Green Bay Packers: Aaron Rodgers big reason for offensive woes

The Green Bay Packers have struggled on offense for much of the 2018 season. Aaron Rodgers deserves a large portion of the blame.

The Green Bay Packers fell to the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday night by a final score of 24-17.  The Packers now stand at 4-6-1 and on the outside looking in of the NFC playoff race. Through 11 games, Green Bay simply hasn’t been good enough.

There are plenty of reasons for the Packers’ struggles this season, but Aaron Rodgers deserves a large portion of the blame.

For starters, Rodgers currently has the second-worst completion rate of his career (61.7), only higher than his 2015 season (60.7). We’ve seen it all year long; missing open receivers, holding onto the ball too long, extending and freelancing plays that don’t need to be improvised, and throwing it away far too often.

Of course, Rodgers has never been one to take enormous risks. After all, he has the best touchdown-to-interception ratio in NFL history. But he isn’t taking the calculated risks that even he once would attempt in the past. It’s clear Rodgers doesn’t fully trust his receivers, the play calling, or his own talent at the moment.

Against the Vikings on Sunday night, Rodgers took four sacks and was hit numerous other times. Granted, David Bakhtiari (knee) and Lane Taylor (quad) both exited with injuries. But even that doesn’t excuse Rodgers, who admitted himself he wasn’t on his best-game Sunday night.

“I missed the one throw to Davante [at the end of the game], and threw the no-lace ball to EQ (St. Brown) in the dirt,” Rodgers said at his post-game presser (via @Packers on Twitter). “Other than that, I don’t really feel like I missed a lot of throws. We just weren’t executing.”

Rodgers only had 198 passing yards and one touchdown, with a 60.7 completion percentage. He did have a few signature throws, but as Rodgers himself said after the game, the Packers just didn’t play well-enough to win.

Another thing that stood out against the Vikings was Rodgers’ propensity to avoid the easy check-down. There were far too many missed opportunities when Rodgers could have dumped the ball off to the dynamic Aaron Jones or a receiver in the flat, and instead opted to throw it away, extend the play, or wait for another development to open up downfield.

Despite the Packers’ poor performance, however, Rodgers mentioned after the game that it isn’t unlikely that the Packers could win their final five games and sneak into the playoffs, but that they’d some outside help, as well.

It seems even Rodgers has recognized Green Bay’s season may be close to being over. And he even admitted blame in his post-game press conference.

Will this affect how he sees both himself and the team going forward? Or will he step in the face of adversity and lead the team to an improbable playoff berth?

Many things will need to change around 1265 Lombardi if the Packers are to sneak into the playoffs. But it all starts with Rodgers, who will need to step up and perform how fans and teammates have expected him to all season.