I admit I was down on Aaron Rodgers all off-season, but being a true Packer fan since the Seventies and Eighties when there was only the occasional blip of hope for the team (from 1968 to 1992 they only made the playoffs twice). I still hoped that despite all the drama, Rodgers would light things up day one. That didn’t happen, and not only didn’t it happen, it was the most lopsided loss in the Rodgers Era, 38-3 over the Saints after the Packers were a 3.5 point favorite against a team quarterbacked by interception machine Jameis Winston. To Sean Payton’s credit, he managed to fashion him into a “game manager,” at least for this game; Winston threw five touchdown passes on just 20 passes thrown for 148 yards.
Rodgers on the other hand—who was a no-show for the off-season workouts, including the mandatory mini-camp—played like he was still on vacation with a 36.8 passer rating. The offense looked completely out-of-sorts, the running game was non-existent, and Rodgers just looked like he didn’t know what he was doing half the time—including on two interceptions that were just plain unbelievably bad—one in which he stepped into a crowded line and threw the ball well behind Davante Adams, and on the next possession threw a pass twenty yards over Marquez Valdes-Scantlings’ head.
The only thing that could have been more embarrassing for Rodgers was if Jordan Love had come in and led the Packers to belated touchdown—and he almost did. Love did not exactly look bad during the two preseason games he played; he looked OK between the Twenties, but he just couldn’t finish the deal in the red zone. That happened in this game, when Love led the Packers on their last drive into a first-and-goal situation, and then fumbled on a quarterback hit, which seems like it may be a problem for him going forward.
Who’s to blame on offense? The offensive line? With a rookie center and David Bakhtiari still out, there is no doubt it was an issue, especially in creating holes for the running game; but two sacks and seven quarterback hits are not unusually bad numbers. Rodgers did seem to be running around a lot, but the bigger problem from what I could see was that Rodgers just wasn’t on the same “page” with his receivers and spent an inordinate amount of time looking confused about where he was going to throw, and seemed desperate trying to settle for an underneath pass catcher or misfiring badly on downfield passes.
Yes, the defense allowed 38 points, but “just” 322 yards of total offense suggests that it wasn’t getting any help from the offense. With the Packers seemingly ready to make it a 17-10 game, Rodgers threw his first interception; after the defense held, Rodgers threw his second interception which was returned to the Packer 12 for an easy touchdown. The Packers then lost the ball on downs at their own 21, leading to another short-field touchdown. Why did they chance it so deep in their own end? Probably to pacify Rodgers and not give him or the media an excuse to attack the coaches for taking the ball out of his hands—and all it did was put a game that was still in play out of reach.
Look, all this offseason I was saying that Rodgers’ 2020 season was more fluke than reality. That isn’t to say that just one bad game makes a season. But Rodgers just didn’t look like he was ready to play. Look at Tom Brady in his latter seasons with the Patriots, when he didn’t have a legitimate running attack, he just turned to the short passing game. Anyone can do that, but to make it work you actually have to complete those passes with the intent of making yardage, not as desperation moves with a defender in a receiver’s face. If Rodgers isn’t embarrassed by his performance and shapes-up, the Packers are probably going to rue the day they didn’t trade him when he was still “hot.”
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