Is Aaron Rodgers even good anymore?

[Anti-Polar Bear]

Did Pb just write a novel? I’m gonna need the Cliffsmnotes..

[pbmax]

The other open question about Rodgers is his health and accuracy. He no longer seems to be able to throw from bad positions and be accurate, but the extent to which that is true is hard to determine given the early injury this year and the young receivers. He has a lot less problem throwing to Adams than the young WRs.

Its possible he can no longer be Plastic Man and still bomb away across the field. The new offense will need to account for whatever drop there has been and get him a cleaner pocket nd insist on some faster reads. But the first step is acquiring a tackle and possibly a new Guard.

[beveaux1]

PB, I appreciate the work you put into your notes. I agree that MMs offense was dysfunctional and could not be used without proper personnel. The proper personnel meant that an infusion of high round WRs had to be drafted every couple of years and those WRs needed to learn the intricacies of that system over a 3 to 4 year period. It appears that the breakdown occurred when those early picks had to be used for defense. That might have been when MM broke with TT to some extent. I'd speculate that MM felt that free agency could have been used to supplement the defense so that his offense could get the players he needed to continue to run his scheme. In some respects, our continued success also contributed to it's failure because of draft position and stubbornness on both TTs and MMs part.

[woodbuck27]

PB, I appreciate the work you put into your notes. I agree that MMs offense was dysfunctional and could not be used without proper personnel. The proper personnel meant that an infusion of high round WRs had to be drafted every couple of years and those WRs needed to learn the intricacies of that system over a 3 to 4 year period. It appears that the breakdown occurred when those early picks had to be used for defense. That might have been when MM broke with TT to some extent. I'd speculate that MM felt that free agency could have been used to supplement the defense so that his offense could get the players he needed to continue to run his scheme. In some respects, our continued success also contributed to it's failure because of draft position and stubbornness on both TTs and MMs part.

I agree with your analysis and pbmax your like wow just oh wow and the pseudo insider.

[Rutnstrut]

If what you are suggesting is true - than McCarthy's offense wasn't working - then I can see why Rodgers got frustrated. And this is probably why McCarthy is no longer employed by GB. I have a feeling a new HC and offensive staff could be just the elixir to get Rodgers back on track.

A new head coach won't do any good if Gute doesn't give him what he needs to run the kind of offense he wants. I do agree that stubby was bad for this team. Hopefully the new coach will be more flexible and call an offense that plays to his players strengths. I also hope that Rodgers will buy into whatever the new guy wants to do.

[pbmax]

A new head coach won't do any good if Gute doesn't give him what he needs to run the kind of offense he wants. I do agree that stubby was bad for this team. Hopefully the new coach will be more flexible and call an offense that plays to his players strengths. I also hope that Rodgers will buy into whatever the new guy wants to do.

Well, I think part of this falls on the coach. If you can only coach an offense one way, you might be useless in most situations.

The Patriots run an offense with a 6th round pick at QB, usually only 1-2 high picks on the O line, a high for the position drafted TE and refuse at WR. And it works just fine.

They spend picks and cash on CB and pass rushing but versatile players.

You cannot regularly construct the talent the 2011 Packer offense had with consistently. A coach who can dominate with that talent is good, but will spend half his years struggling.

[Bretsky]

Well, I think part of this falls on the coach. If you can only coach an offense one way, you might be useless in most situations.

The Patriots run an offense with a 6th round pick at QB, usually only 1-2 high picks on the O line, a high for the position drafted TE and refuse at WR. And it works just fine.

They spend picks and cash on CB and pass rushing but versatile players.

You cannot regularly construct the talent the 2011 Packer offense had with consistently. A coach who can dominate with that talent is good, but will spend half his years struggling.

I question whether it's really fair to compare any team with the Patriots. In terms of coaching staffs and how prepared they are, they seem to be a combined Alabama/Clemson while the rest of the staffs are the other college football teams.

[pbmax]

I question whether it's really fair to compare any team with the Patriots. In terms of coaching staffs and how prepared they are, they seem to be a combined Alabama/Clemson while the rest of the staffs are the other college football teams.

OK, how about late term Cowher Steelers with the Whiz and a run game and a rookie QB? If bleeping Ken Whisenhunt (and later Bruce Arians) can do it, it can be duplicated.

Harbaugh retooled his offense midseason to start Kaepernick. This isn't rocket science.

In fact, I suspect the way to go isn't the KC/Rams model because those offenses require physical mismatches. You can get those for awhile, but it doesn't last. I want a flexible base offense.

If your coach says after a struggle with the offense for a season that they need less work on new plays, routes and scheme and need to concentrate on fundamentals and win 1 on 1 and it still doesn't work, you are officially out of ideas. Or your coaching staff stinks.

The same traits that made McCarthy a good head coach ended up making him a very poor coordinator at the end.

[pbmax]

OK, last thoughts on how Rodgers and McCarthy combined to torpedo the offense. Not actively, but through neglect and a failure to reconsider the approach.

Rodgers had issues as a young QB. He held the ball too long at times and had happy feet in his first year. He also loved throwing to the sidelines more than the middle of the field, which is a predilection not uncommon among QBs (right versus left, short/long, sideline/middle).

But he mastered his in pocket moves and calmed his feet down while also mastering the Favre-Ian art of never throwing with your feet planted. He never quite got over the hold the ball too long because he was athletic enough to get away with it often AND had receivers that would make a defense pay for playing man for 5+ seconds. Also remember when in 2009 McCarthy made adjustments to the offense so that Rodgers could beat a good Cowboy defense with a fantastic pass rush? If only we were all that young still.

However, this isn't the growth curve of a recalcitrant uncoachable brat. But it also means that one major problem these days, holding the ball when he shouldn't, is still a problem when the offense doesn't have dynamic talent edges. Its not going to get better as its pretty clear Rodgers has slowed down some. He has been caught from behind a lot in the last two years.

Its an open question to me whether this is the result of the too slow to change offense or if its a habit he will never break in bad situations. The QB who delivered a prefect strike to Jennings for a TD in the Super Bowl in between two of the best safeties on the planet doesn't show up as much these days. Talent drain, distrust of offense or loss of nerve? I suspect the first two because his numbers in tight windows this year are pretty good, but I cannot know for certain. McCarthy's offense hasn't stressed progressions, unless Rodgers was injured, for years.

Speaking of the coach, we have discussed McCarthy offense in general terms during the slowdown that began in earnest in 2015. One thing McCarthy refused to do again after 2015 is commit to more scheme changes to help the offense adjust to the loss of the ability to break man coverage. This was a watershed moment and it leads directly to the offensive woes in 2016 and the disconnect he had with the QB that carried into 2018. The tweaks M3 made in 2015 disappeared and they relied on Nelson against man coverage, who was a shell of his former self. The best part of 2015 was James Jones game hoodie, which should tell you all you need to know about that year.

By now it was common to see online tape eaters complain that the offense (11 personnel more than 75% of the time) was vanilla and ran too many ISO routes. No one got open early. No motion, not bunches, no crossing patterns and few picks or screens. Instead, the offense we got in 2016 was fixed not by the 2015 tweaks (that included some screens but also some mesh patterns and a few bunches) but by the extended offense, where Rodger would handout patterns like a sandlot (but often to only one side of the field, which is the cause of those 7 yard stop turnaround and stare routes we saw so often) and then wait to see what happened to the coverage after 3 seconds. He really called plays that broke early except to free up other routes. Ironically, one of the routes they ran to great effect in the extended offense were crossers and fade routes with a finally healthy Cooks.

The offensive explosion in 2016 that nearly netted another MVP was Rodgers devising things at the LOS, not in a hurry up and not as part of the game plan and not part of the base offense.

McCarthy did not adopt changes that would solve this problem. Even in 2017, the few bunches, mesh and crossers they saw were ineffectual (some of this was personnel, they missed Cooks) and obviously not part of the signature offense. In crunch time, you wouldn't see these plays. They were often part of the script when Rodgers was given input to the first 15 selections. Rodgers never seemed comfortable with them (think of preferring to throw to the sideline versus middle of the field) and I don't think M3 fully adopted these changes into the base offense. So just like the first 15 play script in 2018, changes that might have helped the offense and saved Rodgers the necessity of the extended offense were not a major focus of McCarthy's offensive plan. He still thought they would dominate through 11 personnel and ISO routes. He did not spend the offseason in 2017 or 18 adding these things to his base offense and drilling it in camp like he could have. So the entire offense developed bad habits.

You still never saw motion pre snap unless Rodgers reads something in the D OR needs to get a read on the coverage. Its never used to free someone up in coverage.

The entire League was using this stuff to break man coverage but not the Packers. And that failure to adjust broke McCarthy and Rodgers.



* One major different between 2018 and 2016 is that Cooks on a crossing route was a nightmare to catch up with. Graham could be caught by most linebackers.

[Carolina_Packer]

I'm really thinking hard if there is anything I don't like hahahahaha. Sometimes it seems like Mr. Rodgers gets a little bit stubborn and perfectionistic when it comes to not throwing to a receiver who isn't exactly on the mark where he's supposed to be. It also seems like sometimes - maybe a lot of times, Rodgers de-emphasizes the young guys. We saw that with Janis and maybe a couple of others. He seems to be doing better now with MVS and St. Brown, though - or maybe they are doing better.

The first sentence in the paragraph above really resonated with me. I have thought that before too. He is willing to go "playground football" if he has to, but still within a system.

I believe it was the Jets post game presser where Rodgers said something very interesting to me. Perhaps he's alluded to it before, but it seemed pretty telling. Reporters were asking him about the time it has taken to click with the young receivers this year, given that all the contributors have been with him since May, TC and the season to that point. He said it's take so long because of what he termed "details", I guess meaning that they get the details of a play, route concept, route depth, scramble drill comeback route, blocking, etc. correct. Hey, let's call it like it is. BG drafted and kept three new receivers. That's no small thing. Two of our established receivers were either down for most of the year (Allison) or may as well have been down for most of the year (Cobb), as he played, but you can tell he was fighting injuries while trying to contribute. Two of the new guys would not have had the snaps that they had if we had our experienced guys healthy. Jimmy Graham not having the anticipated impact also affected the outcome.

At some point you have to work with the guys the team gives you to work with. I'm going to just guess that Rodgers is a perfectionist. I think I'm right. it's probably harder for a perfectionist to work with inexperienced players who do not pick things up quickly. Perhaps in the end, BG should have considered signing an experienced receiver before or right after the draft, to plan for the possibility that our experienced receiver depth would be challenged. He kind of took a TT approach to addressing this position. I'm not saying there was a great/affordable option out there, but someone here may come up with a name of someone that would fit the bill, and that wouldn't have been a big cap hit (not counting Jeff Janis once he got released).

[pbmax]

The first sentence in the paragraph above really resonated with me. I have thought that before too. He is willing to go "playground football" if he has to, but still within a system.

I believe it was the Jets post game presser where Rodgers said something very interesting to me. Perhaps he's alluded to it before, but it seemed pretty telling. Reporters were asking him about the time it has taken to click with the young receivers this year, given that all the contributors have been with him since May, TC and the season to that point. He said it's take so long because of what he termed "details", I guess meaning that they get the details of a play, route concept, route depth, scramble drill comeback route, blocking, etc. correct. Hey, let's call it like it is. BG drafted and kept three new receivers. That's no small thing. Two of our established receivers were either down for most of the year (Allison) or may as well have been down for most of the year (Cobb), as he played, but you can tell he was fighting injuries while trying to contribute. Two of the new guys would not have had the snaps that they had if we had our experienced guys healthy. Jimmy Graham not having the anticipated impact also affected the outcome.

At some point you have to work with the guys the team gives you to work with. I'm going to just guess that Rodgers is a perfectionist. I think I'm right. it's probably harder for a perfectionist to work with inexperienced players who do not pick things up quickly. Perhaps in the end, BG should have considered signing an experienced receiver before or right after the draft, to plan for the possibility that our experienced receiver depth would be challenged. He kind of took a TT approach to addressing this position. I'm not saying there was a great/affordable option out there, but someone here may come up with a name of someone that would fit the bill, and that wouldn't have been a big cap hit (not counting Jeff Janis once he got released).

This is the basic problem of running two offenses. Its hard enough to learn one as a rookie, its ridiculous to ask for two.

Manning was this way too and I bet most vets feel this way. But had the offense recovered better scheme-wise from the slowdown of the no huddle approach, I feel like this would be less of an issue.

[Fritz]

One thing I hope Gute will do is to quit looking much at need and go BPA, BPA, BPA, with the only exception maybe being centers/guards.

I read something the other day about some hotshot Pittsburgh receiver named JuJu Simon-Schuster or something, and he was taken apparently just after the Packers picked Josh Jones. At that time, I don't think there was a big wide-receiver need that was perceived, whereas a safety was needed.

But wouldn't it have been nice to have that guy catching the ball this year alongside Adams? And Josh Jones wasn't that great anyway, so did he really fill a need?

Go BPA, Gute. You'll need that player if he's talented and knows how to play, no matter what position.

I think Thompson's mistake was to try to fill holes with his draft picks, in the order of the size of the hole. So he thought he needed corners more than outside linebackers, having Matthews and Perry on the roster, so he picked Kevin King instead of TJ Watt.

Go BPA. Please. You'll use the guy if he knows how to play.

[Rutnstrut]

A few points. One, I also don't believe it's fair to compare any team to the Patriots. Yet they are the ones I continually find myself going back to. That may be because they are my second favorite team.

B, I do believe that part of AR's problems is lack of nerve. Also the perfectionist deal doesn't hold up.There are other vet QB's that so fine with rookie/different receivers (Tom Brady).

3, AR is "broken", he's still decent but far from great. If he doesn't get fixed and this team doesn't get great on defense. The Packers will not even sniff another Superb Owl with AR as QB.

[red]

One thing I hope Gute will do is to quit looking much at need and go BPA, BPA, BPA, with the only exception maybe being centers/guards.

I read something the other day about some hotshot Pittsburgh receiver named JuJu Simon-Schuster or something, and he was taken apparently just after the Packers picked Josh Jones. At that time, I don't think there was a big wide-receiver need that was perceived, whereas a safety was needed.

But wouldn't it have been nice to have that guy catching the ball this year alongside Adams? And Josh Jones wasn't that great anyway, so did he really fill a need?

Go BPA, Gute. You'll need that player if he's talented and knows how to play, no matter what position.

I think Thompson's mistake was to try to fill holes with his draft picks, in the order of the size of the hole. So he thought he needed corners more than outside linebackers, having Matthews and Perry on the roster, so he picked Kevin King instead of TJ Watt.

Go BPA. Please. You'll use the guy if he knows how to play.

That might work now that free agency is a real option

But it also leads to doing things like selecting cbs with your first picks in back to back drafts, even though you have needs everywhere else

[pbmax]

B, I do believe that part of AR's problems is lack of nerve. Also the perfectionist deal doesn't hold up.There are other vet QB's that so fine with rookie/different receivers (Tom Brady).

Tell that to Brandin Cooks.

Brady hasn't dealt with 2 regularly playing rookies and a broken down TE in years. They almost always import low cost vets (Gordon).

Rodgers went out of his way to make it work with Cooks (good result) and Graham (mediocre results). He lobbied for more involvement for both, especially Cooks. But someone wanted a blocking TE who could catch (Bennett).

Rodgers loved Adams from the get go.

He isn't as accurate as he was, cannot throw from bad angles like he once could and cannot escape like he once did. All of those are valid concerns that have now stretched over 2 seasons. The rookie WRs are a different challenge.