By any standard, Aaron Rodgers is enjoying one of the most remarkable seasons in his slam-dunk, first-ballot, future Hall of Fame career. Through the first 14 games of the season, Rodgers, at age 37, leads the league in touchdown passes (40), touchdown percentage (8.4), low interception percentage (0.8), quarterback rating (118.0), QBR (83.5), Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt (8.66), and only Patrick Mahomes ranks higher in DYAR and DVOA.
In a season that began with Rodgers and many Packers fans expressing dismay at the franchise’s selection of Utah State quarterback Jordan Love with the 26th overall pick, and no real reinforcements for a questionable receiver corps outside of Davante Adams, Rodgers has thrived in head coach Matt LaFleur’s offense, which features motion and play-action concepts designed to befuddle every defense it faces.
However, two defenses Rodgers has faced this season tripped him up something fierce. Both come from the NFC South, and while neither has been consistent through the season, both the Buccaneers’ defense, run by Todd Bowles, and the Panthers’ defense, run by Phil Snow, forced Rodgers to perform far below his seasonal standing. Against Tampa Bay in a a 38-10 Week 6 loss, Rodgers completed 16 of 35 passes for 160 yards, no touchdowns, and two interceptions. Rodgers’ 35.4 quarterback rating was the third-worst of his career, and his Adjusted Yards Per Attempt was the worst he’d ever experienced in any game where he had at least 10 passing attempts.
After that game, however, Pissed-Off Aaron Rodgers was unleashed, and the rest of the NFL had to feel the burn. From Week 7 against the Texans through Week 14 against the Lions, Rodgers was entirely en fuego, completing 198 of 274 passes for 2,311 yards, 26 touchdowns, and two interceptions. It appeared that no other defense could do to Rodgers what the Bucs’ defense did.
Then, Rodgers came up against a Panthers defense that was fresh off a 32-27 loss to the Broncos in which Drew Lock was allowed to throw four touchdown passes, and this looked for all the world like an early Christmas present for a quarterback of Rodgers’ caliber.
Spoiler: It wasn’t.
The Packers beat the Panthers 24-16 to move to 11-3 and maintain their status as the NFC’s one-seed, but Rodgers was anything but spectacular, completing 20 of 29 passes for 160 yards and one touchdown. It was the only other game this season in which Rodgers’ yards per attempt fell below 5.0 — beyond the Buccaneers and Panthers games, his lowest YPA came against the Vikings, and that was 7.10. Rodgers’ 91.6 quarterback rating marked the only other game this season in which it fell below 100, and his five sacks marked the only other time he’d experienced more than the four the Bucs put up on him — erase those two games, and Rodgers has been sacked nine other times this season.
“This is one of those disappointing wins the way that we played in the second half. So I have a sour taste in my mouth how we played in the second half,” Rodgers told NFL Network following the Panthers game. “We’ve got to get back to the drawing board. That kind of football is not going to beat a lot of teams. We won the game, we’re 11-3. It’s been a successful season so far, but we’ve got plans about making a run and the way we played on offense we’re not going to beat anybody in the playoffs.”
Rodgers wasn’t done getting forensic about it.
“I think we just haven’t put together a four-quarter game,” he said in his postgame press conference. “We’ve had some really good stretches, I think, just not four quarters of football way too many times. Tonight we had a couple good quarters and a couple stinkers. That’s just not consistent winning football, so we’ve got to figure out offensively what happened there in the second half and get ready for a good football team coming in.”
That good football team would be the Tennessee Titans, who might be looking to see what the common denominators were between the Buccaneers’ defensive performance and the whupping the Panthers put on Rodgers.
The good news for the Titans is that the common denominators are easy to spot. The bad news is that the Titans might not have the personnel to twist Rodgers into similar schisms.
What are those common denominators? Multiple front concepts to confuse and delay protection rules, and aggressive coverage aligned with those front concepts. Both the Bucs and Panthers put on master classes of these two elements against the Packers.