[ad_1]
Plays like this one might not be as easy as usual for Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers to come back from thanks to an early-season knee injury. (Mike Roemer/Associated Press)
From the moment that Aaron Rodgers left the field on a cart on opening night, the Green Bay Packers’ season has been all about the sturdiness of their quarterback’s injured left knee.
He returned to the field that night to orchestrate a memorable comeback victory over the Chicago Bears. Since then, he has limped at times. He has grimaced. He has played with a knee brace.
He has not always resembled his usual, otherworldly self, capable of single-handedly compensating for all of his team’s deficiencies and elevating them to the status of Super Bowl contender by his mere presence and ceaseless excellence. But he has gotten the job done, putting up superb numbers and keeping Green Bay’s season filled with possibilities.
Now, it might be time to figure out just how sound that knee is and just how good this season’s version of the Packers can be. Rodgers is coming off a bye week that gave his knee some badly needed rest. And he and the Packers return to face a highly demanding schedule, with road games Sunday in Los Angeles against the unbeaten Rams and then a week later at New England.
[L.A. is not an NFL town. Can the undefeated Rams turn it into one?]
The rest of the pre-December schedule includes a home game against the Miami Dolphins and then another difficult two-game road trip, with games at Seattle and Minnesota.
“We’re gonna have to play better,” Rodgers said when he spoke to reporters this week. “We’re gonna have to play a lot better than we have to win those games. This is an important stretch in our season. I’m not gonna say it’s gonna define our season. But it’s definitely gonna shake things out when we get on the other side of this and get back home in six weeks, on where we’re at in the race and what we’re playing for.”
The Packers, with a record of 3-2-1, trail the Vikings by a half-game in the NFC North. It has been rare this season to see the Packers resemble a viable challenger to powerhouse teams such as the Rams and New Orleans Saints for NFC supremacy. But the games against the Rams and Patriots, in particular, give them a chance to demonstrate that they belong among the league’s heavyweights this season.
Rodgers said this week he would “love to” play without his knee brace now that the bye is done, but added that it was “too early to tell” if that actually would happen.
“If I’m completely healed, I don’t need to wear a brace,” Rodgers said. “I’d feel more comfortable without it, obviously. Having dealt with a knee injury for much of my football life, obviously you’re more protected. You’ve seen some guys do wear it all the time without having issues. But I just feel more comfortable without it on. So if it’s not on, that means I’m feeling great. And if it is, that means I’m just not quite all the way back.”
It’s not that Rodgers has struggled — he hasn’t. He has played quite well, in fact, with 12 touchdown passes, one interception and a passer rating of 100.1 through six games. He did it again in the Packers’ final game before the bye, engineering another four-quarter comeback to beat the San Francisco 49ers on “Monday Night Football.”
But Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young, an NFL analyst for ESPN, said that night it was obvious to him that Rodgers was not quite himself, unable to move around as he’d like or plant his left leg and drive through his throws with his customary force. There has been a sense all season that Rodgers, while playing well, has not been quite as good as he could be given the limitations put on him by his ailing knee.
It is a season in which quarterbacks all around the league are doing dazzling, record-setting things. Just think what Rodgers could be doing if he were at his best.
Perhaps the time off during the bye will allow that. The Packers could get wide receivers Randall Cobb and Geronimo Allison back from injuries. But, mostly, it will be all about Rodgers, just as it usually is for the Packers.
“It was great,” Rodgers said. “The bye came at a good time. Obviously it was a little different because we played Monday night instead of a regular, say, Sunday noon game. It was a different type of schedule. But it was a great week, nice and relaxing. Everything that we’re dealing with, the knee isn’t an issue. But we have other bumps and bruises that aren’t on the injury report because they’re not significant enough. It helps, the week, healing those things up.”
Read more on the NFL:
NFL trade deadline news and rumors: Giants send Damon ‘Snacks’ Harrison to the Lions
The NFL’s trade deadline didn’t used to be a thing. Now it is.
In unprecedented midseason move, NFL fires official who missed key false start
[ad_2]
Source link
