Aaron Rodgers Is On Pace to Do Something He Hasn’t Done Since the Packers Last Won the Super Bowl
Two-time reigning NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers certainly hasnāt played his best football to start the 2022 season.
But donāt go twisting that statement around, as the 38-year-old isnāt playing poorly in the slightest. Through four games, heās completed 69% of his passes for 935 yards with six touchdowns and has the Green Bay Packers sitting at 3-1.
Offer that stat line to many NFL quarterbacks, and theyād take it in a heartbeat. Itās just that Rodgers has been so dominant for so many years that weāve simply come to expect excellence each and every week.
And, letās be honest, we havenāt gotten that from him in 2022. Have there been flashes? Of course. Itās still Aaron Rodgers. But again, weāre just used to seeing a bit more. The curse of being so damn good, right?
Now, with all that being said, the focus here today isnāt actually what weāre not seeing from the 10-time Pro Bowler, but what we are, specifically the one major statistic I left out of his line above: interceptions.
Aaron Rodgers is on pace to throw double-digit interceptions for the first time since 2010
The thing thatās surprised me the most about Rodgers through the Packersā first four games is his three interceptions. While weāve come to expect so much from the five-time All-Pro over the last decade and a half, what we donāt expect is for him to turn the ball over like he has this year.
The only game Rodgers hasnāt thrown a pick was in Green Bayās Week 2 win over the rival Chicago Bears. And that shouldnāt come as a shock as heās torched the Monsters of the Midway throughout his career.
He threw one in Week 1 against the Vikings, another in Week 3 against the Buccaneers, and the one on Sunday against the Patriots was the worst of all as Jack Jones returned it 40 yards for a touchdown. It was part of Rodgersā dreadful first half in Week 4 against New England, during which he completed just four of 11 passes for 44 yards, giving him a dismal 11.2 passer rating.
Thankfully for the Packers, he turned it around in the second half and overtime and led the team to a 27-24 win.
If this pace continues, Rodgers will have 13 interceptions at seasonās end, assuming he plays all 17 games. To put that in perspective, he has 13 picks over the last three seasons combined. And the last time he reached double digits in the INT column was in 2010, the year he won his lone Super Bowl, when he threw 11. The only other season he had double-digit interceptions was 2008, his first year as a starter, when he threw 13.
Since 2010, the most Rodgers has accumulated in a season was eight in 2012 and 2015. Thereās a reason he had the lowest interception percentage throughout the 2010s decade and has the best touchdown-to-interception ratio (4.74) in NFL history. He just doesnāt turn the ball over.
But look at it this way, Packers fans. If Rodgers continues to throw picks, maybe heāll do the more important thing he hasnāt done over the last dozen years: win a championship.
Stats courtesy ofĀ Pro Football Reference
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