We were having these same conversations about Brady when he left for Tampa Bay, and that turned out just fine. That doesn’t mean Rodgers’s days of playing elite football are over. Without that ability to throw on the move, Rodgers is a fundamentally different quarterback and becomes a lot easier to defend. Rodgers could do all the pocket stuff at a high level, too, but he could also make off-platform throws that those other guys wouldn’t even attempt. Rodgers is strong enough in other areas to make up for a lack of mobility, but that was the thing that separated him from the old guard of quarterback peers, like Tom Brady and Drew Brees, who did all their work in the pocket. On plays outside the pocket, his success rate dropped nearly 10 percentage points from 2021 to 2022, according to TruMedia. This isn’t just an issue on scrambles declining mobility also affected Rodgers as a passer. So this has been a steady decline, and one that we should probably expect to continue. It was 16 the following year, and then 13 in 2021. On top of that, he reached 15 mph on only 10 of his runs last season. Per Next Gen Stats, Rodgers set five-year lows in rushing yards, yards per carry, rush EPA, and rushing yards over expected. It may have been hard to notice when watching games live, but the numbers make it clear that Rodgers no longer moves as well as he used to, which tends to happen to 39-year-old players. My biggest question is about his waning mobility. Still, the fact that Rodgers might need to be more reliant on his surrounding talent than he’s been in the past isn’t at the top of my list of concerns. Steven Ruiz’s analysis of every passer of note from last season It’s easy to pencil Wilson directly into the Adams role in the Jets offense, but there will almost certainly be some growing pains. Due to the Packers’ reluctance to invest significant free agent capital into bolstering the receiver room over the past few years, we don’t have many other examples of Rodgers building chemistry with an already-established receiving talent. That isn’t a bad group, but Wilson isn’t quite Adams at this point in his career and it’s going to take some time for the young wideout and Rodgers to build rapport. He’s moving to a Jets team that rosters Garrett Wilson, last season’s Offensive Rookie of the Year Elijah Moore and the aforementioned Lazard, who agreed to a free agent deal with the Jets on Tuesday. Surprisingly, it takes more than Romeo Doubs, Christian Watson, and Lazard to replace one of the NFL’s best receivers.īut the Packers’ underwhelming receiving corps is no longer Rodgers’s problem. Rodgers’s Yards Per Attempt by Pass Type Season Compare Rodgers’s production on those three particular throws in 2021 to 2022: That trust is required to complete the tight-window throws to the intermediate part of the field that vanished from Green Bay’s passing game last season. And, most importantly, Rodgers could trust Adams to be at the right place at the right time. Packers receivers struggled to do either last season after Adams was traded to the Raiders. Or if the defense got aggressive and played press man coverage, Rodgers could throw a fade with the confidence that Adams would not only track the ball down but also catch it. He could flip a simple screen pass out to Adams with the confidence that the receiver would turn it into a productive play. Let’s start with the “after” part of that statement first, because it’s the easiest one to explain: Having Davante Adams on your team simply makes playing quarterback easier. Rodgers spun the football as well as he had in previous years the decline in his production and performance was caused by what was happening before and after the throws. He finished the year as the eighth-best quarterback in my QB Rankings here on The Ringer, and after rewatching some of his late-season tape in recent days, I’d double down on that placement.ĭropping it in the bucket ➡️ #NYJvsGB | #GoPackGoįOX /zePNt1Mfoe- Green Bay Packers October 16, 2022 While Rodgers did not play like an MVP-level quarterback, he wasn’t nearly as bad as the numbers suggest. It wasn’t his fault that the only reliable receiver on the roster was Allen Lazard (who is now, conveniently, a Jet). It wasn’t Rodgers’s fault alone that the offense faltered, and he can’t be blamed for a defense that failed to meet preseason expectations. But there’s some key context missing if we’re looking at Rodgers’s 2022 stat line alone: Green Bay’s roster wasn’t very good last season. That doesn’t bode well for Jets fans looking at Rodgers as the savior for a club that hasn’t had a true franchise quarterback in about 50 years. Rodgers’s Worst Seasons by Total EPA Season
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