Aaron Rodgers and the Season of Blah
A C ertain Point of V iew
Since Neal was not brave enough to take on the arduous task of overviewing the Green Bay Packers’ 2022-23 season, I suppose that responsibility now falls to me. With a couple days to reflect on past few months of Wisconsin football, I’m left with a resounding feeling of...meh.
Going into Sunday night’s game against the Lions, I tapped into the mental state of “meh” that I had needed to adopt to make it through this NFL season. Keep expectations in check, be happy if they somehow pull out the win, but don’t be surprised if they don’t.
It was a defense mechanism that I’ve only needed to use a couple times in the history of my Packer fandom and only when someone other than Aaron Rodgers was at the helm of the offense prior to this season. Even in the final seasons of Mike McCarthy’s tenure, when things weren’t going well, there was still a thought of, “well we have Aaron Rodgers at quarterback, so maybe this will be the game where we finally turn things around.”
But this season was different. The Rodgers magic had largely dissipated, the feeling that he could gunsling us out of any situation practically nonexistent. It didn’t just disappear instantaneously, but rather eroded slowly as the losses to the Giants, Jets, and the Commanders started to pile up. Frustration at losing to these seemingly not great teams transitioned to a different realization, one that I don’t know if I’ve ever had to accept with number 12 behind center. Following the 23-21 loss to the Commanders, it became a real consideration: maybe the Green Bay Packers were just a bad football team.
Luckily, many years as a Brewers fan had prepared me for such a day. Once realization sank in, I fell back into the zen mode of “meh” when Sunday afternoon rolled around.
Another loss to the Bills? Expected. Scoring nine points against the Lions? Oh well. Making Ryan Tannehill look like the second coming of Joe Montana? Eh, it happens. As each loss piled up, feelings of frustration were replaced with those of inevitable “meh.”
Even as late season wins started to come in, I had to keep each victory in perspective. Was it fun to watch them defeat the Cowboys? Definitely. Did I enjoy the totally dismantling of the Vikings? Of course. But the fact remained that the Packers were probably not a good football team, so each game needed to be entered with extreme caution. Even as Green Bay went on their late season run, expectations were kept low. Better to be pleasantly surprised than expect too much.
And as the Lions game went as it felt like it would, I couldn’t help but smile and shake my head. All of the problems that had plagued the Packers throughout their season cropped up in Sunday’s loss; an inability to score touchdowns in the redzone, weird calls on short yardage third and fourth down plays, turnovers at the most inopportune of times, the defense failing to get any pressure on the quarterback and playing predictable off zone coverage so that they can get picked apart on third down. It was a microcosm of why the Packers had failed to live up to preseason expectations and it left me with a perfect, overwhelming sense of “meh.”
What does the future look like for Cheeseheads? I really don’t know. Much seems to be in flux, and while there are some reasons for optimism (see, Christian Watson, Keisean Nixon, Aaron Jones when he isn’t fumbling), there are just as many for caution.
Final thought; did Aaron throw that interception at the end of the game so that he wouldn’t have to lose to the 49ers in the playoffs for the hundredth time? I mean, realistically, no, of course not. But still, one does wonder...eh, probably best to just let this season lie. Spring training is coming and the Brewers have Wade Miley now! That’s... that’s good right?
Sigh. Help us Giannis, you’re Wisconsin sports’ only hope.
