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The proposal began gaining traction three days before kickoff. Inside the Green Bay Packers offensive meetings, a think-big pitch was floated. What about starting the 2022 season with a massive home run cut?
Hear this out. First play in Minnesota in Week 1. Spread rookie speedster Christian Watson out to the right. Schoolyard go route.
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It was music to Aaron Rodgers’ ears.
The four-time MVP quarterback has been impressed with Watson’s burst and figured it would be cool to give the newcomer from North Dakota State a chance to start his NFL career with some sizzle.
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“We had talked about it. ‘Do you really want to start off with a bomb shot?’ ” Rodgers said. “I said, ‘Yeah. What the hell? Why not? Ya know? This kid can really fly. Let’s give him a chance.’ ”
By now, we all know what happened when that vision was put into action.
Early in the first quarter Sunday in Minneapolis, Watson lined up outside the numbers against eight-time Pro Bowl cornerback Patrick Peterson and dazed him for a split-second with a nasty outside release. Watson hit the accelerator and had 3 yards of separation when Rodgers launched a picture-perfect deep ball up the right sideline. Only when the ball reached Watson 44 yards downfield, it caromed off his hands and fell to the turf.
Instead of a 75-yard touchdown, it was a first-play incompletion on a drive that ended five snaps later with a Pat O’Donnell punt.
That proved to be a symbolic first play in the Packers’ disappointing opener, a 23-7 division road loss to the Vikings that led the outside world to begin interpreting what it all means.
Was this an early indicator of the sharp growing pains the Packers offense might face in a post-Davante Adams world, with Rodgers, an 18-year veteran, left to patiently bring along a young and unproven receiving corps while no longer having his big-moment, big-play guy?
Are the Packers suddenly vulnerable in the NFC North, reeling as they head into a second division game in Week 2 against the Chicago Bears?
Might this be the ideal time for opponents to take their crack at further flustering Rodgers as he works to figure things out with so much in flux in Green Bay?
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Even with an acknowledgment that we’re barely 100 yards into the regular season’s four-and-a-half-month marathon, those remain valid questions. They just weren’t being asked this week at Halas Hall.
The Bears, in the words of defensive coordinator Alan Williams, aren’t drinking “the Kool-Aid of what the media is trying to sell that there is gloom and doom in Green Bay.”
“Don’t fall into that trap,” Williams warned.
Rodgers, he reiterated, is Rodgers.
“You’re facing one of the best in history,” Williams added. “Don’t underestimate the power of great leadership. He is a great leader and he will get those guys into shape.”
The stage is set for Sunday night at Lambeau Field with the league’s oldest rivalry digging into this juicy subplot. Will a young and hungry Bears defense have what it takes to add on to Rodgers’ September struggle? Or will the Packers quarterback find answers quickly, lighting the wick for another prime-time explosion?
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Bears offensive coordinator Luke Getsy knows as much about Rodgers’ wiring as anyone, having spent seven seasons with him in Green Bay, including the past three as the Packers quarterbacks coach.
A year ago, Getsy was with Rodgers in Week 2 as the Packers offense worked to peel itself off the pavement after being steamrolled by the New Orleans Saints 38-3 in the opener. Rodgers threw two interceptions in that loss, threw for only 133 yards and posted a 36.8 quarterback rating.
It was attention-grabbing ugliness from a team with Super Bowl aspirations.
The following week? The Packers hosted a division game at Lambeau Field in prime time. (Sound familiar?) And despite trailing the Detroit Lions 17-14 at halftime, they rolled to a 35-17 victory on “Monday Night Football.” Rodgers and Co. scored touchdowns on five of their first seven drives, rediscovering their offensive pop in a blink and restoring a sense of calm and confidence.
That quick and convincing bounce-back aided a 13-4, division-championship season with Rodgers winning the league MVP award for the second consecutive season.
“Listen,” Getsy said Thursday, “there are 17 games and it’s a season of progress. To panic over one game, to panic over one thing? (No), it’s a long year. … It’s a game. You stick to the details and what you want to be good at. And that guy is good at a lot of things.”
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That wasn’t the first time Getsy had seen Rodgers and his offense make quick fixes either. Getsy was a first-year quality-control coach in 2014 when the Seahawks drubbed the Packers 36-16 in Seattle to open the season. Predictably, that lopsided loss drew national scrutiny and unearthed legitimate concerns.
Rodgers, though, returned home the next week, threw for 346 yards and three touchdowns and toppled the New York Jets. The Packers won a dozen games that season and advanced to the NFC championship.
“It’s the NFL,” Getsy said. “Every week is a new chapter. It wasn’t even like a thing.”
Which is to imply that Rodgers almost certainly found his way into the lab this week in Green Bay and devoted himself to the offense’s troubleshooting efforts while also finding ways to strike the right balance between having patience with his young teammates and reinforcing what the standard for greatness needs to be.
The internal demands not only apply to rookies such as Watson and fellow receiver Romeo Doubs but to veterans and coaches too.
“He challenges you every day to be on it,” Getsy said. “With your details. There’s no, ‘Maybe, kind of, sortas.’ You’ve got to bring it. You’ve got to know it. And the dude’s intelligence level is really high. So you better bring it.”
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Over 18 NFL seasons, Rodgers has learned to develop proper perspective for high-level success and high-profile letdowns. So his ability to get back to center to prepare for this week’s rivalry game against the Bears has not been in question.
The bigger issue is how the Packers can accelerate their offensive evolution and growth to hit the express lane Rodgers is so used to driving in. And it’s not only Adams’ departure — in that high-profile trade with the Raiders in March — that has created a transition period. Deep threat Marquez Valdes-Scantling left for the Kansas City Chiefs in free agency. Nathaniel Hackett, the Packers offensive coordinator under Matt LaFleur for the previous three seasons, is the head coach of the Denver Broncos. Getsy, a confidante and valuable resource for Rodgers, is with the Bears.
Tom Clements is back as the quarterbacks coach, coming out of retirement in February to reunite with Rodgers. Adam Stenavich was bumped up from offensive line coach into the offensive coordinator position. Receiver coach Jason Vrable has taken on a heightened role as passing game coordinator.
Those are all rearranged parts in the Packers machine. Time is needed to get everything humming again.
Still, a lot of the early-season focus in Green Bay will remain on how Rodgers finds a rhythm with his revamped receiving corps, developing chemistry with Allen Lazard, Sammy Watkins, Watson and Doubs.
To that end, Rodgers stressed this week that Rodgers will continue pressing for sharp focus on preparation and fundamentals and little details, all of it designed to make his pass catchers more instinctive and more aware of what this offense is designed to do.
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“The jump happens when you don’t become a robot anymore,” Rodgers said. “You understand the ‘why’ and the ‘what.’ Why are we doing what we’re doing? What are we trying to accomplish? And it takes awhile for anybody.”
With that, inevitably, the star quarterback will have his patience tested, needing to respond in a positive manner. To that end, Rodgers said he has a tight inner circle to use as both a sounding board and as therapy. “Having an outlet to talk through any frustration is important,” he said.
Along with that comes a need to connect with his young receivers, to develop direct lines of communication to help “cut through the uneasiness and the anxiety and any of the gray area in the things that we do.”
“These guys are going to make a lot of mistakes,” Rodgers said. “The guys who don’t repeat the same mistakes are going to get more opportunities.”
In the big picture, Rodgers said, there is a sweet spot the Packers need to find in challenging their playmakers to see what they are capable of while still making sure to set them up for success.
“We don’t want to put them in a position where there’s a high likelihood of maybe not getting it right,” Rodgers said. “But we also want to let them, in the moment, feel the pressure and anxiety and the expectation of being in that moment and see how they respond. Because that’s how we’re going to know what kind of guys we’ve got.”
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Linebacker Roquan Smith noticed the Packers’ Week 1 result and quickly jumped to a logical conclusion about the version of Rodgers the Bears should expect to greet them Sunday.
“I’m sure he will be a little bit pissed off,” Smith said. “Hey, you wouldn’t want it any other way. Pissed off him? (You’ll) get the best version of him and then we get the (win) and it will be even sweeter.”
After four seasons of being on the wrong end of a handful of Rodgers whoopings, even Smith knows it won’t be quite that easy. Still, there’s reason to believe the Bears can add to Rodgers’ agitation Sunday night. Even with Lazard expected to return for the Packers and the offensive line getting healthier and sturdier, the have vulnerabilities the Bears can attack.
The Vikings, for example, sacked Rodgers four times.
Rodgers also had two uncharacteristic turnovers that, to the harshest critic’s eyes, might be considered examples of a quarterback pressing to compensate for his unit’s deficiencies.
Late in the first half, for example, Rodgers felt pressure in the pocket and forced a deep throw to Randall Cobb. Vikings safety Harrison Smith was there to pick it off.
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It was Rodgers’ first interception in a division game since the 2019 season finale, snapping a streak of 384 passes against NFC North opponents without an interception. (He had thrown 38 touchdown passes against division foes in that span.)
“I’ve always held myself to a standard of taking care of the football and that wasn’t good enough Sunday,” Rodgers said.
Then, on the first series after halftime, a protection breakdown sent Rodgers into scramble mode on a play-action pass and, by holding the ball too long, he was smushed by a trio of Vikings and lost the ball inside his 35.
The Vikings recovered.
That was the kind of sloppiness that might force Rodgers to keep a large bottle of Advil on the sideline.
“If we just block it the way we know we’re supposed to block it, there’s going to be an opportunity to take a shot downfield,” Rodgers said. “We don’t (block it). I’ve got to move. I should throw it away. I don’t. I fumble. They get the ball back, get three points. That’s one example. There were probably three or four others.”
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Those are examples the Bears should be tuned in to. To pull off the upset, they will have to force Rodgers into at least one game-changing mistake.
Rodgers knows as much and continues pushing himself and teammates to make needed corrections in practice. But then: “Can we make the right adjustments in the moment?” he said.
At this point, Rodgers emphasized, Packers players have to develop a propensity to “think quickly but have a slow mind.” He has urged them to play fast but under control. He has publicly stated that his worry about the offensive struggles is currently low.
But there are ways for the Bears to elevate it in a September game that has a chance to be tone-setting for both teams.
Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson has noticed, albeit in a one-game video package, that the 2022 Packers offense doesn’t look quite as in sync as he’s used to seeing. That, in turn, has provided glimpses of Rodgers appearing just a bit unsettled.
“You can just tell he’s not as comfortable as he’s been in the previous years,” Johnson said Thursday.
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Without Adams, who scored 19 touchdowns the last two seasons, Rodgers doesn’t have the built-in big-play weapon he is used to relying on.
“His comfort is no longer there,” he said. “He’s still trying to find (someone new).”
Still, just as his defensive coordinator suggested, Johnson resisted the lure of the Kool-Aid jug, too sharp to diagnose gloom and doom in Green Bay.
Rodgers, after all, is still Rodgers.
“At the end of the day he is who he is,” Johnson said. “He is one of the greats. And he’s going to figure out a way. I feel like those guys are only going to get better.”
The task for the Bears is delaying that improvement for at least one more week.
