DETROIT -The Detroit Red Wings didn’t need Aaron Rodgers long to sum his performance.
The first thing that the Green Bay Packers quarterback said following Sunday’s ugly 15-9 defeat against the Detroit Lions at Ford Field was said without hesitation.
“I had some s—ty throws, for sure,” Rodgers declared, speaking of his season-high of three interceptions.
It took him much longer to find an argument that for his team to make a comeback from a season, which is now marred by five consecutive losses, including the one on Sunday against an opponent who had previously won once and allowed the league’s highest 32.1 scoring per match.
Thirteen seconds of thought followed his decision.
“I’ve been counted out many times in my life as have many of my teammates, and I hope we just dig deep and find a way,” Rodgers stated. “We will truly be underdogs for many games moving forward. Hopefully we can embrace that. We have two games at home. We’ve got to go win those two games in a week, and then this thing looks a little different.”
Rodgers was talking about next Sunday’s game against Dallas Cowboys and the following Thursday, when The Tennessee Titans. The game will be played against the undefeated Philadelphia Eagles to follow, and the Packers will play their next three opponents. are all 19-4.
In the same way that the Packers have played in the past, Rodgers went on to an all-time low in his game with the Lions. The three interceptions he threw came within the Lions 25-yard line and two of them were in Red Zone. He’d never had the red zone with two interceptions prior to the game on Sunday.
“Credit to Detroit, they dared us to throw the football,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur spoke of red zone plays. “We’ve got to do something different, obviously, because we’re not throwing and catching to the level that is conducive to winning football.”
The fact that the team dared Rodgers to take on it by using his arm says a lot about the Packers offensive.
The first interception was thrown through the helmet Lions linebacker Derrick Barnes. The ball bounced off into the safety’s hands Kerby Joseph. He was the recipient of Rodgers his three interceptions of the contest when the quarterback threw a pass over into the middle towards the tight end Robert Tonyan. Between them, Rodgers botched a tackle-eligible play for right tackle David Bakhtiari after he threw the ball away from the lineman and Lions defensive lineman Aidan Hutchinson picked it off in the end zone.
“I played s—ty, but I never gave up,” Rodgers declared.
“We moved the ball well in the first half, and I threw a couple picks in the end zone, took points off the board,” said the player. “That, obviously, came back to hurt us down the stretch.”
Rodgers suffered two receivers injuries (Romeo Doubs, an ankle along with Christian Watson, evaluated for concussion) and running back Aaron Jones (ankle) during the game, and was not playing without Randall Cobb. He only completed the receivers on 10 out of 23 in Sunday’s game, with the 43.5 percent clip being the worst he’s seen in the first week of the 2019. This has been the case through the five-game losing streak that he’s completed 51% passes to wide receivers, as opposed to 74% in the Packers three-game winning streak.
“If you come out and you execute to the best of your ability as a team and you just fall short because the other team made more plays, you can live with that, right?” Packers tight end Marcedes Lewis said. “But if you come out and you leave points on the field and the opportunity is squandered, what else can you say about that? Like I said before, this league is unforgiving. It will humble you quick, and the margin for error is small. Today, we didn’t make enough plays, and that’s the result.”
On several occasions during the game on Sunday Rodgers got angry in the middle or immediately after an offensive failure.
“I’m sure he’s extremely frustrated, as we all are,” LaFleur told reporters. “I don’t think we’ve been in this [situation]. I know in my time here, we haven’t been in this situation. And I don’t think he’s been in this situation too many times in his career, obviously. It’s disappointing and frustrating. But, yeah, I think that we all probably need to do a little bit better job of controlling that frustration.”
As vocal in his performance as Rodgers is, he’s denied the team is unhappy and stated that it’s not his wish that to have retired in the offseason, even though he’s admitted to having thought about it.
“I think that’s an exaggeration,” Rodgers declared. “Frustration and miserability are two different emotions. So, when I decided to come back, it was all-in, and I don’t make decisions and then hindsight 20/20 have regrets about big decisions like that. So, I was all-in, and this is a lot of life lessons, for sure, this year, but luckily it’s not over. There’s still a lot of games left. We’ll be counted out, probably by many, and we’ll see how we respond.”
