Aaron Rodgers knows that the offense has to achieve a higher level of consistency if the Packers want to be a true Super Bowl contender.
The flashes of high-level play have been plentiful but scattered. To become a true Super Bowl contender, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers knows the consistency of the offense – both passing and running the football – must improve as his team, now 10-3, approaches a crucial three-game stretch to end the season.
“I think we have the guys, for sure, and the guys in the specific roles, but it’s the 11 (players) being consistent that will take us from where we are now and where we want to go,” Rodgers said Wednesday.
More examples of the offense’s inconsistency arrived during Sunday’s win over the Washington Redskins. While the offense raced out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter, the Packers scored just six more points the rest of the way, thanks in large part to an avalanche of missed opportunities.
A missed throw here. A misread there. A disconnect here. A missed block there.
The Packers can’t hit maximum operating capacity without eliminating the little mistakes and achieving a greater level of consistency. The offense has shown it can operate at a high level for spurts, but sustaining those levels over the course of full quarters, halves and games has been an issue.
That reality has to change if Rodgers and the Packers want to turn Matt LaFleur’s first season as coach into a truly special one.
“The only difference between where we’re at now at 10-3 and being a dangerous force that can make a run deep into the playoffs and to the Super Bowl is that consistency,” Rodgers said. “If anything, that will be the deciding factor on our fate here these next seven or eight weeks. Can we find that consistency in both the run and pass game?”
Rodgers mentioned inconsistency as part of the offense’s identity through 13 games. There is frustration that builds when the flashes of dominance, both passing and running, are following by long lulls of mediocrity.
“There have been times where we’ve thrown it all over the yard and looked great, and there have been times we haven’t,” Rodgers said. “And there’s been times when we’ve run the ball really efficiently and well and converting on first downs and third downs and moving the sticks and finishing games out, and times we couldn’t run the ball. It’s going to come down to consistency.”
The Packers have a chance to build more consistency entering the playoffs over a three-game stretch to finish the regular season that includes tough matchups against the Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings.
How does an offense achieve consistency this late in the season? Rodgers sees it as a mental challenge. A challenge every player, including himself, must tackle each and every week. Only when everyone on the offense can clear the mental hurdles involved with week-to-week preparation will the consistency of on-field execution come.
“Clarity of mind, I believe, is the most important thing,” Rodgers said. “I don’t think it’s physical. It’s having the ability to think in real-time and react. Where your thinking is in sync with your reaction and it comes down to a clear and concise understanding of the plan and then the execution, I think, follows.”
The Packers are close, Rodgers says. And the evidence is scattered throughout the 2019 season. Running back Aaron Jones has four games with 150 or more total yards and five with fewer than 50. Rodgers has produced a passer rating over 100.0 in four different games and under 90.0 in four games. The Packers have scored 30 or more points in four games but also scored 20 or fewer in four other games.
“The consistency within the role for all of us, myself included, to understand the play clearly, to make the correct read, to deal the ball at the proper time,” Rodgers said. If we can all be a fraction more consistent, you’re going to see the type of performances we expect from ourselves.”
