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[Sport]Aaron Rodgers stank in the Packers’ capitulation. And the conspiracy theories started


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Aaron Rodgers had one of the worst games of his career on Sunday

 

The quarterback’s rift with Green Bay has been well documented. And he’s enough of an oddball to spark wild stories he most important thing about the first game of the NFL season is to never read too much into it. This is particularly true this year, after the league added an extra game to the schedule. There’s no guarantee that anything, barring a major injury, that happens on a Sunday in early September will be relevant by the time the postseason starts. So, it’s possible that the New Orleans Saints’ Week 1 win over the Green Bay Packers will be all but forgotten by January.
Still, it was a strange game. Last year, one of these two starting quarterbacks was the MVP while the other played just four games. Yet, there was Aaron Rodgers being benched after throwing two interceptions while Jameis Winston threw five touchdowns in a 38-3 romp for the Saints.In a vacuum, the Packers’ loss could just be one of those fluky Week 1 things. A statistical aberration perhaps or maybe a perfect example of one defense doing nearly everything right and another doing everything wrong. Yet the players are not nameless cogs in a machine, and there are outside factors at play.Famously, there is a disconnect between the Packers and their star quarterback. After reportedly asking the team to trade him during the offseason, Green Bay and Rodgers have come to an uneasy truce. Now, in the first game since that drama, Rodgers put together one of his worst games as a Packer, putting up a dreadful 36.8 passer rating.The reaction was swift. By the time the Packers benched Rodgers for Jordan Love, “Jeopardy!” was trending on Twitter. In other words, people were wondering if there was still time for Rodgers to retire and take up the reins on the game show, which he guest hosted during the offseason. Others speculated if his performance, in fact, was an act of quiet protest. Was Rodgers pulling an Office Space, by attempting to sabotage his unloved bosses with a subpar effort? These questions are absurd, but Rodgers is enough of a singular oddball that you can understand why they are raised, even if it’s in jest. Besides players try to force trades. The best case you can make against the idea is that it feels counter-productive for Rodgers to tank his trade value if he legitimately does want a change of scenery. If he keeps playing like this, teams will conclude he’s either not right or he’s not giving the Packers his best effort. Either option could make teams less eager to trade for him, despite Rodgers’s stellar history in the league.It’s a story that Rodgers can quickly end with a bounce-back performance against the Detroit Lions in Week 2. And, as the man himself put it, the reason behind his performance is probably the most obvious and banal option: he just wasn’t very good on the day. “We played bad. I played bad. Offensively we didn’t execute very well. One game. We’ve got 16 to go,” Rodgers said after the game. If, however, Rodgers manages to lay an egg against the Lions, one of the worst teams in the league … well, we’ve already listed the reasons why the story will not go away.

 

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