Green Bay Falls 23-7 as Aaron Rodgers Fails to Connect with Rookie Receivers

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Photo by Evan Siegle - packers.com

Romeo Doubs Sept. 11, 2022

Romeo Doubs - Sept. 11, 2022

Green Bay suffered an embarrassing loss in Week One for the second consecutive year, managing only a single touchdown, and failing to cover Minnesota’s best player on numerous occasions. The Packers have a conservative philosophy about playing starters in the preseason, but it’s now abundantly clear that it actively hurts them in the opening week, as their failures in this game were the result of starters not being on the same page, and a lack of familiarity with newer members of the team.

To that end, Aaron Rodgers deserves the lions’ share of the blame for this loss, as his punitive attitude towards rookie wide receivers Christian Watson and Romeo Doubs for mistakes early in the game effectively robbed the team of their big play threats. On the first play of the game, Matt LaFleur called a shot play for Christian Watson down the right sideline. Watson put an outstanding move on veteran corner Patrick Peterson and flew by him as if he was standing still. Rodgers delivered a perfect pass which Watson, unfortunately, dropped. Watson’s hands were not a huge problem in college, as he had just 3 drops over 58 targets in his final season, while catching 74% of total targets, but they also weren’t a strength, as his catch radius is small for such a lanky player.

The play would have gone for an easy 75-yard touchdown, and Rodgers was visibly frustrated. A few plays later on 3^rd and 7 at the Green Bay 38, Rodgers targeted rookie Romeo Doubs, who broke inside while Rodgers delivered the ball outside. Doubs was frozen out for the duration of the first half as the offense went run-heavy, while the passing game devolved into a series of checkdowns to the running backs. While Watson did contribute on a jet sweep in the second quarter, he wasn’t targeted again in the passing game until there were under 4 minutes remaining in the game.

Rodgers famously needs to trust his receivers and is often slow to incorporate rookies into the game, but without Allen Lazard, that philosophy in indefensible. This is especially true against the Vikings, who are content to sit in a Cover-2 shell and allow you to complete passes underneath all day. The proper way to attack the Vikings is to challenge them deep repeatedly, putting pressure on their slower corners, and forcing safeties Harrison Smith and Camryn Bynum out of position. The problem in freezing out Doubs and Watson for any length of time is that it robs you of your only credible deep threats. Sammy Watkins was once a field stretcher but be now looks to be quite a bit slower. Randall Cobb can occasionally surprise a secondary downfield, but he’s not a primary field stretcher, and when Aaron Rodgers foolishly tried to force a ball deep to him, it resulted in an interception.

Rodgers may have a personal philosophy of restricting targets to receivers who disappoint him, but that philosophy routinely hurts the Packers, and it’s time he took some heat for it. Rodgers’ job is, fundamentally, to deliver the ball to open receivers. When he plays favorites and punishes younger players, he does a disservice to the team, both in terms of offensive philosophy, and development. Anyone who has ever served in a managerial role understands that new employees will make mistakes and occasionally fail. It’s a manager’s job to work on those issues and ensure that new employees learn and improve, and to do that, one needs to continue to provide them with opportunities. Rodgers isn’t a manager, and it’s not his job to fix Christian Watson’s hands, but it is his job to continue to provide opportunity to his young receivers, even if his accuracy numbers take a small hit.

Ideally, this would occur in the preseason, especially given how important Doubs and Watson are to the future of the team, but if the Packers are unwilling to risk their veterans, including Rodgers, when it doesn’t matter, they need to be able to get over mistakes quickly when it does matter.

There were some compounding factors, including a banged-up offensive line that did not allow Rodgers much time. Guard Jake Hanson received a comically low Pro Football Focus grade of 14.4 (out of 100) for his pass blocking, while Royce Newman, and rookie Zach Tom also struggled. All of that said, Rodgers now has a well-established habit of picking his favorites over what’s best for the team. When that favorite is Davante Adams, it’s not such a big deal. When it’s Randall Cobb, or the running backs, it quickly becomes one. Allen Lazard isn’t likely to return for several weeks, and if they continue to deny reps to their most promising receivers, those receivers will fail to develop, and the offense will continue to struggle.

Defense

Green Bay boasts three above average corners, including the outstanding Jaire Alexander. Unfortunately, Alexander only matched with Minnesota’s Justin Jefferson, one of the league’s truly elite receivers, a single time, drawing an offensive pass interference penalty. That statistic is huge indictment of defensive coordinator Joe Barry’s game plan, as he chose to stay in zone for essentially the entire game. Zone isn’t always a bad idea, but with a superior talent like Jefferson on the other side, staying in zone allows the Vikings to dictate who will be defending him, whereas man coverage (or a hybrid) allows the Packers to dictate the matchup. Vikings’ Head Coach Kevin O’Connell did an outstanding job getting Jefferson singled up on safeties, on inside linebacker Quay Walker, and even on Preston Smith for a snap. Jefferson won all of his battles without issue, and even if the original plan was to stay in zone, failing to shift to a scheme where Alexander could shadow Jefferson at some point was malpractice.

The Packers, more than anything, suffered from inflexibility in this game. Aaron Rodgers’ ego did not allow him to get past some mistakes by his young players. Joe Barry’s ego did not allow him to adjust his scheme to address its weaknesses.

The Vikings had no such issues, and they won because of it.