Who the heck is that guy wearing the No. 12 Green Bay Packers jersey?
It can't be Aaron Rodgers. Is it that look-alike Brit who made a commercial with him? Even that guy might have more success throwing it than Rodgers has had this season and especially the past three games.
The Rodgers-led Packers offense we've come to expect -- the explosive, entertaining and, most importantly, winning offense -- hasn't shown up much in 2015.
This version is a clunky, ugly, laborious offense that isn't rolling up big numbers and didn't win a division title for the first time since 2010. This offense can't run it. The line can't protect. The receivers don't win. And Rodgers is a shell of himself -- or a shell-shocked version of himself.
Rodgers has been sacked 46 times, the second-highest total for any passer, five behind league-leader Blake Bortles. This is stunning for a team that had five returning offensive linemen back from 2014, and have a quarterback in Rodgers who is great escaping the rush and seeing the field.
Rodgers can still move away from pressure, but he's held the ball longer this season in large part because the receivers can't get open. When Rodgers hits the top of his drop, the ball has to be ready get out in the Green Bay system. Most of the time, when he's ready to load, the receivers are plastered. That leads to his dropping his head to take a look at the pressure in front of him, and sometimes it leads to missed chances and him leaving clean pockets.
It's hard to blame him when he's taken a beating like he's taken this season. The line has had its share of injuries, and veteran left tackle David Bakhtiari, who missed the past two weeks, wasn't playing great when he was in the lineup. Right tackle Bryan Bulaga missed four games, and his play is down. And don't even mention backup Don Barclay. The guy is like a turnstile when he plays.
In the past two games, against playoff teams in the Arizona Cardinals and Minnesota Vikings, Rodgers was sacked 13 times, lost three fumbles, two for touchdowns, and was picked off twice.
The Packers have four touchdowns in the past three games. That used to be a game's worth when the offense was rolling.
Despite all the issues, they are still in the playoffs. The go to Washington this week to play the Redskins in an NFC wild-card game. If they are to win there, they need more from this offense, and more from Rodgers.
All year I've been waiting for him to turn it on and get back to being the Rodgers we've come to expect. It just hasn't happened. Even when coach Mike McCarthy took back play-calling duties from Tom Clements, little changed. Sure, there have been moments where they've moved the football, but it just doesn't look right.
Rodgers' completion percentage is 60.7, which is the lowest since he became a starter in 2008. It's nearly three percentage points lower than his number from his first season as a full-time starter. His completion percentage this season ranks him 26th in the league.
His per-attempt number is down to 6.7 yards per throw, which ranks 30th in the league. Since 2009, he's been over 8.0 yards per attempt in every season and was at 9.2 in 2011 and 8.4 last season.
With Rodgers struggling, the offense finished 15th in scoring and 25th overall. Rodgers was 17th in the league in third-down passing. Seventeenth? This guy has been a third-down assassin in his career. In his career, Rodgers had a passer rating of over 100 in five seasons on third down. This season, it was 85.3 with a completion percentage of 51.9 percent.
As a team, the Packers converted 33.65 percent of their third downs this season, ranking 27th in the league, and 24.4 percent the past three weeks. They were at 46.67 percent in 2014.
The biggest issue is that the receivers aren't fast and there is little creativity to help them get open. When Jordy Nelson went down, the Packers lost their best receiver and that led to teams playing a lot of man coverage against the Green Bay receivers and daring them to win.
They've loaded the box to stop the run, which slowed that part of the offense, and nobody can win outside. The Packers have a system that uses mostly isolation routes, which means the receivers have to beat their man coverage with their speed and their ability to run routes, rather than help from a pick or a rub or a bunch formation.
That's all well and good when the line is good and Nelson is on the field, but it hasn't worked this year.
Here's a look at a play from last week's loss to the Vikings that shows the problems the receivers are causing.
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Play: Third-and-8 at the Green Bay 29 with 13:35 left in the second quarterOffense: Posse (3WR, 1TE, 1RB) shotgun, offset backDefense: Nickel, man-free, safety blitz[/list]On this play, as you can see, the Green Bay receivers didn't win. When Rodgers was ready to throw, nobody was open. That allowed blitzing safety Harrison Smith to come off the edge and dump Rodgers.
Part of the problem here is that there are no quick, in-breaking routes to counter the blitz. That gives Smith enough time to come around the corner and dump Rodgers. The routes have to be adjusted for the blitz and the coverage. They were not.
What might help is changing the approach. Rarely do the Packers run crossing routes with picks or rubs or use bunch formations to free a receiver. They used one last week against the Vikings that had a big play written all over it, were it not for a great play by corner Xavier Rhodes.
Here's a look:
What I liked about this was that they used a bunch formation to the right, rather than space their receivers out in isolation routes.
Cobb came out of the bunch on a cross and got a rub from tight end Richard Rodgers from the other side on a cross. That freed him up, and Rodgers hit him with the pass, but Rhodes kept it to a 4-yard gain. What you can see is that if Rhodes doesn't make the play, this has big-gain potential. They need to do more of this.
I went back and watched some of the Green Bay tape from 2014. One of the games I watched was their victory over the eventual Super Bowl-champion Patriots. What I saw was creativity that hasn't been used much this season, but needs to be used in the postseason.
They used Cobb in a variety of ways, including lining him up a bunch in the backfield. That helped create matchup problems for the New England secondary and linebackers. The Packers did it some late last week against the Vikings when they were playing catch up, and it seemed to work as well.
Here's a look at a big play to Cobb in that New England game with him coming out of the backfield.
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Pete Prisco wrote: