Favre Vs. Rodgers: Midseason Evaluation

By Derek Lofland.

At the beginning of the season, I said that I would evaluate the August trade between the Packers and the Jets that sent Brett Favre to the New York Jets for a conditional draft pick.

Now that we have seen eight games—half a season—we can start to make some observations about how this trade has worked out for both teams.

As always, I fully disclose that I am as big of a Brett Favre fan as you will find on this Web site. However, I try not to let that get in my way of objectivity.

The first thing to do is look at the statistics:

‘08 Aaron Rodgers: 8 starts, 167 completions, 262 attempts, 63.7 completion percentage, 1,982 yards, 13 touchdowns, 5 picks, and a 95.3 QB rating.

‘08 Brett Favre: 8 starts, 180 completions, 263 attempts, 68.4 completion percentage, 1,812 yards, 15 touchdowns, 12 picks, and a 87.8 QB rating.

Aaron Rodgers has statistically been the better quarterback in 2008. Favre has him beat in completion percentage and touchdown passes. Rodgers has him beat in consistency. If you take out the Arizona game, where Favre had the best individual game of the season, his numbers look like this:

‘08 Brett Favre without Arizona - 7 starts, 156 completions, 229 attempts, 68.1 completion percentage, 1,523 yards, 9 touchdowns, 11 picks, and a 79.7 QB rating.

The fact is that Favre has only two games with a QB rating over 100.00 in 2008 and four consecutive games under 80.0. Rodgers, on the other hand, has five games over 100.00 and only two games under 80.00. In fact, if you throw out the Tampa Bay game, where he played especially bad, he has been very good. Three of his five picks came in that game.

Furthermore, Rodgers isn't that far off of Favre's 2007 totals. Here are Favre's 2007 numbers, compared to what Rodgers is on pace to accomplish:

Favre 2007: 16 starts, 356 completions, 535 attempts, 66.5 completion percentage, 4,155 yards, 28 touchdowns, 15 interceptions, 95.7 QB rating

Rodgers 2008: 16 starts, 334 completions, 524 attempts, 63.7 completion percentage, 3,964 yards, 26 touchdowns, 10 picks, 95.3 QB rating.

So, it really isn't even that close. Statistically, Rodgers is the much better quarterback in 2008, and he is pretty much keeping pace with Favre's 2007 season, a season in which Favre finished second in the MVP voting.

What is funny is that even though the statistics say that Rodgers is essentially the same quarterback, it hasn't translated into success for the Green Bay Packers. As it stands right now, the Green Bay Packers are tied with the Minnesota Vikings for second place at 4-4, a game behind the 5-3 Chicago Bears.

Green Bay lost just three games in the 2007 regular season, tying a franchise record for wins in a season. The Packers also had a three-game losing streak from Weeks Three to Five. The last time they lost three consecutive games was Weeks 11-13 in 2006.

While Aaron Rodgers has had a fine start to the 2008 season, there are a number of things he is going to have to improve on if he wants to be a star in the NFL. These are a few things that Aaron is not doing very well that you won't read anywhere else. Here are the four reasons the Packers are playing worse in 2008:

1) Lack of Run Defense - Let's start with the one thing that isn't Aaron Rodgers’ fault: the declining run defense. The Packers have been great at stopping the pass, despite losing Al Harris for a month. Quarterbacks average a QB rating of 59.9 against the Green Bay Packers, which is No. 1 in the NFL. The Packers are tied for the NFL lead (13) in interceptions with Tennessee, and Green Bay has returned five of those interceptions for touchdowns.

The problem is that they can't stop the running game. In 2007, the Packers ranked 14th against the run. This year, they rank 27th. Maybe Corey Williams was that important to the run defense. Having Cullen Jenkins hurt for the year does not help matters either.

Regardless, that hasn't helped the Packers' record in 2008, and since Rodgers doesn't tackle running backs, he is not to blame for this difference.

2) Lack of balance in the offense - Greg Jennings has 40 catches for 764 yards and four touchdowns. The next most frequented receiver is Driver with 36 catches for 466 yards and three touchdowns--keep in mind, Driver just had a nine catch, 136 yard, one-touchdown performance on Sunday. Jordy Nelson comes in third with 18 catches for 211 yards and one touchdown.

No one else has more than 200 yards on the team, meaning no one else is on pace to get even 400 yards on the season. In 2007, Driver had 1,048 yards. Jennings had 920 yards. Jones had 676 yards. Finally, Lee had 575 yards.

Favre also had six additional receivers that finished with 130-250 yards on the season. Favre is probably the best quarterback in the history of the NFL at spreading the ball. He has never played with a Hall-of-Fame target. Even with the Jets this year, he already has seven receivers that have more than 100 yards receiving.

Compare that to Rodgers, who has only five, despite having 170 more passing yards on the season. The result is that the Packers have a much easier offense to contain in 2008.

Jennings’ longest catch of the year is 62 yards. He is a big-play receiver that breaks a lot of big plays. Driver's long is 50 yards. The only other player on the team with a catch over 30 yards is Tory Humphrey, who had a 37-yard catch.

Compare that to 2007. Favre's long to Jennings was 82 yards. His long to Jones was 79 yards. His long to Lee was 60 yards. His long to Driver was 47 yards. His long to Robinson was 43 yards.

Favre was not only better going deep with the football, but he was better at finding a better variety of targets down the field. This year it's either Jennings deep or a short pass to a receiver, most likely Jennings or Driver.

It made for a much tougher offense to stop in 2007, especially when Ryan Grant became involved in the running game the second half of the season. That leads to point No. 3.

3) Lack of involvement by the running backs- Ryan Grant was a...

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