceiving. For years I
has nibbled around the truth only to be accused being a “socialist” or a “liberal"; I had always been quiet and introverted in my youth, something that was only recognized as something "wrong" or "bad" that needed "corrected," and thus my side of the “black sheep of the family” story was
never told, only the family myth that was made up to “explain’ the things I
experienced that caused me to be the way I was. I finally decided to respond to the accusations of my Fox
News-devotee dad and tell my side of the “story," and why civility was the best I could muster. For years I feared to
talk about it because I didn’t want to open up that can of worms and "upset" anyone in the family, but as the
saying goes, the truth sets you free. I have received no response to my tome, so
I can’t say the same thing happened on the other end, except to be the occasions
for more recriminations and self-deceiving.
Unfortunately for Aaron Rodgers
and the Green Bay Packers, the truth is not setting them free. The truth, of
course, is that they are either not a very good team or a not very well coached
team—or both. During the team’s by-week, I noted that Packers—who were playing
four road games in five weeks against good-to-great teams, had a very good chance
of losing all four of those games, which would spell doom for their season. And
the Packers did exactly that. Before the season began, the I thought the
Packers could win three of those game, but by the time Week Six rolled along,
the Packers were just barely scraping together wins against bad teams and just
looked at best a middle-of-pack team that just didn’t look like a quality
program, let alone play like one. This week’s 24-17 loss to the Vikings should
have been one for the win column, but yet again Rodgers just did not look like
his usual self, and the game should never have been even that close.
The Packers are clearly trying to
establish a running game, but Aaron Jones is no Ahman Green, who gave the
Packers five consecutive outstanding years, including team records 1,883 rushing
yards and 20 touchdowns in 2003—all wasted on Mike McCarthy’s predecessor, Mike
Sherman. If Jones is not running 10 yards a pop like he did against Miami, he’s
failing to convert on second and third and fourth-and-one plays. When that is
happening, Rodgers has to do what he is
being paid $33 million-a-year for, not getting sacked three times on third
down, or failing to convert on second and third-and-one plays. Not every team,
not even the Patriots, is going to go down and score or threaten to score on
every possession; but with the Packers they are either going to “click” or they
are not, and more often than not they are not going to “click.” Against the
Vikings, they had three long drives resulting in 17 points; their other seven
drives averaged four plays for nothing yards.
From here the Packers have to win
out or they are done. But even if they do, losses to the Seahawks and the
Vikings will likely still keep them out of the playoffs for the second straight
year. Any shot at even a winning record looks pretty dim with the Falcons and
Bears still on the menu. That is the truth.
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