The Steelers spent the early part of the season leaning on Aaron Rodgers and the offense while the defense struggled. Lately, the script has flipped. Against the Los Angeles Chargers tonight, Rodgers had his worst game of the year.
The stat line wasn’t pretty. He completed 16 of 31 pass attempts for 161 yards, one TD, two interceptions, and took three sacks for a passer rating of 50.6.
He salvaged some of his stats at the end of the game, but his six completions, 65 yards, and a touchdown came in garbage time, with the Chargers playing a soft prevent defense.
In fact, several of his passing statistics were among the worst of his entire 21-year career. Look at this stat from the final minutes of tonight’s broadcast on NBC, before the garbage time touchdown drive.
He also had two interceptions against the Seattle Seahawks and Green Bay Packers this year, but this performance stood out as the worst of the bunch.
There were big plays to be made, but Rodgers was uncharacteristically inaccurate. Let’s look back at some of his worst moments of the night.
His inaccuracy started early on with the second (of many) missed third downs tonight. He had DK Metcalf behind the defense for a would-be touchdown, and it sailed too far. It would have been a hard throw on the move, but one he usually makes.
It’s often hard to tell on the TV angle, but it sure looked like Rodgers was high on this interception intended for DK Metcalf. It sailed right over him and into the hands of R.J. Mickens.
It was a similar story with Jonnu Smith’s catch, which was overturned on a challenge as incomplete. He was wide open, and Rodgers placed the ball too high. Smith had to jump and fully extend to get two hands on it, which ultimately led to the ball falling incomplete.
In addition to his accuracy issues, he did not have his best game maneuvering in the pocket. He drifted back into the safety here.
Of the three sacks Rodgers took, an argument could be made for all of them that he either stepped up or drifted back into the sack. That contributed to the Steelers’ putrid day on third down, and a season-low ten points on offense.
Bad games happen. It’s not necessarily the beginning of the end for Rodgers and the offense, but they’ve been sluggish for three consecutive games now. Without the six turnovers forced by Pittsburgh’s defense and special teams against the Colts, the dam eventually broke. The offense couldn’t give them a break, and the Chargers finally broke the game open late.
Buckle up for an interesting week of Rodgers commentary from all the talking heads on television. Unfortunately, he deserves it in this case.
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