What Is Aaron Rodgers' Role With the Green Bay Packers?

By Derek Lofland, NFL Director at Football Maniaxs

People are jumping up and down about Aaron Rodgers’ game on Monday Night Football, and rightfully so. He completed his last 10 passes of the game and was extremely efficient, going 18-for-22 for 178 yards, one touchdown, zero picks, and a 115.5 QB rating.

No doubt, that is a very solid passing performance. He also rushed for 35 yards and added a rushing touchdown.

They won the game, 24-19, over a division rival in Minnesota that many people think could contend for the Super Bowl. Game one of the post-Favre era could not have gone better. Rodgers deserves a great amount of credit for playing a terrific game under difficult circumstances. He showed tremendous poise. 

Now that the soap opera has left the building, the thing that interests me the most is what the Packers' offense is going to evolve into now that the focal point of the offense for the past 16 years wears a Jets uniform.

I'm trying not to get caught up in the whole Rodgers vs. Favre fiasco. I understand that many people are going to focus on that, and there is going to be two evaluation processes.

1) How the Packers do this year vs. how the Jets do this year. In other words, people are going to wonder if the Packers played for the future at the expense of the present.

2) How good of a career Rodgers has, which will take many years to evaluate.

There will be a time and a place to evaluate that, and when there is, I am sure I will write something about it when we get to that point. While people were getting caught up in the moment of whether the Packers made the right decision on a play-by-play basis, I noticed a lot of interesting things.

Here is how Rodgers ranked among NFL quarterbacks this weekend.

1) His 18 completions ranked 14th in the NFL.

2) His 22 attempts were tied for 24th.

3) His yardage was tied for 20th.

Where he excelled was not in how many times he passed the ball, but his efficiency. His completion percentage was second in the NFL. His QB rating was eighth. He didn't throw a pick.

That leads to an interesting question. Are the Packers going to give him more responsibility as he plays more games, becomes more comfortable with the offense, and earns more responsibility? Or are the Packers going to become a run-first, defensive-oriented football team in the post-Favre era?

I looked at Favre's numbers over the last two years with McCarthy, not in an attempt to compare Rodgers’ start and rank it among Favre's, but to look at the style of the Packers' offense.

Here is what I found.

1) Favre had more than 18 completions in 28 of his 32 games under McCarthy. Several of those games were games he got hurt in or rested. New England in 2006. Dallas in 2007. Detroit to end the season with everything clinched in 2007. In fact, Favre had more than 25 completions 10 times in 32 games, significantly more than what Rodgers put up in game one.

2) Favre had more than 22 attempts 29 out of 32 times. The only three times were the games I listed above.

3) Favre had more than 178 yards passing 27 out of 32 times under McCarthy. The three games I listed above, the ‘06 opener against the Bears, when he had 170 yards, and the ‘06 home game against the Lions when he had 174 yards.

This isn't meant to slam Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers' supporters could argue that Favre only had 14 games out of 32 where he didn't throw a pick. They could argue Favre had only 14 games where he eclipsed a 100.0 QB rating. I'm not trying to look at either of those points.

What I'm looking at is the direction of the Packers' offense. For most of Favre's career, the Packers were a pass-first offense. That started to change with the emergence of Ahman Green in 2001, but the Packers evolved into a pass-first team again once Green became injury prone, starting in 2004, and especially 2005.

By the beginning of 2007, the Packers were ignoring the run altogether, mainly because they had no good running backs.

It started to move back toward a more run-dominated offense at the end of last year. Part of that was the emergence of Ryan Grant. Part of that was the Favre injury in the Dallas game, and Rodgers' subsequent injury after that. The Packers had no options at QB, and they really didn't want to further risk any injuries that would cost them a playoff run.

It's impossible to figure out where the Packer's offense is headed, based on one game or where it would have been headed had Favre stayed. But against a team that, in 2007, was ranked first in rushing defense and 28th in passing defense, the Packers only threw the ball 22 times and rushed the ball 27 times. I understand it was a little wet there, but the conditions weren’t that bad.  

You would think they would have tried to pass more. The Packers' play calling was extremely conservative. They passed on a chance to close the half with a touchdown and settled for a field goal that was blocked.

They didn't gain a first down in the third quarter. They didn't let Rodgers put the ball up in the fourth to gain a clinching first down. Instead they ran, punted, and relied on the defense and on an offense earning safe, conservative yardage with no turnovers.

The Packers were able to do that because the only time they trailed in the game was 3-0 in the first quarter. Rodgers will be down by 10 points at some point this season, and we will see how the Packers and Rodgers handle that.

In this game, the Packers capitalized on the big play. They got a 57-yard run by Grant, a 56-yard catch by Jennings, and a punt return by Blackmon to set up 21 of their 24 points.

People will point to how good Grant played. I thought Grant was average at best. Yes, the stats say 12 carries for 92 yards against a league-leading rush defense. However, 57 yards were on one play. That means 11 carries for 35 yards the rest of the way and no ability to score goal-line touchdowns.

The Packers had to pass it in on 3rd-and-1 and quarterback sneak it the other time. If they are going to win with Grant as the featured weapon, he must get five or six yards more consistently, and he needs to score goal-line touchdowns. He was good at that last year, and I expect him to do better in the weeks ahead than he did in the opener.

The Packers, last year, used the pass to beat the Vikings. In their two victories, Favre was 65 for 91 for 695 yards with five touchdowns and zero picks. The Packers did use the run against Minnesota, especially in the second game, where Grant had 25 carries for 119 yards. But the Packers used the pass to win those games.

I see three themes emerging from this game:

1) I think the Packers realize the spotlight their young quarterback is under.

They want to put him in position to make good plays and move the ball but limit his opportunities to make bad plays and hurt the team. By not making him the focus of the offense, they minimize the chance that Rodgers messes up.

That is going to stop these "Why isn't Favre here" stories. They will be able to do that for quite a while, as long as they play with the lead like they did on Monday Night.

2) They want Rodgers to be more comfortable as the starter before they unleash him.

The more success he shows in this offense, the more they will have faith in him to throw the ball around and gamble. I would expect the Packers to throw more as the season progresses.

They are going to have to, at some point, because every team ends up behind in a game, and the quarterback will have to throw the ball every play. That is when we will see just how good Rodgers has become over the last three years.

3) The Packers wish to move in a different direction, philosophically.

I think McCarthy wanted to do this once he saw what he had in Grant, but Favre is not the right fit for that philosophy. By going with the younger, more mobile quarterback, they can throw the ball 20 times a game and not have to worry about whether the star gunslinger is going to like the reduced role.

They want to play a similar style to what the Steelers played on Sunday, where Big Ben threw the ball 14 times. I think that is the main reason the Packers didn't want Favre back. They figured less was more. Less yardage and less touchdown throws were acceptable with fewer interceptions and less points allowed. 

It's difficult to say whether this is a good idea or a bad idea. Since the 1970 merger, no quarterback has led the NFL is passing yards and won a Super Bowl that same season.

Brady in 2007 was the closest. The only quarterbacks to lead the NFL in touchdown passes and win the Super Bowl the same season are Stabler ('76), Bradshaw ('78), Young ('94), Favre ('96), Warner('99), and P. Manning ('06).

Still, the list of average Super Bowl winning quarterbacks is fairly short. While you don't need the premier quarterback on the premier offense in the NFL, it is nice to have a Hall of Fame-caliber player.

You have to have a passing presence in your offense that allows you to make plays when you need them and keep the opposing team off balance. You don't need to have the most accomplished passer in the NFL.

If the Super Bowl was about who had the best arm and the best skills, Trent Dilfer, Brad Johnson, and Eli Manning would not have won a ring.

I think the league still thinks of the Packers as a pass-first team. I was not impressed with Minnesota's gameplan on Monday. They didn't blitz much. That is how you beat Favre. Rush four people, drop the rest into coverage, and force him to make quick decisions into coverage.

Blitzing Favre can be a recipe for disaster. Rodgers needs to be blitzed more, until he proves he can pick those up and make quick reads.

The Vikings didn't adjust to that. As teams realize the Packers are trying to become a run-first team, they will put more people in the box, blitz, and dare Rodgers to beat them. As they realize that his best downfield throws are on play action or rolling out of the pocket, they will adjust with more blitzing from the outside.

It was a good start, but good starts don't really mean a whole lot. What is going to matter is if Rodgers can put the team on his back when the chips are down and pull out wins the Packers weren’t supposed to win.

What is going to matter is if he can guide this team to the playoffs. Anything less will be a disappointment to Packer fans. That is going to take more than one game to figure out. 

If the Jets make the playoffs, and the Packers don't, there will be uproar. If Favre plays at an MVP level, and Rodgers is merely a game manager, there will be a lot of head scratching. As long as Rodgers is allowed to play with the lead, like he did last night with the crowd on his side, he will be fine.

As he plays more games and plays on the road, defenses start making adjustments and injuries start affecting key Packer personnel around him, we will see if he can sustain his Week One performance.

If he doesn't succeed, it won't be because of his attitude. He seems to be saying and doing all the right things at this point. Now it is on to Week Two.

What are your thoughts on the Packers? I think it's a little too early to predict if Rodgers can lead them to the playoffs, but do you think the Packers get back to a throw-first philosophy, spreading out their receivers like they did with Favre in 2007, or do you think it is going to be a much more conservative team the entire season, one that features Grant and the Packers' defense?