Packer Central

Packers Never Considered Resting ‘Old-School Tough’ Rodgers

One statistic points to how the broken thumb has impacted Aaron Rodgers’ performance, but he will start on Sunday against the Eagles.

Bill Huber

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GREEN BAY, Wis. – Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur said the team never considered benching Aaron Rodgers to give his broken thumb time to heal.

“Aaron’s one of the toughest guys I’ve ever been around in terms of just being able to battle through multiple injuries, so that never crossed my mind,” LaFleur said on Thursday. “It’s more or less the conversation, in terms of how he communicates with us and where he’s at. Certainly, I know he told you guys he’s played through a lot worse. He’s old-school tough.”

Rodgers sustained the injury on the final play of the Week 5 loss against the Giants.

During those first five games, in which Green Bay went 3-2, Rodgers completed 67.9 percent of his passes, averaged 6.9 yards per attempt, had eight touchdowns vs. three interceptions, and assembled a passer rating of 95.8. It wasn’t MVP-caliber football by any stretch, but it was better than the last six weeks.

Since the injury, Green Bay is a woeful 1-5. Rodgers has completed 62.0 percent of his passes, averaged 6.7 yards per attempt, threw 11 touchdowns vs. four interceptions, and fashioned a passer rating of 91.1.

The jarring difference in those numbers is completion percentage, which is what you might expect from a player with an injured thumb.

Rodgers hasn’t used the injury as an excuse for his performance.

“I think that’s the truth, I really do. I think it’s the truth,” he said on Wednesday. “My thumb was hurting a lot worse in the Dallas game, and I put the ball where I wanted to.”

Similarly, there were no excuses coming from LaFleur, a former college quarterback who knows a little something about throwing the football.

“I mean that’s tough for me to say, because I really don’t know how it feels,” LaFleur said. “I do know that it is definitely more difficult and challenging when you’re a quarterback and you have something wrong with your hand, it can create some obstacles. But he’s seemed to maneuver around it for the most part pretty well.”

LaFleur said the injury hasn’t impacted his game plan or his play-calling. In previous weeks, he has said the abundance of shotgun snaps has been driven by defensive tendencies and the effectiveness of those runs, with Green Bay ranking eighth overall in yards per carry.

“The only thing is I think we were mindful of, especially when we were out at practices, just how much stuff we have under center,” he said.

With drops turned into completions and throwaways eliminated from the mix, Rodgers had an adjusted completion percentage of 84.2 vs. Dallas. It was a big-time performance in a victory that appeared to have saved the season. Five days later in a crushing loss to Tennessee, Rodgers’ adjusted completion rate fell to 67.6.

With a few extra days of rest, Rodgers was full participation at Thursday’s practice. When the Packers face the powerhouse Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday night, Rodgers once again will be in the starting lineup, the team deeming the injured four-time MVP a better option than former first-round pick Jordan Love.

“I can’t get inside his body and tell you exactly how it feels but, yeah, I think it potentially could be a big deal” to his performance, LaFleur said. “But he’s as tough as they come. He’s going to fight through it.”

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.

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