JACKSONVILLE, Florida – This is not a statistical line you see of Aaron Rodgers every day: 15 of 28 going through 133 yards without touchdowns and two interceptions.
Nor is it a statement you hear every day: “I played badly.”
And none of the Green Bay Packers saw it coming.
Coming out of his second straight 13-game winning streak, a second straight appearance in the NFC championship game and with Rodgers behind after his season of discontent – and seemingly fit during intense training – the NFL regent MVP and his team leaned out of the regular season opener against host New Orleans Saints without fighting much in a 38-3 loss on Sunday.
The 35-point loss the Packers suffered is the worst in the first season of a team that played the AFC or NFC Championship the previous season.
“They came ready to play; today they have made us absolutely ashamed,” said Packers coach Matt LaFleur, who also described the loss as humiliating.
Rodgers had a slightly different view.
“I’ll let you use those words and use them, it’s just a game,” Rodgers said. “We played badly. I played badly. Offensively we didn’t run very well. One game. We have 16 to finish.”
Rodgers used the line “We-played-bad-I-played-bad” twice during his postgame comments.
With his entire collection of players in a position of skill, plus a meeting he started with receiver Randall Cobb, Rodgers didn’t even see the goal. He came out with 10:46 remaining in the game and a score of 36.8 passes, giving way to Jordan Love’s first NFL regular season action.
And it wasn’t as if Rodgers hadn’t had time to throw himself behind an offensive line that featured two rookie starters (center Josh Myers and right guard Royce Newman) plus his left guard (Elgton Jenkins) replacing him. All-Pro left-back David Bakhtiari (who will miss at least the first six games while recovering ACL surgery).
Rodgers completed just 4 of 15 passes when he had more than 2.5 seconds to throw. Both of his interceptions came with at least as much time, that of the red zone when a touchdown would have turned into a 17-10 game, and it was his worst completion percentage in those pitches since at least 2016. , when the NFL Next-generation stats began tracking.
Rodgers ruled out the absence of preseason play time as a reason for the performance, and no one even argued with him about skipping the entire low-season program. But I wouldn’t discount the fact that the Packers got into this site-neutral game, which included at least half of the Packers fans among TIAA Bank Field’s 35,242, overconfident and unprepared.
“I think there’s probably some of that,” Rodgers said. “We probably felt like we were going up and down the field with whoever they had out there and that was obviously not the case today. Dono [Saints defensive coordinator] Dennis Allen has a lot of merit. I think I’ve always thought it’s a good defense. They had a good plan. It was about playing two shells and braking us with the front. They did very well. “
Both Rodgers and LaFleur said the opposite of this defensive aspect is the running game, even though their running backs were only carried 14 times (including only five for 14 yards by Aaron Jones).
“We didn’t run the ball; we didn’t even try to run the ball enough,” LaFleur said. “So it’s my fault.”
In the end, it fell like the worst loss of Rodgers ’career as a starter, regular season or playoffs, and the third time the Packers scored three or fewer points in one of their starts. It was also just his third career game with no touchdown passes and multiple interceptions.
All this against a team that beat 37-30 last season without their No. 1 receiver Davante Adams, who on Sunday got five maximum catches for 56 yards.
What happened in the first half of the season could have been a shock, but for Rodgers it was easier to get than if he went down the road.
“I think it’s easier,” he said. “We came out of a couple of NFC championship games and obviously we feel good with the drive we have on offense. … So that’s a good kick in what you know. Hopefully we’re going in the right direction. return home and play a division rival [Detroit] next week. “