Quote Originally Posted by pbmax View Post
My apologies for missing that. However, it raises a followup question; if the opponent matters, how are you differentiating between that and poor reaction to stress during a game?

Also, the list of authorities isn't impressive. Bob is just going by recent results. Besides Dilfer (and I would love to see a link to his comments), the rest are just bloviators who know less than we do.

Rodgers is not perfect and he could improve in several areas. But his team isn't perfect either, nor is his coach. And I think those factors plus the opponent, provide plenty of explanation about his playoff record without the need to speculate about his emotional state.

We just had a perfect example of how a team can conspire to lose a game its winning. A conservative approach, which vince has argued convincingly was perhaps the safest strategy, blew up in their face in all 3 phases. McCarthy failed to use his best leverage points to build up a bigger lead and the later to collect a first down. Those factors didn't depend on how well the QB reacted to stress.
My differentiation between quality of opponent and "internal" factors (e.g. stress) have to do with unforced errors. The interceptions, passes defensed, and sacks that are results of great defense are omitted from my admittedly imperfect analysis. The unforced errors - where an abnormally bad decision or pass is made (without the defense being a factor), relative to Rodgers' overall body of work - I attribute to the internal factors. Of course, Rodgers can make unforced errors in every game (he's human after all), but are the occurrences of unforced errors in playoff games higher than normal?

This is why I'm not really focusing on defensive rankings or passer ratings and such. I think those metrics are too high-level for this particular analysis, and would ideally prefer to look at individual plays and decisions (where it looks like the receiver is open and the protection is adequate) against similar plays throughout the season to see if there's variance. This would be a lot of work, of course.

The big assumption also is that these "unforced" errors aren't actually caused by facing a good defense that makes Rodgers generally uncomfortable, which indirectly results in "residual" inaccuracy.

As to your last paragraph, yes, everyone is responsible for this loss. It's justified to have threads about McCarthy's passivity, Slocum's incompetence, the sudden disappearance of the defense, and everything else. I think the Rodgers thing is just one factor of many.