The last time Aaron Rodgers walked off the field as the loser of an NFC Championship Game, he couldn’t be sure his general manager – then Ted Thompson – would use every avenue and exhaust every resource to get the Green Bay Packers over the hump and back to the Super Bowl.
The feeling is different for the Packers quarterback this time around, and new general manager Brian Gutekunst is the primary reason why.
“I’m confident that he’s going to continue to add to this squad,” Rodgers said at the podium following the Packers’ 37-20 loss to the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday. “That part is very exciting. It’s a lot different feel than three years ago.”
The Packers won 13 regular season games and vanquished the Seattle Seahawks in the divisional round but couldn’t compete with the top-seeded and heavily-favored 49ers at Levi’s Stadium. They fell behind 27-0 and only briefly threatened a second-half comeback.
Rodgers insists the Packers are close. He believes the team’s window is officially wide open. Confidence in both Gutekunst and new coach Matt LaFleur is high, and there’s a strong sense that a synergy finally exists between general manager, head coach and quarterback in Green Bay.
In Atlanta to end 2016, the Packers fell behind 24-0 and eventually lost 44-21.
During the ensuing offseason, Thompson let seven important contributors leave in free agency (Micah Hyde, JC Tretter, Julius Peppers, T.J. Lang, Jared Cook, Eddie Lacy and Datone Jones) and mostly swung and missed on aging free agents Martellus Bennett, Lance Kendricks, Davon House and Ricky Jean-Francois. Instead of going all-in, the Packers suffered a net talent drain.
The Packers, who won eight straight games to get to that NFC title game in Atlanta, won only 13 games the next two seasons and both Thompson and coach Mike McCarthy were gone.
A team that needed Rodgers to go supernova just to make the playoffs went backward, which must’ve felt like a gut-punch to an aging quarterback dying to get back to the Super Bowl.
No wonder this time around feels different. In two short offseasons, Gutekunst gutted the roster left for him by Thompson and rebuilt the foundation around Rodgers, and he accomplished the task by using any and all avenues of roster building. He aggressively moved around the draft board. He paid big money to sign big-name free agents. He claimed role players off waivers. He dealt for contributors.
Draft and develop was the core roster-building philosophy for Thompson, a veteran scout who believed all a football team needed was to draft good players and have good coaches develop them in a system. It worked for a time, especially when he hit a grand slam on Rodgers to start his tenure and then sprinkled in a rare signing like Charles Woodson or Julius Peppers.
But with Gutekunst, Rodgers can now confidently assume his general manager will turn over every leaf and use any and all resources to improve the roster. Draft and develop will always be important to building a roster in the NFL. Now, Gutekunst supports Thompson’s vision with veteran additions through free agency, trades and waiver claims.
The Packers are close, and the sting of Sunday’s defeat is soothed only by Rodgers’ confidence that Gutekunst will do whatever it takes to get his flawed but vastly improved team over the final hurdle and back into the Super Bowl.
The feeling is different, but feelings don’t win games. Gutekunst and his staff must get to work on a critical offseason that will determine whether the Packers move forward, stagnate or decline following another NFC title game failure. The team’s 36-year-old quarterback can’t afford for Gutekunst to steer the Packers down a path traveled three long years ago.
And Rodgers is confident he won’t.