Green Bay Packers: Offseason moves should lessen burden on Rodgers

All of the moves made this offseason by the Green Bay Packers should result in less of a burden on Aaron Rodgers’ shoulders this season.

Just about his entire career with the Green Bay Packers, it has been Aaron Rodgers who has shouldered the burden of having to will his team to victory. Now, in many cases that is just the job of the NFL quarterback in today’s league, but this relationship felt far more lopsided than most.

The Green Bay Packers missed the playoffs for the second consecutive season in 2018 and Rodgers isn’t getting any younger as his window continues to close. As a result, GM Brian Gutekunst made a number of moves this offseason and all of them should help take some of the burden off of Rodgers’ shoulders.

During Rodgers’ tenure, it has oftentimes been the defense who has let the team down. Whether it was not being able to come up with a stop at the end of the game, a lack of pressure on the quarterback, or the inability to force turnovers, the Packers’ defense through the years has been responsible for a number of crushing defeats.

To remedy this, Gutekunst spent big money and draft capital to fix Green Bay’s lack of a consistent pass-rush and to solidify the back-end of the secondary. Although the Packers’ finished with a respectable sack number as a team in 2018, that was more so due to Mike Pettine’s creative blitz designs, rather than the defensive front getting to the quarterback on a regular basis.

So in the front seven, Gutey added Za’Darius Smith and Preston Smith in free agency, along with Rashan Gary and Kingsley Keke in the draft. In the secondary, they would turn a position of weakness into a potential strength with the additions of Adrian Amos and Darnell Savage.

The Green Bay Packers first five games of the season are against some very difficult defenses. That coupled with it being a completely new offense and the Packers may not click right away offensively, but unlike in year’s past, that shouldn’t automatically mean they will lose as the defense should be able to keep them in these games.

Even with all these changes that have taken place, the name of the game in Green Bay is still keeping Aaron Rodgers upright. Last year the guard position was a revolving door as Lane Taylor battled injuries and poor play on the left side while Justin McCray and Byron Bell just aren’t starting-caliber players at this point in their careers.

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Once again, Gutekunst would attack this problem in free agency and in the draft by signing Billy Turner to be the right guard and drafting Elgon Jenkins in the second round. The Green Bay Packers now have the seventh-best offensive line entering the season according to Pro Football Focus and some very good depth that includes Jenkins, Alex Light, Lucas Patrick, and Cole Madison in addition to their stout starting five.

However, the move that will likely have the biggest impact on Rodgers is bringing in new head coach Matt LaFleur. And there are two reasons in particular that he will make the life of Rodgers much easier.

One being LaFleur’s emphasis on the running game. In 2018, the Green Bay Packers were very predictable on offense, throwing the ball over 70 percent of the time. An established running game will take some of the pressure off Rodgers so he doesn’t have to do everything, but it will also open up the passing game for him as well.

Second is that LaFleur’s offense is about scheming players open through certain looks and play calls that they give the defense. This sounds like a simple concept but under Mike McCarthy, a lot of the time players had to win their one-on-one matchups and if they didn’t, it left Rodgers having to create something on his own, which oftentimes he did.

With Rodgers being 35-years-old along with some of the injuries that he has had, as we look ahead to his remaining years in Green Bay, he won’t be able to carry the team as he once did in 2011. Now, that doesn’t mean he can’t be great anymore, but if these offseason moves pan out, Rodgers won’t need a super-human performance every week in order for the Packers to win.

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Only time will tell, but in 2019 we should see Aaron Rodgers get some help from other areas of this team that he hasn’t had in recent seasons which is only going to help make his job easier.

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