Packers have looked bad before, but this time might be different
By Josh Hill
It appears the Packers have hit their annual rough patch, but it’s starting to look like they might not snap out of it this time.
Fall hasn’t officially arrived until we find ourselves gathering around to discuss how atrocious it is that Mike McCarthy is wasting the prime years of Aaron Rodgers career. Like the changing of the leaves, the Packers are almost guaranteed to go through a stretch of the regular season where they give everyone a good reason to doubt whether or not the wheels are starting to come off.
Sunday in Detroit the singing of that familiar tune, with the Lions housing the Packers 31-20 while Mason Crosby proceeded to miss every single kick he attempted. But unlike before, there might not be a crescendo so much as a sad trombone at the end of this track.
Green Bay has been down this road before. Like a broken record, in almost each of the last eight seasons we’ve counted the Packers out and openly questioned whether Mike McCarthy is wasting Rodgers prime. With two exceptions — 2011 in which the Packers went 15-1 and last year where they flatlined — the Packers have answered by making the playoffs.
In 2010 the Packers started 3-3 and finished the year with the Lombardi Trophy. Two years later the team started 3-3 again, hot off a one-loss season, and ended up in the Divisional Round. Green Bay lost four out of five games in the middle of the 2015 season but still made the playoffs, and chased that in 2016 by losing four straight which prompted the infamous R-E-L-A-X speech, which led to a trip to the NFC Championship Game.
Even last year, when the Packers looked to be circling the drain, there was hope that Rodgers would come back from IR and save the season. The difference between all of those years and this one is that the NFC North is as good as it has been all decade. Minnesota is starting to look like an animal backed into a corner, the Lions clearly aren’t pushovers, and the Bears are legit Wild Card contenders if for no other reason that Khalil Mack and the defense.
What’s most troubling about this isn’t the 2-2-1 record or the fact that the team has looked vanilla, it’s that Aaron Rodgers looks mortal. His opening week comeback against the Bears now looks less heroic and more necessary after seeing the Packers limp through the first quarter of the season. We can’t be so quick to jump to well, they’re usually always fine so they will be this time too because that brand of hope has an expiration date.
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Many will be quick to point out Rodgers three touchdowns and 400-yard performance, but don’t overlook the two fumbles. Don’t overlook the missed throws in the redzone, like one to Jimmy Graham that Rodgers usually makes or an overthrow on a two-point conversion that is usually a sure thing. None of this means Rodgers is falling off that dreaded quarterback cliff yet, but it’s fair to say that the fact he’s never been properly surrounded by talent is starting to show. He can’t do everything like he used to.
Blame McCarthy, like we always do, or blame a lackadaisical defense, per usual. But at some point, this pattern of struggling and bouncing back is going to get broken. The weight of carrying the Packers has literally broken Rodgers shoulder more than once this decade, but a broken spirit won’t heal as quickly, if at all.