Like no other season, Rodgers contributed to numerous off-the-field distractions.
If you ask me which of the eight quarterbacks still alive in these playoffs has the most pressure share, I have no doubt that it is Aaron Rodgers. With everything and that he could be named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player for the second consecutive season, and that he accumulated a mark of 13 wins and 4 losses. It’s Rodgers.
A good part of that pressure is self-imposed, he has generated it himself for almost a year. Throughout the offseason he constantly threatened not to return to the Packers, unceremoniously exposed his differences with general manager Brian Gutekunst, and what was the highlight was his positive for Covid after not being vaccinated. When asked at a press conference during the preseason, he said he was “immunized”, then ‘the comb came out’.
Like no other season, Rodgers contributed to numerous off-the-field distractions. It’s hard enough to win in this league to add distractions. Rodgers, who is a privileged talent, overcame a poor start against the Saints (who beat them 38-3 in Week 1), won seven in a row, then the division title and the number one seed in the NFC. He threw 37 TDS and just 4 interceptions. A show, but now comes the good stuff.
Rodgers is already 38 years old, and although he shows no signs of being close to retirement, he begins to see himself in the mirror of Brett Favre and Peyton Manning who reached that age with only one Super Bowl ring. Peyton got second, Favre didn’t. To enter the discussion of the five best quarterbacks in history, the minimum quota of rings is two. With one there is no way. Rodgers is against the clock.
If we want to find another reason for pressure, add that the previous two years he lost the ticket to the Super Bowl in the NFC final. First against the 49ers in Santa Clara and then against the Buccaneers at Lambeau Field. In those two games, the Packers trailed at halftime by a combined score of 48-10 (27-0 against San Francisco and 21-10 against Tampa). Rodgers, like the Packers, started those games poorly. In those first two halves he threw a touchdown and two interceptions. He is also responsible for those defeats.
It’s not comparable to the pressure other quarterbacks have. Tom Brady It is the best ever, Patrick Mahomes already won a Super Bowl, Josh Allen is an emerging figure, Joe Burrow is in his first playoffs, Ryan Tannehill has enough rope Matthew Stafford he is coming off winning his first postseason game, and Jimmy Garoppolo His destiny with the 49ers is very marked. The one with the pressure is Rodgers.
I don’t see the Packers losing to San Francisco, despite the fact that the 49ers have won three in a row in the playoffs. However, the atmosphere that Rodgers has created for himself can work against him when things don’t start to work out in games of this demand. What need?!
