By Pete Dougherty
The Green Bay Packers have to feel better about Aaron Rodgers' future as Brett Favre's successor after watching by far his best game-setting performance Saturday night at Pittsburgh. Rodgers, the 2005 first-round draft choice, is serving the kind of long apprenticeship that quarterbacks often had in the NFL in the days before free agency. His steady growth the past two-plus years took an important step Saturday night with his impressive performance against Pittsburgh's No. 2 defense in the Packers' 13-9 win.
The Packers' coaches and front office have been saying publicly for a couple of years they've seen much to like about Rodgers on the practice field, but until Saturday night, they'd never seen him in a game consistently move the team and make some plays on his own by breaking outside the pocket and finding receivers downfield. He's in his third season with the team, and his growth in that time never was more evident than Saturday night. “I don't know when that day (replacing Favre) is going to come," General Manager Ted Thompson said on Sunday, "but I've always felt good about having Aaron on our team ever since Day 1. I'm sure this (waiting) has been an excruciating experience for him, but it's also been a good one for him." Rodgers played about two quarters Saturday night and finished with a strong passer rating of 95.9 points. He completed 66.7 percent of his passes (18-for-27), threw for 168 yards, had one touchdown pass, another called back by penalty and threw no interceptions.
Most importantly, he led the Packers to 10 points and 15 first downs. On several plays, he scrambled outside the pocket and made accurate throws on the run. Perhaps his most impressive play, when he scrambled and threw back across the field to receiver Ruvell Martin for an apparent 15-yard touchdown, was called back because Martin was an ineligible receiver after stepping out of the back of the end zone while running his route. But Rodgers also had a 20-yard run for a first down, a 17-yard scramble and throw to Martin to convert a third down, and a 21-yard pass to rookie James Jones to convert another third down. "The Aaron I saw out there last night was the Aaron I see day in and day out," Martin said. Some scouts questioned Rodgers' overall athletic ability coming out of college, even though he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.68 seconds at the NFL scouting combine, the same time run by quarterback Alex Smith, who was the top pick overall in that draft. However, Rodgers played in California coach Jeff Tedford's quarterback-friendly offense that emphasized getting throws out quickly and included many quick, short passes and check downs.
"He didn't (scramble) all the time," Thompson said, "but you watched tape (and) you could see he would buy time and run if he needed to. And the way he ran at the combine confirmed his athletic ability." After the game Saturday, Rodgers acknowledged the importance of playing well in a game setting as a way to measure his growth. He struggled in the exhibition season as a rookie, then last year was better though not nearly as impressive as his passer rating of 101.1 points in the exhibition season suggested. He also was only 4-for-12 passing in a blowout loss to New England in the regular season, a game in which he finished playing on a broken foot that sidelined him for the rest of the year.
Saturday night, though, he made plays, moved the team, including leading it to a field goal in a 2-minute drill at the end of the first half, and avoided the big mistake. "(A game) is what counts," Rodgers said Saturday night. "I can have a great camp and a poor performance in the games and that's all people are going to see. So, it's important to perform when the lights are on, when it's live, when I can get hit, when I have to make plays outside the pocket, plays they might blow dead in practice." Rodgers' experience as a backup the last two-plus years showed up on several plays, including a 19-yard pass to Shaun Bodiford on the touchdown drive in the second half. He said on that play, he wanted to hit receiver Chris Francies on a quick slant to his right because no one had lined up over him. But Francies ran a route in the flat, and Rodgers didn't throw it.
"So, I took something I kind of learned from Brett," he said. "I rolled to the right a little bit and kind of stared down the flat knowing my slant (to Bodiford) was coming behind him and was able to look him off and hit Bod behind him." There still are tougher tests ahead for Rodgers, including moving the team against a starting defense. The Steelers, for instance, blitzed heavily against Favre and the starters from their 3-4 scheme and held the Packers' No. 1 offense without a first down in four series. Rodgers and the backups didn't face that kind of disruptive onslaught. "To be honest, I thought they might pressure a little bit more," Rodgers said. "They pressured the first team just about every snap, with us it was more four-man, five-man pressure where, I hate to say more exotic, but they were pressuring with secondary guys and dropping linebacker types underneath and still playing coverage. We were able to pick it up and make the right calls."
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