Chicago Bears fans love it when anything negative happens to Aaron Rodgers. Poetic justice for all the years he tortured them. This particular offseason has been a rough one for him. The Green Bay Packers quarterback had his first losing season as a starter since 2008. His offensive coaching staff was blown up and a new head coach hired that he had no say in.
If that weren’t enough, his Milwaukee Bucks blew a 2-0 series lead in the Easter Conference Finals against Toronto. All while he was exposed as a terrible chugger of beer. So things haven’t exactly gone his way. Yet the status quo remains largely unchanged. Rodgers is still viewed by the majority of the wider NFL as an elite quarterback. Maybe the best in the league.
That didn’t seem to sit well with Seattle Seahawks insider Ben Baldwin. The Athletic reporter decided to shine a light on this myth that Rodgers is anything like the players he was five years ago. He has regressed instead to a really good quarterback hiding behind his past greatness.
Aaron Rodgers doesn’t scare teams like he used to
An initial look at his stats from 2018, one would say Rodgers had another great year. Was it though? Most will focus in on the fact he only threw two interceptions in 16 games. Something that is beyond difficult to accomplish. However, there is a big reason for that. Rodgers threw a lot of passes away last season. A total of 59.
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Most will say that was just him protecting the ball. Others argue that he wasn’t willing to take more chances. Remember the Packers finished 9th in passing. That may sound good, but they were 3rd in passing attempts. This leads one to think they weren’t as efficient through the air as you’d think. In the final 10 games of the season, Rodgers topped 300 yards passing just twice.
The offense scored 17 points or fewer in five of those games, including the one that knocked them out of the playoff hunt against the Bears in Chicago. A game where Rodgers threw one of his two interceptions at the absolute worst possible time. This is why simple numbers never tell the entire story.
