Halfway through the season, with his team undefeated, Aaron Rodgers has thus far been very nearly perfect, and on a pace to set a handful of records for quarterback rating, completion percentage and a slew of other statistics. He is a quarterback with a ton of weapons who almost never makes mistakes. You won't see him fire into triple coverage, or launch a desperation heave off his back foot under pressure, or try to beat a fast-closing safety and cornerback with a bullet to semi-open receiver. Aaron Rodgers learned not to do these things by watching his predecessor, Brett Favre, do them with fan-infuriating regularity.
Rodgers instead prides himself on his near-perfection, almost to a fault: he recently shouldered part of the blame for the team's high sack count, saying he needed to be willing to throw the ball away rather than take the loss. "There might have been a couple of times when I held on to the ball too long," he said after going 24 of 30 for 355 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions -- a passer rating of 146.5.
Where I will mentally meander across the fields, courts and pitches of American and international sport, focusing primarily on my favorite teams but also discussing any sports-related topic that suits my fancy.
Showing posts with label Aaron Rodgers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aaron Rodgers. Show all posts
Monday, November 7, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Aaron Rodgers' Monkey
There's been a lot of silly talk in the press in the last few weeks about how Aaron Rodgers has never won a playoff game, which suggests to these eagle-eyed observers that he may not be an adequate successor to the Packers' "great" Brett Favre.
The truth of the matter is that before yesterday's victory he'd had only had one chance. Let me ask you, if I was trying to do a backflip off the diving board and failed on my first try, would that suggest that I could never do a backflip off the diving board? That I had neither the mental and emotional stability nor the physical gifts to accomplish the feat in my lifetime? No. It's idiotic. And it points up the problem with the media today -- they need so desperately to find a storyline, a narrative for each game, each quarter, each important player, that sometimes they just grab them out of thin air. This week it happened to be: "Despite all the gaudy stats, Aaron Rodgers is a loser."
The Packers' victory over the Eagles should end that discussion. But it should never have reached our ears in the first place. The real story is that Aaron Rodgers is to a large extent the anti-Brett Favre. Just as he may never make the jaw-dropping laser through four DB's for the winning score with three defenders draped on him, he has yet to throw away the game with desperation pass attempts into triple coverage. And this, for my money, is something Aaron Rodgers will never do. He's a talented mofo and a cool customer, comfortable in the pocket and very smart about protecting the ball.
So, yeah, he's no Brett Favre. Thank God.
The truth of the matter is that before yesterday's victory he'd had only had one chance. Let me ask you, if I was trying to do a backflip off the diving board and failed on my first try, would that suggest that I could never do a backflip off the diving board? That I had neither the mental and emotional stability nor the physical gifts to accomplish the feat in my lifetime? No. It's idiotic. And it points up the problem with the media today -- they need so desperately to find a storyline, a narrative for each game, each quarter, each important player, that sometimes they just grab them out of thin air. This week it happened to be: "Despite all the gaudy stats, Aaron Rodgers is a loser."
The Packers' victory over the Eagles should end that discussion. But it should never have reached our ears in the first place. The real story is that Aaron Rodgers is to a large extent the anti-Brett Favre. Just as he may never make the jaw-dropping laser through four DB's for the winning score with three defenders draped on him, he has yet to throw away the game with desperation pass attempts into triple coverage. And this, for my money, is something Aaron Rodgers will never do. He's a talented mofo and a cool customer, comfortable in the pocket and very smart about protecting the ball.
So, yeah, he's no Brett Favre. Thank God.
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