Regardless of Stats, LaFleur Says Rodgers ‘Played Pretty Damn Good’

Don't talk passer rating with Matt LaFleur.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Before departing for Indianapolis for last week’s Scouting Combine, Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst acknowledged a strong crop of quarterbacks in this year’s NFL Draft and said he wouldn’t shy away from taking one.

Even in the first round.

“I do remember Mike Sherman was our head coach and there were a lot of people not real thrilled about that at the time,” Gutekunst recalled of the 2005 draft, when his predecessor, Ted Thompson, drafted Aaron Rodgers even with Brett Favre on the roster. “To have the courage at that time to do that, and what that one decision did for the organization for how many years later? That stuck with me. It could have been real easy to do something different. He thought that was the right thing to do, and he did it. That’s always stuck with me.”

Could this really be the year the Packers draft Rodgers’ successor? While the Packers reached the NFC Championship Game, it wasn’t Rodgers’ finest season. Having turned 36 in December, Rodgers – who owns the best passer rating in NFL history – finished 12th in the NFL (95.4) in that category.

“Yeah, I’ll be honest,” coach Matt LaFleur interjected on Tuesday at the Combine. “The passing rating, I don’t even look at that anymore. I don’t think it’s a true indication of evaluating whether a quarterback played well or not. I really don’t. I think there’s so many other factors that play into that that just doesn’t give it a very good indication of to the level at which you play.”

Fine, but by no tangible measuring stick did Rodgers turn in a Rodgers-esque type of season. He finished 21st in the NFL in completion percentage (62.0), worse in terms of percentage and ranking than Matt Ryan in 2015 and 2016, when LaFleur was the Falcons’ quarterbacks coach, Jared Goff in 2017, when LaFleur was the Rams’ offensive coordinator, and Marcus Mariota in 2018, when LaFleur was Tennessee’s offensive coordinator.

The question Gutekunst must grapple with is whether Rodgers’ performance was based on age or circumstances. Did Rodgers struggle because he’s old and injuries have taken their toll? Or did he struggle because it was Year 1 in a new offense and because he lacked a reliable passing-game target beyond Davante Adams?

“Again, I thought he played pretty damn good last year,” LaFleur replied. “He led us to 13 wins and a playoff win. Certainly, there’s areas for us all to improve on and it starts with me first. That’s laying out a great plan for these guys and putting guys in position. Too many times, the quarterback’s going to accept all the blame when things don’t go right and they’re going to get a lot of the praise when things do go right. It’s just the nature of that position and everybody’s going to be critical of it. That’s fair. That’s what you sign up for when you get into this league.”

This will be LaFleur’s second year with the Packers, a notable milepost considering he hasn’t spent two years with a team since the 2015 and 2016 seasons with the Falcons. In his second year in Atlanta, Ryan won league MVP honors with one of the great individual seasons in NFL history and the Falcons got to the Super Bowl. His passer rating – sorry, Coach – went up 28 points from Year 1 to Year 2.

The Packers need a similar leap from Rodgers.

With a revamped contract that lessened Rodgers’ cap charge for 2020 (to $21.64 million) but meant exploding cap charges of $36.35 million in 2021 and $39.85 million in 2022, Gutekunst is literally banking on Rodgers returning to greatness in Year 2 under LaFleur.

“Obviously, Matt had an excellent first year,” Gutekunst said, “but I’m really excited to see how our players react when they know what’s coming already.”