If Rodgers doesn't find his "rhythm" in LaFleur's "system" soon, it's going to be another long, tough year for the Packers

OK, so my favorite season of the year has officially arrived, meaning football season, and meaning it is time for me to provide a take on the game that just transpired between the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears. I grew up in Wisconsin, so it goes without saying that I am a Packer fan, and not the “bandwagon” type either. Along with a lot of other diehard fans, I had to endure 20 years of faithful  futility until the arrival of Mike Holmgren and Brett Favre. Yet even with a seemingly seamless transition from one great quarterback to another, in 27 seasons the Packers still have only three Super Bowl appearances to show for it. Coach Mike McCarthy seemed to have permanent job security in Green Bay until it started to dawn on people that maybe he wasn’t really such a great coach after all, given the evidence of bonehead clock management and head-scratching play calling. It reached the point where Aaron Rodgers openly defied McCarthy on the field, and it was obvious to all that someone had to go, and it was not going to be the quarterback.

As McCarthy’s replacement, Matt LaFleur was definitely an unknown quantity. Yes, he had been issued from the same “coaching tree” which spawned a Super Bowl appearance by the Los Angeles Rams, but given that the Rams’ offense scored a measly 3 points against a Patriot team begging to get beat should have given pause. LaFleur’s only legitimate experience in coaching was as offensive coordinator for Tennessee last season, and frankly there was little for Packers fans to go on to suggest that the LaFleur was anything more than a shot in dark, a hope that something positive—or different—would happen, as if, say, by magic.

What observers saw during training camp and preseason play led many fans to question if the right coaching move was made. The Packers looked for the most part like a pee-wee league team on offense, and only when Rodgers was under center did the offense play like it had an idea of what it was doing, and that was mostly because Rodgers is still an exceptional player. Preseason play only confirmed that the Packers were in deep trouble again if Rodgers got hurt. The smartest roster move the Packers made was cutting DeShone Kizer, to save the team from another obvious-to-all-save-management failed experiment at back-up, but except for one or two bright moments against backups, Tim Boyle is still a quarterback out of a second-tier college who was just a little better from the eye test; he is not the “future.”

Rodgers did not play a single snap during the preseason, and it looked it during his first real play in the new “system.” It was hard to tell that there was any offensive “design” at all at work. Rodgers was running for his life for most of the game—he was sacked five times—and didn’t look comfortable. The first three Packer drives were 3-and-outs, and it didn’t get much better after that, with Packers managing just 213 yards of total offense, and 2 of 12 on third down.  On the one touchdown drive of the game, Rodgers was his “old self,” completing 4 of 4 for 74 yards, but was largely ineffective for the remainder of the game. Rodgers was just 5 of 10 for 66 yards in the second half as the offense just sputtered and stalled incessantly. It was murder to watch for a Packer fan hoping to see something “new” and exciting.

That the Packers won the game 10-3 was almost incidental, since the only thing that gave any reason for hope was the outstanding play of the defense. Yet some might even put an asterisk around that, because Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky looked like another quarterback who had a few fine moments in the past sandwiched in a lot of bad moments—Blake Bortles. Maybe it’s his name or something that just doesn’t give one confidence, and Trubisky heard plenty of unhappiness from Bears fans throughout. 

Next week will be a more interesting test for the Packers because they will be playing against a quarterback (Kirk Cousins) with more legitimate skills, and if Rodgers doesn’t start to find some semblance of “rhythm” soon, it’s going to be a long, tough season.