Is it time to start worrying about Aaron Rodgers’ legacy?
By John Buhler
Aaron Rodgers now falls to 1-3 in NFC Championship games. Is it time to start worrying about his legacy as the Green Bay Packers’ starting quarterback?
For about half a decade, Aaron Rodgers was undoubtedly the best player in football.
Rodgers was the most gifted quarterback we have ever seen. He could scramble from the pocket and deliver brilliant strikes down the field from all angles, rarely throwing a pick in the process. Rodgers was on the fast track to being one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.
However, with Rodgers’ latest NFC Championship game loss, losing to the San Francisco 49ers on the road in Santa Clara, he now falls to 1-3 in conference title bouts. After beating the Chicago Bears in 2010 en route to a Super Bowl title, Rodgers has dropped his last three conference championship games.
Plainly, should we start to worry about Rodgers’ legacy in the NFL pantheon?
In many aspects, we shouldn’t be too worried about it. Rodgers won a Super Bowl in 2010, has two NFL MVPs and earned eight Pro Bowl trips. Six years after he hangs up the spikes, Rodgers will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on the first ballot. Rodgers epitomized greatness for about a five-year stretch there. He’s getting into Canton quickly.
Still, only playing in one Super Bowl and losing his last three NFC Championships won’t help his case as a top-10 quarterback all time. Rodgers has now lost to the Seattle Seahawks in 2014, the Atlanta Falcons in 2016 and now the 49ers in 2019. He may still have a few years of high-quality football left in the tank, but the clock is ticking on his Hall-of-Fame career.
No, Rodgers wouldn’t need a second Lombardi Trophy to prove his worth among quarterbacking elites, but he is still one Super Bowl appearance short of his predecessor in Brett Favre. Drew Brees has only been to one Super Bowl too, winning that one as well. But Brees has his name littered all over the NFL record books, while Rodgers has his passer rating titles.
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Ultimately, we all would have expected a talent as great as Rodgers to lead his team to multiple Super Bowls. Getting to one Super Bowl is incredibly difficult in its own right. Philip Rivers is never leading his team to a Super Bowl and he too is a Hall of Famer.
However, Rodgers was too good for him to go one-and-done in the Super Bowl a decade ago.