It only took three years for public opinion of Aaron Rodgers to shift from back-to-back league MVPs to washed-up castaway who was a locker room hazard. All the media wanted to talk about was how many issues Rodgers might cause the Pittsburgh Steelers if they signed him.
They spoke of power struggles between Rodgers and the coaching staff, and particularly questioned his ability to adopt Arthur Smith’s offense without trying to completely make it his own. Rodgers may be demanding of his players on the field, but have we seen or heard of one bad exchange between Rodgers and the coaching staff?
Even if he was willing to learn the offense, many questioned if it was too late to teach an old dog new tricks. Six games in, Rodgers hasn’t only adopted Smith’s offense, he’s flourishing in it.
When I gave my stat prediction for Rodgers on The Terrible Podcast prior to the start of the season, I was called overly optimistic for projecting 30 TD passes. He is casually on pace to beat that by 10 and log his most in a single season since 2020. That would tie his second most since 2011. It’s hard to overstate how impressive that is in context of his first-ballot Hall of Fame career. It’s an accomplishment that wouldn’t be possible without a great working relationship with Smith.
There were hints along the way that the QB-OC relationship would work better than expected. ESPN’s Kevin Clark revealed that Rodgers spent time studying Smith’s offense designed for Ryan Tannehill. And Smith was a position coach under Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur for a year in Tennessee immediately before those Tannehill seasons.
Rodgers, of course, has freedom to do things at the line of scrimmage, but make no mistake about it: he is very much operating an Arthur Smith offense. That’s been increasingly evident since Week 4 when the Steelers started to run jumbo-package formations with extra tight ends and tackle eligibles on the field.
That shift is typically a hard commitment to the run game, but Rodgers has an adjusted net yards per passing attempt (ANY/A) of over 7.0 and as high as 9.17 in the three games since. Other than his two most recent MVP seasons in 2020 and 2021, Rodgers has his highest ANY/A figure since 2016. He has quite emphatically turned back the clock a decade with his play.
Arthur Smith deserves credit for being flexible and setting up Aaron Rodgers with all the tools he needs to succeed. But most of all, Rodgers deserves more credit than he’s getting for picking it up and excelling within it. No drama, no power struggles, no passive-aggressive media jabs.
Just a veteran quarterback committing to a system and playing some of his best football in years.
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