I swear, this is starting to remind me more and more of the end of the Favre era with every passing week. How vividly I remember that as Favre increasingly became a liability to the team, there was a contingent of fans who became increasingly shrill and strident in their insistence on blaming everyone but Favre for the team's problems—to the point that some of them (not to name names
cough4PackGirlcough) effectively swore off the team after they finally moved on from Favre. It was embarrassing.
Those of you who persist in blaming this team's offensive inconsistency on miscommunication, think about what you're really saying. You're practically accusing an entire professional receiving corps of being such a bunch of retards that they can't master the terminology in LaFleur's playbook even after an
entire season in his system. Either that, or you're saying Aaron Rodgers is such a piss-poor communicator that he still can't figure out how to successfully relay the playcalls this deep into the season. Yet week after week we see other teams accomplishing more with less.
Occam's Razor, people. Which is more probable: that the entire complement of Green Bay skill players consists of inept, low-IQ castoffs—or that one formerly other-worldly player is struggling, physically and mentally, to adjust to the decline of his skills and abilities as he ages in the wake of a series of season-ending injuries? For far too many years, Rodgers was forced to be The Man in Green Bay, and he developed a lot of bad habits into which we see him frequently relapse when the chips are down.
Moreover, assuming there really is an ongoing problem with miscommunication, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if a lot of those apparent communication miscues are caused by Rodgers' incessant last-second audibles and adjustments to disguised coverages. Maybe if he played a more up-tempo style and forced defenses to show their hands earlier, he wouldn't have to change so many plays at the line of scrimmage and his receivers would know where they were supposed to be. If rookie and third-string quarterbacks on other teams can figure out how to get on the same page as receivers they've hardly worked with, there's no reason to keep giving a supposedly elite quarterback like Aaron Rodgers a pass for his ongoing inability to adapt to changing realities.
In any case, it's obvious to me that this year LaFleur made the decision to compromise with Rodgers and run a hybrid system that featured a framework of his scheme combined with elements of Rodgers' preferred style. It's equally obvious which set of plays was more consistently successful. I'm hoping the LaFleur will put his foot down next year and run a purer version of his scheme, Rodgers' feelings on the matter be damned. Rodgers can get with the program or he can ride the pine for all I care. He claims he wants to play into his forties. Well, then he needs to start
playing like a quarterback who wants to play into his forties, and the first step is to stop taking so many hits. Say what you want about Tom Brady, there's a reason he's lasted so long in this league.