Aaron Rodgers: Packers quarterback address poor Week 1 performance

Aaron Rodgers was not ready to call of the whole season after the Packers’ 38-3 loss to New Orleans on Sunday. The reigning NFL MVP was disappointed with his performance, but he wasn’t ready to go as far saying Green Bay was embarrassed, which his Packers coach Matt LaFleur did.

The quarterback was not happy with his performance, though. Rodgers finished the day 15 of 28 for 133 yards, throwing two interceptions as the offense only produced three points. Backup quarterback Jordan Love even played a large part of the fourth quarter.

“I’ll let him use those words and I’ll use, ‘it’s just one game,'” Rodgers said in his postgame press conference. “We played bad. I played bad. Offensively we didn’t execute very well. One game. We’ve got 16 to go.”

The Packers offense never found a rhythm, sputtering throughout the day. The running game only produced just 43 yards on 15 carries.

“You’ve got to be able to run the ball, and we didn’t run it that affectively,” Rodgers said. “I think we came in thinking they were going to pressure us a bunch, they did last time.”

He spoke openly about how the Packers approached Sunday’s game, too. Aaron Rodgers admitted Green Bay was confident in its offense and wasn’t overly worried about producing points. In reality, the three points marked the lowest scoring output for the franchise since Dec. 30, 2018, against the Lions, when the Packers lost Rodgers early in the second quarter to a concussion. 

“We probably felt like we were gonna go up and down the field on whoever they had out there and that obviously wasn’t the case today,” Rodgers said. “I give [Saints defensive coordinator] Dennis Allen a lot of credit. I think I’ve always thought he’s a really good defensive mind. They had a good plan. It was to play a lot of two-shell and slow us down with the front. They did a good job of that.”

He only threw five interceptions on the year last season. On Sunday in Jacksonville against the Saints, Rodgers threw two costly interceptions.

The first interception was at the beginning of the third quarter. Trailing 17-3, the Packers squandered a chance to trim their deficit to seven. Instead, Aaron Rodgers threw a wobbly pass that was intercepted at the Saints 7-yard line.

“The first one was obviously the play of the game, it kind of swung things big time, 17-3. We score there it’s 17-10,” he said.