4 Packers who will take the blame if season ends without Super Bowl
By Todd Welter
Packers QB Aaron Rodgers will most likely be criticized.
No one will ever forget how Rodgers led the Green Bay Packers to a Super Bowl victory in 2010. He nearly willed the Packers to another Super Bowl appearance in 2016. For all his outstanding moments in the playoffs, the Packers are 11-10 during the Rodgers’ era.
Green Bay is 7-9 in the playoffs since that Super Bowl win in Dallas. It is not like Rodgers has been the reason the Packers have lost. Rodgers has a better career playoff passer rating than Tom Brady.
He nearly won a playoff game with Jeff Janis as his number one receiver.
Ultimately, Rodgers will still take some heat. It comes with the territory of being the Packers quarterback.
Also, he has had moments where if he had just made a play or two, it would have meant the difference between winning and losing.
In the 2020 NFC Championship Game, he threw three straight incompletions from the Tampa Bay eight-yard line. That led to head coach Matt LaFleur kicking a field goal instead of going for it on fourth down. The Packers never got the ball back.
Against the 49ers in last year’s divisional round, Rodgers was sacked five times. He completed 20 of 27 passes for 225 yards but he targeted Adams and Jones on 21 of those pass attempts. Allen Lazard and Mercedes Lewis were the only other players to catch a pass.
If Rodgers throws a few more balls Lazard or Randall Cobb’s way, Green Bay gets a different result. Long time Packers writer Bob McGinn thinks Rodgers wanting to avoid putting the ball in danger has cost Green Bay some playoff victories.
"“Rodgers, for years, has played a careful calculating game understanding that number of interceptions plays a disproportionate, nonsensical role in the passing-rating formula. Bad interceptions are, well, bad. Then there are interceptions that are the cost of doing business for unselfish, competitive, stats-immune quarterbacks battling to make plays and lead comebacks until the bitter end. When a quarterback, especially one with a powerful, usually accurate arm like Rodgers, deliberately minimizes chances to deliver a big play for fear of an interception… that’s just hurting his team.”"
Rodgers may hear the same complaints if he limits who he throws the ball to or does not make enough plays in the playoffs that end up with the Packers losing.