Packers "dominate" Bills, sort of

Is it possible that a decidedly lopsided game could still be a concern for the winning team? The Green Bay Packers out-gained the Buffalo Bills 423 to 145, forcing three turnovers and sacking Bills quarterback Josh Allen seven times for losses of 64 yards despite the fact that high-priced free agent DL Muhammad Wilkerson is out for the season in a 22-0 victory. What, just 22 measly points you say? Just two touchdowns scored and three field goals? Maybe the offense was just taking it easy, just to keep Aaron Rodgers upright? Rodgers played the entire game—I mean played the entire game. You would think that Rodgers just needed to throw high-percentage passes all day and it would all be just an easy day at the office. But it wasn’t; during one point in the second half, Rodgers was clearly laboring, completing just 1 of 9 and  finishing the game 22 of 40 for 298 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT to go along with a lost fumble for a un-Rodgers-like 76 QB rating. It seemed like he just kept throwing the ball hoping to hit a “hot streak” to make the memory of it all go away. 

So while the Bears Mitchell Trubisky was throwing for 354 yards and six-count-them-six touchdown passes against Tampa Bay (as Ryan Fitzpatrick landed like a thud back down to Earth), Rodgers with his injured knee continues to look not only just human, but distressingly so. It is a matter of his brace-enhanced knee actually gets better—or worse, worse. In the last couple of games Rodgers clearly digressed as time went on, and one can only surmise that he is a hard hit from being done for the season. After last season, it is easy for a Packer fan to be somewhat pessimistic. If there was a solid, reliable alternative at quarterback, then maybe there would be less concern that Rodgers would have to play to the point of near paralysis for the team to have any chance of winning a game. This is the fault of team management and the decisions they have made in terms of personnel. Neither Rodgers, the team or the fans have been done any favors.

Even if an injured Aaron Rodgers becomes a "liabilty" on the field, the "alternative" is worse

As a  Packer fan who has stood by the team from the beginning—meaning since the bad old post-Lombardi years—there were only the rare moments of civic pride: the unforgettable 48-47 MNF win over the Redskins in 1983 that I viewed a week before I was shipped off to another 2-year “tour” of Germany when I was in the Army (it’s the only non-Favre game in the Packers’ Greatest Games DVD set), and kicker Chester Marcol catching and running in his own blocked field goal attempt for the winning touchdown against the Bears in 1980 (although coach Bart Starr was so incensed that he missed the chip-shot attempt that Marcol—who admitted he was high on cocaine on that play—was cut by the team four weeks later). But there was little else other than “hope”; Lynn Dickey was exciting to watch (if only because he was an even more high anxiety-inducing gunslinger than Favre ever was—or at least when he was ambulatory, which was rare), and Don Majkowski had that one “majic” season.  

But since 1992 the Packers have been expected to be at least playoff contenders every year, and anything less is considered a failed season. This season, like all the previous seasons figured to be a successful season behind a healthy Aaron Rodgers, reunited with the offensive coordinator (Joe Philbin) during the team’s most successful seasons in the Mike McCarthy/Rodgers era. The preseason betting line favored the Packers in 12 of 16 games this season, and three of their four projected losses (on the road against the Vikings, Seahawks and Rams) were close enough to be “pick-ems.” But the Packers have a problem that for some reason they have refused to solve since 2014: what to do if Rodgers is injured or only functioning 75 percent or less as he has been in the past two games. It was clear in this week’s loss to the Redskins’ that his mobility and overall play was getting worse as the game went on. After falling behind 28-10 at halftime in a game they were “projected” to win, there was no comeback special in the works, despite a touchdown drive in the first series of the second half and the Redskins offense doing little; Alex Smith threw for only six yards in the second half as the Redskins were held to just 3 points, yet the Packers could muster just that one score. 

According to my count, only 5 of Rodgers almost 30 pass attempts in the second half covered at least 10 yards of forward progress (not including a pass play that was actually a net loss due to a penalty). But if Rodgers is not playing, then what? He can still keep the team in the game as a pocket passer when he’s at least as ambulatory as the latter-day George Foreman, who could stand in one place and still knock unconscious George Cooney. But what if he doesn’t have a puncher’s chance to stay in the game? The Packers are still incomprehensibly relying on a backup quarterback whose “experience” does not inspire confidence. Yeah, Terry Bradshaw was awful for years and then quarterbacked four Super Bowl teams, and Jim Plunkett quarterbacked two Super Bowl-winning teams for the Raiders. But would anyone even put Deshone Kizer in the same “league” as Plunkett? Who was the last quarterback produced by Notre Dame who made a dent in the NFL? Some guy named Montana? While Matt Flynn at least had the pedigree of a national championship quarterbacking LSU, McCarthy decided to dump him in favor of a prospect (Brett Hundley) whose NFL-readiness draft experts were universally skeptical of, and as we saw last season, McCarthy could do little to mitigate the flaws in Hundley’s “game.” Why-oh-why didn’t the Packers bring in a veteran with proven ability—or keep the one they had?  With Rodgers becoming close to a liability on the field, the alternative is, unfortunately, much worse.

A tie game feels like a loss for the Packers

Blowing opportunity after opportunity to put a game away does not bode well for the Packers this season, particularly given the fact that on any given play Aaron Rodgers could be out for the season given his present knee condition. It was obvious that Rodgers playing “coy” given this condition was a major reason why the Packers failed to convert four red zone opportunities into touchdowns in their 29-29 overtime tie with the Vikings; four sacks and nine quarterback hits also played into this mentality. In the fourth quarter, after the Vikings were gifted with a freak  quarterback hit penalty against Clay Mathews that turned a game-ending interception into a game-tying touchdown drive, Rodgers did show a little of his voodoo magic with only thirty seconds to play in regulation, in which newly-acquired Jimmy Graham actually caught a clutch pass--heroics all of which again would have been unnecessary if the Packers had converted just one of their three fourth quarter red zone opportunities into a touchdown. But Mason Crosby missed a 52-yard game-winning attempt after kicking through his first five. Not that the Vikings didn’t contribute to the muddled outcome: Rookie kicker Daniel Carlson missed three field goal attempts, including two in overtime. His 35-yard attempt on the last play of the game was about as bad a miss as a Packer fan in prayer posture can hope for—and an enraged Viking fan can imagine. The Packers blew their own opportunity in OT when in near field goal range, a fumble and sack forced a punt still inside Viking territory, leading to Carlson’s final miss. 

The Packers supposedly have the toughest schedule in the NFL this season, and they still have to play the Vikings, Patriots and Seahawks on the road; this game was supposed to be one of their expected victories. They couldn’t afford to give this one away. 

Anyways, while Rodgers was playing like he was trying to navigate a minefield, there we have journeyman Ryan Fitzpatrick have another fool me start to the season, this time for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. After “upsetting” the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles on Sunday with another sensational performance, Fitzpatrick after two games is now 48 of 61 for 819 yards and 8 touchdowns, which must be one of the hottest starts in NFL history. Of course other teams have seen this only to be let down by Fitzpatrick’s tendency to give-up the ball in untimely situations, but for now if he  has another uber-performance next week, just how much “forgiveness” is the team and fans going to afford Jameis Winston when he comes off suspension for allegedly assaulting an Uber driver two years ago?

Packers avoid nightmare scenario, for now

I had this speculation by half-time of the Green Bay-Chicago game last night: that it was no longer a question of whether the Packers would be Super Bowl contenders this season, but how many games they would win above, say, zero. After Aaron Rodgers went down with an apparent knee injury and carted off the field, in came DeShone Kizer and his record nothing-and-fifteen as a starting NFL quarterback. It didn’t take Kizer long to suggest that the Packers traded the wrong bad quarterback to Seattle: a strip fumble in the red zone, and throwing the worst interception I have ever seen—only made worse by being returned for a touchdown. Packer fans have seen this before--like say, last season. But it didn't have to be this way. In 2010, Rodgers looked horrible before going down with a concussion against the Lions. But they had Matt Flynn as the back-up and although he didn’t engineer a comeback victory, he shocked a lot of “experts” by nearly leading the Packers to a victory on the road against the Patriots the following week after only one practice week with the starters, and helped provide the confidence the team needed to go on to win the Super Bowl that year. In 2011, Flynn threw for 480 yards and six touchdowns in one game against the Lions—both still Packer records (each subsequently tied by Rodgers in separate games).

Flynn may have had too weak a throwing shoulder to be more than a short-term option as a starter, but he knew the Packer “system” and performed well in it. In 2013, Flynn was literally brought in off the street after two incompetent backups were unable to do the job after another Rodgers injury, and again showed a competency running the Packer offense (especially in a team record 23-point comeback win over the Cowboys) and insuring a playoff appearance. Why Flynn’s services were not retained only Mike McCarthy can answer, but then again McCarthy obviously doesn’t have an answer as to why he thought Brett Hundley and now Kizer were better options. I thought that Joe Callahan was potentially another Flynn, but I don’t believe there was any fair competition for the job; McCarthy was (perhaps for political reasons) intent on either Hundley and now Kizer.

So for a few moments I had this vision of the Packers reduced to playing for the top draft pick next year, like the Colts did the year Peyton Manning sat out after neck surgery. If nothing else, it was going to be a “fun” year to watch. But out came Rodgers in the second half, admitting afterwards that he had learned something from Brett Favre after all: it’s not just the threat of losing one’s starting job because of a “little” owie, but pride and embarrassment from sitting on the bench after having just signed the richest contract in NFL history (at least for now), and fans were not going to forgive him for long if they didn’t get their money’s worth. 

And fans did get their money’s worth last night, as Rodgers threw for 212 yards and three touchdowns in the fourth quarter, overcoming a 20-0 deficit for the second time in four seasons in a 24-23 victory over the Bears. Of course there was some good fortune involved, just like that thumb grazing the facemask penalty prior to Rodgers’ Hail Mary miracle pass against the Lions. In this game, prior to Randall Cobb’s 75-yard catch-and-run, Rodgers threw a ball right on the numbers of a Bears’ defender, who apparently dropped the ball out of shock. But so it goes; you make a mistake, and Rodgers will make you pay for it. The Packers are 1-0; the question is if Rodgers can stay upright, now that that opposing players will be gunning for that knee—just like the Saints’ bounty hunters deliberately did on Favre’s ailing ankle during the 2009 NFC Championship Game.