The Green Bay Packers knew pretty quickly after handing the keys to the franchise over to Aaron Rodgers in 2008 that they had their long-term answer at quarterback. They wouldn’t have shipped franchise icon and future Hall of Famer Brett Favre out of town without a hunch that their former first-round pick had what it took to lead the team into the next decade-plus of Super Bowl contention.
Still, I don’t think anyone realized they would hit the jackpot and roll out their second consecutive Hall of Fame quarterback.
The Packers finished 6-10 in Rodgers’s first year as a starter in 2008. They missed the playoffs after a heartbreaking NFC championship loss the season before with Favre. Despite their disappointing record, Rodgers finished with a 93.8 passer rating with 4,038 yards and 28 touchdowns, and Green Bay rewarded him with a six-year, $65 million contract.
Sure enough, Rodgers and the Packers had an 11-5 record in 2009 and earned a Wild Card berth. Rodgers threw for 4,400 yards and 30 touchdowns, and Green Bay’s offense finished in the top 10 that season. However, in that 2009 Wild Card game, Rodgers’ first time on the postseason stage, that elevated Rodgers to the next level of stardom.
January 10, 2010, will go down in the NFL playoff history books. The Packers and the Arizona Cardinals went into overtime to slug it out in the highest-scoring playoff game of all time. The NFC West champion Cardinals edged the fifth-seeded Wild Card Green Bay Packers with a defensive touchdown in overtime (on a missed face mask, I might add). Still, Rodgers had an outstanding performance against the defending NFC champions and future Hall of Famer Kurt Warner.
Warner and the Cardinals dominated the Packers early, jumping out to a 17-0 lead. They quickly showed the Packers and their young quarterback they weren’t quite ready to compete against the league’s best teams. The Cardinals led 24-10 at halftime after Green Bay’s costly turnovers, including a Rodgers interception to Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and a Donald Driver fumble.
In the second half, the Packers relied heavily on Rodgers and the passing game to get them back into the contest — an 80-yard, eight-play sequence capped off by a Rodgers 30-yard touchdown pass to James Jones. Rodgers also had completions of 38 yards and 28 yards to Jermichael Finley and Donald Driver to set up a one-yard John Kuhn touchdown run, which helped the Packers tie the game at 38-38.
Rodgers never backed down from the challenge of Arizona’s high-powered offense.
Tied 45-45 in the final seconds, Cardinals kicker Neil Rackers sailed a 34-yard kick wide left that would have won the game. Instead, the Packers held on to force overtime. Unfortunately, overtime didn’t turn out the way Green Bay would have hoped.
On the first play from scrimmage, Rodgers barely overthrew an open Greg Jennings on what would have been a walk-in touchdown. Instead, the next play was the infamous missed face-mask, which forced a Rodgers fumble into Karlos Dansby’s waiting arms, who strolled in for the winning score.
Deflated and dejected as Green Bay was, they would use this game as fuel to go on what would be one of the greatest postseason runs next season through countless injuries and becoming one of the only No. 6 seeds to win the Super Bowl.
The offensive output from this game set records. The 96 combined points, 13 combined touchdowns, and 62 combined first downs set the NFL playoff record at the time. The 1,024 combined total yards was the third most in NFL playoff history. Rodgers and the Packers also set numerous team records that January day, including most points (45), yards (493), and first downs (32).
Outside of the touchdowns thrown, four for Rodgers and five for Warner, the second-year starter held his own with the future Hall of Famer in every other category. The Rodgers’ stat line that day finished at 28-42 with 423 yards, four touchdowns, one interception, a rushing touchdown, and a 121.4 passer rating. Meanwhile, Warner (who was equally outstanding that day) was 29-33 with 379 yards, five touchdowns, and had a 154.1 passer rating.
A loss is not often used as the catalyst for a team and a player to go on a run to a championship. However, that’s what Rodgers and the Packers did, with most of this team’s roster returning for the 2010 season. The season after his championship in 2010 would be Rodgers’s first of four MVP trophies during the 2011 season. This loss, being the only one in Rodgers’s incredible catalog of his best games ever played, was the springboard to his greatness.