Green Bay Packers: Final evaluation of Brett Hundley
By Hunter Noll
The Green Bay Packers had Brett Hundley at the helm for most of the season. What’s the final evaluation on the young quarterback?
There’s no good way to spin the injury of Aaron Rodgers. It derailed what looked like another playoff season for the Green Bay Packers as they saw a 4-1 start drop to 7-9 by the end of the year. It did give Brett Hundley a chance to prove himself though.
The season was filled with plenty of ups-and-downs for Hundley. As his year went, so did the Packers. When he was playing good, they looked like a team that could make some noise. When he was playing bad though, they looked completely lost. Sadly, the bad outweighed the good in 2017.
The stat line never tells the entire story. For Brett Hundley, it does give you a good chunk of it though.
The 24-year old played the majority of 10 games for the Packers this season. In that time he attempted 316 passes, completing 192 of them (60.8 percent). With those 316 attempts, Hundley amassed 1,836 yards in the air. That equates to 5.81 yards-per-attempt, second worst in the NFL (Joe Flacco at 5.72).
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He threw just nine touchdowns compared to 12 interceptions. Turnover problems plagued him for a majority of the season, as he had four multi-interception games. On the ground, Hundley was pretty deadly. He ran for 270 yards and two touchdowns on 36 attempts (7.5 yards per carry), while fumbling twice.
The biggest problem Hundley had was consistency though. While his legs helped sometimes, his inability to continuously keep the air game working stalled the Packers a few too many times. The UCLA-product never hit 300 yards passing in a game, while throwing less than 200 five times. Even worse than that, he couldn’t even muster 100-plus yards on two separate occasions.
Heading into the season, Hundley had 10 career passing attempts in a regular season NFL game. Due to that, it’s not surprising that he had some growing pains. Nevertheless, the flashes of brilliance were few-and-far-in-between during the season. You’d have to imagine the Packers were hoping for a little more from the three-year-pro.
With his impending free agency, the story of Brett Hundley’s only going to get more interesting. He showed enough potential that there should be quite a few times considering inquiring about him. There’s even a good chance a few teams offer him a chance to fight for a starting position. That’s certainly something the Packers can’t offer with Aaron Rodgers at the helm.
Due to this, it’s tough to see Hundley returning to the Packers. If he wants a chance to start, it’s not in Green Bay. At the same time, the price tag could get too hefty for the Packers considering he’d be returning as a backup. With what he provided them in 2017, they might want him to return, but only if the price is right.
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In the end, expect Hundley not to return to Green Bay in 2018. He’ll have more opportunities with other teams, and the Packers might want to go another route for their backup. With the growing pains shown by Hundley, maybe this time bringing in a veteran would be the right move.