Tonight’s game, a 27-17 loss at home against the Titans, doesn’t require too much introspection. The Titans are a good team, but the Packers of the past few years would have been expected to be able to beat them even on the road (what was with the white jerseys for a home game?). Not so by this time this season. The typical offensive drive was a three-and-out (or a four-and-out, counting fourth-down failures). Even in the brief moments they made it a “game” the Packers never looked like they were ready to take control on either side of the ball. It’s odd, but unlike Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers is just not the kind of quarterback that no matter how far behind you are, the only thing that stunts a comeback win is time.
While the defense made Ryan Tannehill look like an All-Pro, allowing him 333 yards passing, Rodgers failed to replicate last week’s timely big plays at critical moments. No passes of 58 or 39 yards this time; perhaps the failure of the running game to get started allowed the Titans’ defense to focus on negating such opportunities. But whatever the reason, this game again showed the disconcerting result that unless the Packers can control the ground, they can’t rely on the passing attack to consistently move the ball, let alone score. And this is a team with a HOF quarterback?
I can’t say that I wasn’t surprised by the result, and I’m beginning to suspect that a couple of Rodgers’ targets are starting to “check out.” Sure, a rookie like Christian Watson who has caught 5 TD passes in the past two games is probably excited by all the attention he is getting, but we can see the frustration of others. When is he going to throw some catchable balls to Allen Lazard? We are told on that fourth-and-three play that Rodgers was “flabbergasted” by Larzard not running down the ball. I suppose he could at least make it look like he was “trying,” But Lazard was being manhandled by a defender when Rodgers unbeknownst to him lofted the ball somewhere past his direction and Lazard clearly had no time to react to the ball.
Again, people will say on that play that Lazard could have at least faked it, but the ball was clearly uncatchable, and Lazard’s “body language” clearly expressed his own frustration:
I wonder if this shows that there is starting to be the beginning of a breakdown in trust with Rodgers, rather than the other way around. In team meeting rooms, what are they saying about those passes lofted short, or behind, or bouncing off the backs of linemen? What do you want us to do to please this guy?
Last week the media made a big deal out of Rodgers giving Matt LaFleur a “disgusted” look for calling a pass play on a fourth-and-one instead of running the ball against the Cowboys. But in my mind, this was just another example of Rodgers passing the buck to someone else for his own failures. I mean if he had completed that pass for a first down everything would have been just peachy, right? Against the Titans, LaFleur called a run play on the fourth-and-one play on the Packers last possession that was “set-up” two plays earlier by a 12-yard sack, and Aaron Jones was stopped at the line. Well, at least this time no one would for sure be pointing fingers at Rodgers.
The Packers are now 4-7 and they basically have to win out to reach the playoffs, which seems highly unlikely the way this team is playing. If this was the 2019 season after coming off a 6-9-1 season, I wouldn’t be too “surprised,” but this is a team that won 13 games three years in a row, and it is clear that the lack of Davante Adams isn’t the reason (how many games have the Raiders won with him? Two?).
Rodgers got his big contract extension, and he is playing like he expects to be somewhere else next year. It is just as well; a HOF quarterback is supposed to make the players around him "better," not the other way around. Frankly, I think it is time to move on, and let another team deal with the hot air.
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