Aaron Rodgers needs a lesson in how to be a leader for his Packers teammates | Opinion
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Losing a game because your franchise quarterback threw a red-zone interception on the opening series and a momentum-killing interception after a turnover early in the third quarter is tough to swallow.
It’s darn right aggravating when he posts one of the worst passer ratings of his career in a winnable game on the road against a division rival.
What is refreshing, however, is to hear the guy whose failure to make the plays comes right out and says what everybody else is thinking.
Something like this:
“It’s tough to win in this league if you’re playing a good team and your quarterback plays like (expletive). I made some bad decisions tonight that really cost our team.”
Or this:
"Our defense goes out there, they strain their tails off to give us a turnover in the red zone and I gave it right back. That’s something I can’t do.”
Or this:
“I would say we didn’t do – myself (I) – didn’t do anything great today. Turning the ball over is going to do that to you. You only get so many drives in this league, during each game and you have to make them count. I didn’t do that tonight.”
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How can you not at least feel a little better about your guy when his postgame news conference is basically a mea culpa for the offense’s failures?
It must feel pretty good to be a Buffalo Bills fan.
Josh Allen completed 18 of 34 passes for 205 yards with two interceptions (46.8 rating) in a 20-17 loss to the New York Jets and came to his postgame news conference disgusted with his performance.
He wasn’t the only quarterback Sunday to throw several bonehead interceptions and miss too many open receivers in a game his team should have won.
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers played equally bad – 23 of 43 for 291 yards and one touchdown with three interceptions (53.5 rating) – and used the same expletive as Allen in his postgame news conference.
But Rodgers framed his performance as “some (expletive) throws, for sure.”
It makes you wonder what it would take for him to just flat out take blame for a loss even if the loss wasn’t totally his fault. Rodgers has called out his young receivers, continually harped on all the mental mistakes his teammates make and even suggested that players who weren’t getting it done should see their playing time reduced.
This tough love that Rodgers likes to deliver can hit its mark when he is playing like a Hall of Famer. But at what point do teammates start to resent that it’s everybody else’s fault that the Packers are 3-6 and have lost five straight games and not his?
What would it say about him as a teammate if he were to say publicly that his throw to rookie receiver Christian Watson early in the third quarter might have resulted in a touchdown instead of a shot to his ribs if he hadn’t thrown the pass behind him?
Or if he were to say out loud that he let down rookie receiver Samori Toure on third-and-11 of the same series by underthrowing him deep on what should have been a touchdown.
Or saying on his radio appearance Tuesday on the Pat McAfee Show that if he would have spotted tight end Robert Tonyan and receiver Allen Lazard running freely down the middle on the same play that the game would have been totally different.
Instead, he told his radio bros that “I’m still the reigning, defending two-time MVP. Regardless who's out there with me, guys want to come battle they know where to find me. I’ll be in the center of that huddle, expecting greatness, trying to inspire the best I can and lay it out on the line."
Yeah, it’s good to inspire teammates, but that’s assuming you’re doing what it takes to make those around you the best they can be and not just forcing them to be something you want them to be.
Rodgers is like an offensive coordinator who wants his players to fit the system instead of him fitting them into the system.
His terrible body language, sideline outbursts and frequent looks to coach Matt LaFleur that come off as though he’s the only one who knows what he’s doing don’t play well with the public, and you can only imagine how they play with the rest of the team.
LaFleur has given him so much rein with the offense that there are defensive coaches around the league who aren’t sure whether the Packers are still running his offense.
“No, it doesn’t,” one defensive coach for a rival team said when asked if the offense looked anything like what LaFleur installed when he first came to town.
A personnel executive for a team that employs a form of the growingly popular scheme that LaFleur, Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay first designed when they were together in Washington and perfected in Atlanta, Los Angeles and San Francisco, agreed that it is not what LaFleur brought to Green Bay.
“Their offense is more stagnant with way less shifts and motions,” the executive said. “The formations are much more spread out. Green Bay’s offense is shotgun and RPO (run-pass option)-based whereas (others) are under center and have more true play actions.
“Their offense has definitely changed over the years and I’m sure it is because of what 12 wants.”
Rodgers made it clear on the McAfee Show that he doesn’t care what others think about how he or the Packers are playing because they don’t know what the play calls are or what they are trying to accomplish.
He made it seem as though the Detroit Lions had nothing to do with the Packers scoring just nine points against them even though the Lions continually changed up their fronts and dared Rodgers to pass on them whenever the Packers got close to the end zone.
A pro scout who watched the Lions game didn’t dispute that the Packers are their own worst enemy, but that doesn’t mean opponents aren’t contributing to their misery. They understand that the Packers don’t have an identity and that Rodgers is going to rely mostly on what he likes to do.
“The Packers look disjointed,” he said. “They are a mess on offense. I don’t know what’s up with Rodgers because the throwing talent is still there but it’s his unwillingness to make certain throws that are puzzling. You can tell he only trusts Lazard and (Randall) Cobb at this point.”
If the Packers are going to salvage anything out of this season, it’s incumbent on LaFleur to take the offense back to its roots and remove some of the things Rodgers wants that cause confusion with his young receivers. If he and veteran Sammy Watkins can’t get on the same page, what is the use of doing all the confusing pre- and post-snap adjustments with the rookies?
If the Lions game showed anything, it’s that Lazard, Tonyan, Toure and Amari Rodgers can get open when given a chance. They just can’t be Davante Adams or Jordy Nelson or Cobb. They don’t have the same catalog of plays to rely on as those veterans.
It’s probably too late for the Packers to go anywhere this season, but it’s not too late for LaFleur to get back to doing what he knows best and setting the stage for a smooth transition to a more Shanahan-McVay-type offense next season. Who knows if he’ll be around for it, but admitting he’s part of the problem might allow Rodgers to return to the quarterback he once was.
