‘Green light’ to audible is bad news for Rodgers’ critics

Coach Matt LaFleur delivered a bombshell on Monday when he announced Aaron Rodgers has the "green light" to do his thing at the line of scrimmage.

Legions of football fans and analysts watch Aaron Rodgers from the comfort of their couches, which is appropriate because the couch is the stereotypical piece of furniture at the psychiatrist’s office.

Maybe no quarterback in NFL history has been scrutinized more than Rodgers. Whether the scrutiny is fair or not is irrelevant. Rodgers’ body language is frequently under the microscope. I know you’re disappointed, Aaron, but you really shouldn’t show it. Whatever he says during postgame interviews or the weekly conversations at his locker are parsed for readings between the lines. This is what he said, but what did he really mean? From the moment he was hired, the new coach, the 39-year-old Matt LaFleur, said he wanted the offense to be a “partnership” between himself and the 35-year-old Rodgers. That might work with some quarterbacks, but Rodgers is going to walk all over LaFleur.

I’ve probably done 20 national radio interviews over the last few months. In just about every one of them, the host wants to know about the relationship between Rodgers and LaFleur. It’s all good now, but when is Rodgers going to go rogue? Has, say, the Chargers’ Philip Rivers been constantly questioned about his relationship with coach Anthony Lynn? How about the Bears’ Mitchell Trubisky with coach Matt Nagy? Matthew Stafford with his parade of coaches in Detroit?

One story line that provided some red meat for all those football psychiatrists came in mid-June, when NFL.com’s Michael Silver wrote a piece exploring how much leeway LaFleur would give Rodgers at the line of scrimmage.

Before digging into that, let’s rewind back to the Scouting Combine in February, when LaFleur talked about his philosophy on audibles and how much control of the offense he’d be willing to give to Rodgers.

“We traditionally haven’t had a whole lot of audibles, per se, in our offense,” LaFleur said. “Not to say that that’s going to be the way we’re going forward because, again, we’re going to build it our way. We try to give the quarterback as many tools as possible. There’s going to be a lot of play calls where there’s two plays called. Depending on the coverage or maybe it’s front-driven, we call them ‘cans’ – and you’ll see him where he’ll ‘can’ to the other play. That’s always been a part of our offense. It’s about trying to maximize your plays and try to get to premium-opportunity plays. We’ll have to see where it goes in terms of giving him freedom to, if he sees something, to totally erase what’s been called and get to something else.”

Now, let’s fast forward to June and Silver’s interview with Rodgers.

“It’s a conversation in progress,” Rodgers said. “I don’t think you want to ask me to turn off 11 years (of recognizing defenses). We have a number of check-with-me’s and line-of-scrimmage stuff. It’s just the other stuff that really not many people in this league can do.

“That’s not like a humblebrag or anything; that’s just a fact. There aren’t many people that can do at the line of scrimmage what I’ve done over the years. I mean, obviously, Tommy (Brady) can do it, no doubt. Peyton (Manning) could do it. Drew (Brees) can do it. (Patrick) Mahomes will be able to do it. Ben (Roethlisberger) has called the two-minute for years. There are a few of us who’ve just done it; it’s kind of second nature. And that’s just the icing on the cake for what I can do in this offense.”

Naturally, the football psychiatrists saw trouble lurking just around the corner, just as they did when Rodgers didn’t share his boss’ fondness for the joint practices with the Texans.

Following the first practice of training camp on July 25, Rodgers resorted to humor when asked how many audibles he had called that day.

“So many. Thirty probably,” Rodgers said. Were they successful? “Twenty-nine of them. One bad one,” he responded.

To be sure, questions about the relationship between Rodgers and LaFleur are real and fair. That’s because the relationship between every coach and quarterback is critical.

So far, so good in Green Bay, it seems. In another sign of the burgeoning relationship between quarterback and coach, LaFleur dropped a bombshell at the end of Monday’s post-practice news conference.

”We’ve given him all the freedom,” LaFleur said. “If he sees something, he’s got the green light to do whatever he needs to do to get us into a good play. We’re not going to take that from him.”

It was a monumental statement from LaFleur in showing just how much they’ve grown together over the past several months. That’s because there are two hallmarks of LaFleur’s scheme that don’t necessarily jibe with giving the quarterback that green light of freedome. First, the offense revolves around the running game setting up play-action passes. Second, the offense is built on plays that look the same. Those two items are dead on arrival if the quarterback steps to the line of scrimmage and changes too many runs to passes.

That’s why, back in Indianapolis at the Combine, LaFleur said, “We’ll have to see where it goes” when asked about how much freedom he’d give Rodgers. Apparently, it’s gone well, with LaFleur saying in no uncertain terms on Monday that he trusts Rodgers enough to hand him the keys to the car.

It’s the right decision by LaFleur. Games are won and lost at the line of scrimmage and the adjustments made before the snap. The Bears’ defense is powerful, with top-tier talent at each level of the unit. Why give that group even more power by saddling Rodgers with a play that is doomed to failure? What a pity it would be to waste Rodgers' 10,000-plus snaps of game experience and force him to turn a blind eye to big-play opportunities.

With great power, of course, comes great responsibility. And make no mistake about it: The football psychiatrists will be watching from their couches to see how Rodgers handles the power he’s been entrusted with by LaFleur.