How the mighty have fallen. Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was on top of the world a few months ago. He was coming off two consecutive MVP awards, was blessed with a three-year, $150M deal despite his age and the media covered him like the Pope. With Rodgers at the helm, even without his top target Davante Adams, people were picking the Cheeseheads to be title contenders.
They didn’t count on Rodgers falling off of a cliff statistically. Didn’t count on the QB who used to throw crisp, accurate missiles, now struggling to hit wide-open receivers over the middle.
I’ve never seen Aaron Rodgers playing this bad https://t.co/A2KR62nY3B
— Alex (@tfralex) November 6, 2022
Aaron Rodgers has gone 13 straight games with less than 300 yards passing, the longest streak of his illustrious career. Keep in mind that we are now in a league where they pass 70 percent of the time and a 300-yard passing performance is no longer the standard for elite passing efforts.
We are entering Week 10 and Aaron Rodgers has already thrown more interceptions (7) than he’s had in an entire season dating back to 2016.
Some have reported this as Rodgers being in some sort of a funk that he has to work through. Others believe a more dire truth, one that involves the deterioration of the 38-year-old quarterback’s skills.
With Green Bay at 3-6 in the NFC North division and struggling to find some consistency, ESPN’s Marcus Spears believes that switching to Jordan Love at this point isn’t in the best interests of the Green Bay Packers. He thinks the big money man should step up and solve the problem. That’s why he’s considered one of the faces of the NFL and is paid handsomely for it.
“Aaron Rodgers got a three-year, $150M contract,” Spears said on ESPN. “He’s going to have to continue to usher and groom and become a part of this unit he has with these young wide receivers. He’s going to have to overcome some adversity because there’s not been a lot since he’s been at Green Bay with Matt LeFleur. He’s going to have to lead. That’s what Aaron Rodgers is going to have to do.
“Not leading on the McAfee show when he’s talking about guys and how they need to step up. Or we need to cut reps. No leading in the offseason when he talks about what moves or adjustments need to be made. Or go get Randall Cobb. He’s going to have to lead a team that is much maligned right now. A defense that hasn’t come through. When you are recently the two-time MVP of the league, you’re supposed to overcome some things that’s happening with the Green Bay Packer right now.”
Former New York Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum totally disagreed with Spears and says now is the perfect time to bench Rodgers and find out if Jordan Love can handle the whole weight.
“They have to find out what they have in Jordan Love,” Mr. T said. “If they move on from Jordan Love and he plays well someplace else, that is catastrophic for them. So, they have to play Jordan Love to know exactly what they have. They don’t know what they have in Jordan Love. I’m sorry, [ARod] has to sit down and they have to play the new guy.”
Easier said than done when a large majority of your team’s finances are tied up in Rodgers. Green Bay is in a tough position where saving face is more important than winning games right now. Rodgers has the luxury of his past cachet as the supreme NFL signal-caller to deflect criticism and blame the young guys and offensive play-calling.
Time for Jordan Love to get some snaps then. https://t.co/yh3Rez6ejZ
— Jacob (@NotionsOfJacob) October 25, 2022
Grooming Love For This Moment
In a move that surprised some people, the Green Bay Packers, who had Aaron Rodgers coming off another 4,000-yard season and a 13-3 record, gave up the 30th overall pick and a fourth-round selection in the 2020 NFL draft to move up and land Utah State product Jordan Love with the 26th overall pick.
In a strikingly similar move to when Rodgers was selected by the Packers in 2005 to be Brett Favre’s backup and the future, Green Bay saw something in Jordan that was too good to pass up and selected him as the 36-year-old Rodgers’ eventual replacement.
Rodgers, who was taken 24th overall out of Cal and spent three years as Favre’s backup before winning a Super Bowl and a pair of MVPs, is one year older than Favre was in 2005.
Naturally, the move rubbed the egotistical Rodgers in the wrong way, and the relationship between he and Green Bay has been weird ever since.
Love was considered a project out of unheralded Utah State, and despite his dynamic athletic ability, his scouting report was littered with traditional red flag words commonly used when referencing inexperienced quarterbacks; “calculation errors,” “decision-making,” “inconsistent accuracy and mechanics.”
Jordan Love made a lot of tremendous throws tonight, but this one may be my favorite.
Coming out of play-action he drops a dime over two DBs on the other side of the field! That is an unbelievably difficult throw and he made it look easy. pic.twitter.com/26sSC7ic4n
— Eli Berkovits (@BookOfEli_NFL) August 20, 2022
But because of Love’s comparisons to Patrick Mahomes (10th pick 2017 draft), NFL scouts were willing to ignore all of the negative reports and the Packers were obviously salivating at the opportunity to snag him and see if he can do some of the things Magic Pat can do.
If the losses continue to mount up, the chants for The Love Movement will grow in Green Bay. From his brief body of work in the NFL since being drafted in 2020, the 24-year-old Love appears to still be very raw and in need of more live reps. He’s started just one game in his NFL career. Wins and losses will determine how long Rodgers remains the top guy in Green Bay, but they are going to give him every chance possible to keep earning his money.
