I wasn’t going to comment on the Packer game today, but after Pro Football Focus caused some rumblings about its assertion that Tom Brady is the better choice for MVP than Aaron Rodgers, then the game against the lowly Lions would offer a very good indication of the truth of that assertion. Of course, if you go by statistics alone, it would seem to be “logical” that at age 44, Brady certainly continues to play at an “elite” level, certainly on paper. PFF also seems to employ its own “WAR”—Wins Above Replacement—scheme, although unlike that applied to baseball, it is determined by PFF’s own subjective measurements.
Which therein lies the “rub.” Brady’s “WAR” is 4.70 games, while Rodger’s is only 3.11, and Packer fans know that is ridiculous, and the rest of the NFL should know it is too. Blaine Gabbert isn’t the best backup quarterback by any stretch, and even though he has started a substantial number of games in this league, he doesn’t exactly inspire a lot of confidence when he comes into a game. On the other hand, he is a “veteran” and has been around, so you would expect at least he would not make the kind of mistakes a player who has barely played does. With Gabbert as the backup, Brady’s WAR would seem to be accurate.
But Rodgers’ “WAR” just above 3? Rodgers was 13-2 as a starter entering today’s game against the Lions. He started the first half, put up decent numbers but the Packers were behind 17-13 at halftime. But we have seen this before, and if Rodgers played the second half, there was no reason not to believe that the Packers would have done enough to get past a two-win team. But then you have to take into consideration who the Packers backup quarterback is. Now if that had been Blake Bortles, then maybe theoretically the Packer would have had a “chance” if Rodgers sat out the second half.
But as we have seen before with Brett Hundley, who has not seen a regular season snap in three of the last four years, hype is not the same as hope, let alone reality. Jordan Love played the entirety of the second half, and what we saw was basically the same result when he started against the Chiefs: even against teams that were not playing particularly good football (and Patrick Mahomes had an awful game against the Packers), the Packers were utterly dependent on two factors: how well the defense played, and if Love could avoid turnovers. Unfortunately the "wildcard" of Mason Crosby being required to do any heavy lifting had to be thrown in too. Against the Chiefs, the defense held and the Love only threw one interception; Crosby missed two field goal attempts that theoretically implied a tie, but that did not take into consideration that the Chiefs took a knee with 2 minutes to play inside the Packers 36 yard line.
Uh-oh, I seem to have forgotten one other variable: making plays. The fact that the Packers scored only one touchdown late in the game demonstrated that even in a winnable game that was too hard a task for Love. In the second half against a Lions team that is one of the worst in the NFL, a fumble led to a Lions short-field touchdown to make it double-digits. A couple of methodical, relatively short but time-consuming drives managed to make it a two point game, and then after a Lions field goal, the Packers scored on one of those sheer dumb luck plays when Love dumped the ball behind the line of scrimmage to TE Josiah Deuara who ran it 62 yards while Lion defenders were looking around saying WTF is that?
At that point the Packers actually took a 30-27 lead, but using “what the hell, why not?” trick plays the Lions scored another easy touchdown, and Love had not one, but two opportunities to show what he could do under two-minute drill pressure. Well, as I said there is a difference between what you’d hope he’d do, and what the reality would be. First he threw in traffic, with the ball bouncing around into the hands a Lion defender, and then with less than a minute to play and still a seven-point game, there was a wildly overthrown pass in the general direction of three Lions defenders who just needed to decide who wanted the ball more.
So basically what we saw is that Love is still in the stage where he can function only when he is strictly managed, and when called upon to make a play on his own, seems to get overexcited with the “moment” and makes bad decisions and bad plays. If we had to “speculate” how many games the Packers would have won this year with Love as the quarterback, the question isn’t that simple, because it isn’t clear that Love is capable of improvement. As we saw in today’s game, Love is “functional” when there isn’t too much pressure of him; when there is, he’s horrible—and that, of course, leads to the question of “confidence,” either in himself, or the team generally The defense certainly could have done its part in making things easier for Love, but you still have to know how he functions under pressure.
Alright, so it is clear that Rodgers’ “WAR” is probably higher—and probably by a lot—than Brady’s. Does that make him the league MVP? Well, let’s just say that there are sensible reasons to believe so.
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