14. Aaron Rodgers, Pittsburgh Steelers
Last week: 11th
We may not be seeing “vintage” Aaron Rodgers right now, but we are absolutely seeing a guy start to find some rhythm and hit a groove.
Rodgers was still sacked 5 times against the Buccaneers, and he definitely didn’t like the playing surface at Raymond James Stadium, but he still made some big-time throws throughout this game, navigated the pocket really well at times, and threw a couple of touchdown passes.
So far this season, Rodgers has given me some confidence that the Steelers might be able to hang around a lot longer than anticipated. Again, we’re not seeing “vintage” performances from him at this point, but he’s still obviously a really smart player you can win with.
Seeing him throw 49 passes in a game is not ideal, and the downfield game wasn’t there as much against the Bucs, but Rodgers has played well overall this season.
13. Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams
Last week: 10th
I’m not going to use the word “regression” with Matthew Stafford right now, but he was in a funk against the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday.
He had just 222 yards passing, one of his toughest games yet in terms of throwing downfield (4.8 air yards per target), and some really tough sledding against Arizona’s defense. And credit to the Cardinals defense for everything they threw at the Rams in this game.
The Rams were just 4-of-10 on 3rd downs and 0-for-2 on 4th down attempts. They were 2-for-4 in the red zone. Stafford was uncharacteristically frozen on an important 2-point conversion attempt where he was locked into throwing to Davante Adams only.
Stafford’s ranking on here is at least somewhat representative of the Rams’s lack of team success this season. He has played like an MVP at times this year, but it hasn’t always been enough.
Add us as a preferred source on Google