![]() The pass travels through the receiver’s grasp as Valdes-Scantling fails to finish the play, which was marked as a missed 69-yard touchdown opportunity.Ģ019 Play No. 1: Rodgers’ pass travels 51 yards past the line of scrimmage to Marquez Valdes-Scantling between the hashes and behind the Chicago Bears’ secondary with 11:25 left in the first quarter of a Week 15 game at Green Bay. I’ve added in comments from coaches with a few screenshots from the NFL’s all-22 video.Ģ019 Play No. We now have numbers.īelow we run through the five highest-yardage missed opportunities from the 2019 season to provide a feel for the types of plays involved. Unknown was what those differences looked like statistically. Most knew there was little comparison between the polished pass catchers Rodgers played with into the mid-2010s and the less gifted, increasingly anonymous ones he has targeted more recently. The table below lays out these differences in missed opportunities on catchable balls, bridging the gap between Rodgers’ diminished statistics and his continued Tier 1 status within the league. ![]() Relative to the 2014 season, Rodgers’ supporting cast in 2019 left on the field nearly double the yardage (1,281 to 744), nearly double the explosive gains (34 to 18) and nearly double the touchdowns (15 to eight). The goal was to see whether the 2019 Packers suffered from an unusually high number of missed opportunities on catchable balls. With some guidance from NFL coaches, first in meetings at the Senior Bowl and combine, then in Zoom sessions during the pandemic, I systematically compared 2014 MVP Rodgers to the 2019 version by charting every incomplete pass across both seasons. Has Rodgers declined, or has a diminished supporting cast pulled his statistics down in line with those for mere mortals at the position, misleading the statistically reliant? So, there is at least some acknowledgement that something isn’t the same for Rodgers. Yet, there were four Tier 2 votes for Rodgers in 2020, which was up from two in 2019, which was up from zero in 2018. League insiders see a quarterback who still makes the spectacular play, still directs the two-minute offense with panache and still would upgrade almost any team. Yet, even as Rodgers’ numbers have eroded, prompting charges that Rodgers is no longer elite, coaches and evaluators voting in my annual Quarterback Tiers project have placed the future Hall of Famer in the top tier on 149 of 155 ballots (96 percent) over the past three years. The past three years in particular have seen Rodgers fall from the statistical mountaintop. Name the stat, and Rodgers probably has not been setting the pace as he once did routinely. The two-time MVP finished 2019 ranked 20th in Total QBR, 17th in yards per attempt, 14th in expected points added per attempt, 12th in passer rating, etc. “I’ve been through injuries in this league and I see a guy who put so much into the game, just for it to happen like that, the game cheats you sometimes.Rodgers’ stats are also out of balance. “Just being here with him the time that I was, it just breaks my heart for him,” Cook said. He also was looking forward to taking handoffs in games from Rodgers. Running back Dalvin Cook signed with the Jets during training camp in large part because of Rodgers being in New York. And just having his presence, his thoughts, his words and his leadership, I think anybody would want that.” ![]() “But his presence, his words, his verbiage, like I’ve said, he’s as much a football coach as he is a player. “It’s important for him, his mental health and healing,” Saleh said. Now, Rodgers won’t be able to contribute on the field the rest of this season, but the Jets hope he’ll still help the team end its postseason drought by staying connected to his teammates and coaches. His trade to New York from Green Bay in April raised expectations for a franchise that hasn’t made the playoffs in 12 years, to the point there were high hopes for a run at a Super Bowl.
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