The Green Bay Packers are a mess. Losers of four straight and currently 3-6, things aren’t looking too good in Wisconsin.
In one of the strangest NFL seasons we’ve seen in quite a while, the Packers are awful and reigning two-time MVP Aaron Rodgers looks as if he’s fallen off the proverbial cliff. In last week’s road loss to the Detroit Lions Rodgers was intercepted three times, tied for the most times he’s ever been picked in a single game. What’s more alarming is he threw those picks in the red zone. That’s usually where Rodgers is one of the best in the league.
The interceptions were all bad reads by ARod, but he didn’t seem to take full accountability for them during his weekly appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show.”
That lack of accountability caused Rodgers’ former teammate Greg Jennings to proclaim that Rodgers is doing exactly what Packers legend Brett Favre did before being ushered out of Green Bay.
During an episode of “The Carton Show,” Jennings said Rodgers used to complain about how Favre always avoided the criticism and that made the Packers legend unaccountable for his actions.
"I can't wait to give Big Mike a big old hug & I know it means a lot to him to come back" ~@AaronRodgers12#PMSLive pic.twitter.com/WbGcJ1xmcc
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) November 8, 2022
“Brett, he was one of those guys, he never got… no one ever thought it was his fault.”
“And at some point…. and we understood, like, Brett Favre, he’s the face of the NFL, blah, blah, blah, when I first came in.
“But it grows old. When you know that you’re making mistakes, are you even going to tell anybody that you’re making mistakes? Or are you going to allow everybody else to assume it’s just us? And you grow into those things
“I recall a young Aaron Rodgers identifying that and saying, I’m never going to do that. I’m not gonna be that. And then you grow, you have success, and everybody starts to tell you how great you are, and everybody in the locker room are your greatest accountability.
“We are. We don’t care about how great you are. We just care about the fact we can get this done together. We know how great you are, you know how great we are, let’s move forward together.”
Greg Jennings shared that when Aaron Rodgers was Brett Favre's backup, a young Rodgers told his teammates that he'll never do what Favre does and avoid accountability. Now, he's doing just that.
(via The Carton Show)pic.twitter.com/tQa76vz5Jl
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) November 10, 2022
An impassioned Jennings spoke from a very personal and insightful point of view, as most have no recollection that he was in the Packers locker room with both of these all-time greats.
When Jennings left Green Bay back in 2013 after a successful run there (2006-2012), he joined the Minnesota Vikings and immediately offered some interesting criticisms of the Packers’ organization. He got a chance to play for Favre and Rodgers.
“It’s not a free-for-all. there’s structure,” Jennings said. “But there’s liberty. You can breathe. It’s like, ‘OK, I can do my thing. [In Gree Bay], everything was more cookie-cutter… It’s just different in a good way…Here [In Minnesota], no one’s walking on egg shells.”
Seem like not much has changed a decade later.
Why Did Jennings Feel The Need To Set The Record Straight?
Jennings was calling out Rodgers for failing to fully own up to his poor play. Rodgers talked about one of his picks and he pretty much placed the blame on the receiver not himself.
“I’ve thrown TD passes many times on that, and I don’t give sh-t what any of these experts on TV have to say.”
That’s just arrogance and lack of accountability, exactly what Jennings is speaking of.
ARod’s Act Of Blaming Receivers Is Getting Old
Respect for Rodgers’ greatness goes a long way, but his blame game is reportedly wearing on his teammates, per ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler,
Aaron Rodgers on @PatMcAfeeShow: "We haven't picked a skill player in the first round in 15 years, so that would be kind of cool."
Rodgers says whoever the pick is, he'll track down his phone number and welcome him to the team tonight — if the Packers don't trade out.
— Matt Schneidman (@mattschneidman) April 24, 2020
“Some of the young wide receivers have been painted as scapegoats for the Packers’ problems, despite Aaron Rodgers’ absence during OTAs, which isn’t sitting well with some there,” Fowler said.
Pleasing Rodgers is nearly impossible, nothing is good enough, and he won’t take accountability for the team’s misfortunes. From the looks of things, that won’t change anytime soon.
