Green Bay Packers: Aaron Rodgers enters MVP race

With yesterday’s performance, Green Bay Packers’ quarterback Aaron Rodgers has inserted himself into the NFL MVP discussion.

From last season, into the NFL’s offseason, and even as recently as last week, many national talking-heads had thought that Aaron Rodgers was no longer playing at an elite level and we were witnessing his demise.

In 2018 – a season in which Rodgers started all 16 games – the Green Bay Packers would finish at only 6-9-1, with Rodgers completing just 62 percent of his passes and he would have a passer rating of 97.6 which was the third-lowest of his career when he’s played a full season.

Although he still threw for over 4,400 yards and had 25 touchdown passes to just two interceptions, the 2018 version of Aaron Rodgers wasn’t the one that we had been accustomed to seeing for over a decade.

Now, of course, there were other factors that contributed to his struggles including an out-dated offense and a reluctance to lean on the running game. However, Rodgers was at fault as well as he’d oftentimes hold the ball too long and overlook the easy completion in hopes of creating a big play downfield. The culmination of all of these issues, amongst others, resulted in a futile Green Bay Packers’ offense last season.

But 2019 was supposed to be different under new head coach Matt LaFleur who would rely more on the running game to help take some of the burden off of Rodgers, utilize the tight ends more in the passing game, and have an offensive system that would scheme players open rather than them having to constantly win one-on-one battles as they did under Mike McCarthy.

As it should have been expected, it has taken some time for this new offense to jell. In Chicago, the Packers’ offense would score only 10 points and in the following weeks, they’d struggle to move the ball once they ran through their scripted plays.

Coming into Sunday’s game against Oakland, Rodgers was completing just 62.5 percent of his passes for 1,590 yards, with eight touchdowns, only two interceptions and a passer rating of 92.8. When it came to the MVP discussion, Rodgers was more of an afterthought at this point.

However, it was during the Green Bay Packers loss to Philadelphia that the offense really started to find their groove and it culminated with a masterful performance on Sunday by Rodgers. Against Oakland, he would complete 25/31 passes for 429 yards with five passing touchdowns, another on the ground, and a perfect 158.3 passer rating.

The Aaron Rodgers that we’ve seen against Detroit and Oakland has been the Aaron Rodgers of old. His command and comfort with the new offense is something to behold and he has been making some incredible throws along the way.

https://twitter.com/NFL/status/1183939629206011904

After Sunday’s clinic, Rodgers now has a completion percentage of nearly 65 percent, he’s thrown for 2,019 yards (5th most) with 13 touchdowns (5th most) and still only has two interceptions. His passer rating has jumped to 103.7 (6th best) and Rodgers now finds himself in the thick of the NFL MVP race through the first seven weeks of the season. Moving forward, I expect that he and the rest of this offense are only going to continue to get better.