Why Aaron Rodgers Is the Best Football Player Alive

In an NFL landscape riddled with headlines about Tim Tebow and Christian Ponder, precious little attention is being paid to the best player in the NFL right now.

Aaron Rodgers.

Rodgers is playing the best football, not only of his career, but in the league. What’s more, he’s making it look effortless, which may be why he’s getting so little attention.

How well is Aaron Rodgers playing the quarterback position?

So well that he has made it a non-event when he throws for over 300 yards and three touchdowns. So well that when he makes impossibly difficult throws look easy, we barely take notice. So well that he heads into the bye week as the only passer in league history to start a season with seven consecutive games with a passer rating over 110.

It’s hard to know just when exactly Rodgers took over the mantle of “Best Player In The NFL” from Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, but make no mistake, the torch has been passed.

What’s incredible about Rodgers’ play is that when you put on the tape and try to dissect his play, it’s incredibly difficult to find a consistent flaw in his game. Oh, sure; he’ll have the odd play where he may revert to holding onto the ball too long (Rodgers even admitted to doing so after the Vikings game on Sunday), but even that perceived weakness can be looked at as a strength of sorts, because Rodgers so rarely turns the ball over as a result.

He has attempted 239 passes so far in 2011. Three of those have been intercepted, two of which hit his receivers dead in the hands. Only Brian Urlacher has truly made a play to take the ball away from Rodgers and the offense in the passing game.

What’s more, Rodgers has worked tirelessly on protecting the football in the pocket. As Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel pointed out this past weekend, in Rodgers’ first two seasons as a starter, he fumbled 21 times, losing eight of them. But in his last 25 starts, he has fumbled only seven times, losing two.

Both the decrease in fumbles and the improvement in getting the ball out speak to Rodgers’ laser-like focus on constant improvement. It is that attribute, more than anything, that propelled Rodgers’ game to the level we’re seeing now.

Another reason Rodgers is taking defenses apart is due in no small part to the amount of trust— and responsibility—bestowed upon him by Packers head coach Mike McCarthy. Rodgers has become an extension of McCarthy on the field and regularly changes calls at the line of scrimmage depending on what the defense shows him.

Defensive coordinators have given up trying to blitz Rodgers as the season has worn on for this very reason. Too many times, Rodgers has simply used the hard count early to get the defense to tip its hand. Once Rodgers gets defenders moving, thereby giving away who is coming on a blitz, he simply adjusts the protection and finds the open man.

Urlacher was able to trap Rodgers and force a bad throw because he is one of the few defensive captains as adept as Rodgers is at the cat and mouse game teams like to play prior to the snap. Fortunately for Rodgers and the Packers, few other teams have such a player on their defense.

Rodgers’ complete immersion and incredible knowledge of McCarthy’s offense has obviously not just happened overnight, but there’s no need to rehash the time he spent on the bench waiting his turn after being drafted in the first round by the Packers back in 2005, though that time was indeed invaluable to his development.

What should be focused on is his week to week preparation and the tireless work he puts in each offseason. Not content with winning a championship and a Super Bowl MVP, accomplishments that could have easily bred complacency, Rodgers has emerged this year as a true leader, one who is thoroughly prepared each and every week and who demands the same from his teammates. He has little time for mental errors and is not afraid to show it on the field.

Rodgers has spoken about his need to control his temper better in these situations, but his outbursts have their desired effect: Teammates rarely make the mistake again.

One other thing that has become apparent over the years, and it may be the real key to Rodgers’ emerging greatness, is his ability to take perceived slights and use them as motivational fuel on the field. In this regard, he is like Michael Jordan, in that Jordan used anything and everything negative ever said about him and turned it into motivation.

Need proof? Look no further than Jordan’s speech when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame, where he took the opportunity to chide seemingly anyone and everyone whoever doubted him in his entire life.

Rodgers has that same mentality. This past summer, he told a story on local Milwaukee radio about a college professor who asked him what he planed to do after college. When Rodgers said he planned to play in the NFL, she responded with something close to "You're never going to do that. That's crazy. You need to be more realistic and stop dreaming."

The fact that, years later, after finding all the success he has found in the NFL, he would remember that and bring it up speaks to the Michael Jordan correlation. And his reaction on the opening of the 2011 season, both on the field against the Saints and in his postgame comments to the media about the lack of players-only workouts in Green Bay during the lockout, provide another perfect illustration in this regard.

The NFL may find Rodgers drawing additional motivation from the lack of buzz currently around his game as well. After dissecting the Vikings and putting up another 300-yard game and throwing for three more touchdowns, precious little space is being dedicated to Rodgers’ play on the national level.

Yet you can not turn for talk of a second year quarterback beating a putrid Miami team in a game that may have set offensive football back by 50 years.

Rodgers no doubt prefers it that way. Just more fuel for the fire.

Aaron Nagler is the co-founder and lead NFL analyst at CheeseheadTV.com, a website dedicated to Green Bay Packers fans worldwide. He lives in New York City and when not eating, sleeping or breathing football, he enjoys time with his wife and three lovely daughters.