Busted collarbone likely ends Rodgers’ season
MINNEAPOLIS — Walking gingerly to the sideline with his throwing shoulder throbbing in pain on Sunday, Aaron Rodgers turned back toward the field and barked at Minnesota Vikings linebacker Anthony Barr.
Rodgers likely already knew his season was in jeopardy after Barr’s hit broke his collarbone, and the fiery quarterback’s frustration boiled over.
Now the Green Bay Packers have to try to make sure their season as a whole doesn’t go down the drain with it.
Rodgers was knocked out of the 23-10 loss to the Vikings in the first quarter with an injury that could cause him to miss the remainder of the season.
It’s a crushing blow to a team that entered the season with Super Bowl aspirations, optimism based primarily on the right arm of one of the game’s best quarterbacks.
“It’s devastating,” receiver Randall Cobb said.
“No question about it. First and foremost, he is one of my closest friends, so to see him go down with that is tough. But we still have to play football. We have a long season ahead to figure out what we are going to do.”
Brett Hundley, the only other quarterback on the roster outside of practice squad thrower Joe Callahan, was rushed into duty. He finished 18 of 33 for 157 yards with one touchdown and three interceptions.
“Losing Aaron Rodgers speaks for itself,” Packers coach Mike McCarthy said. “In my opinion, he’s the best player in football. This is the ultimate team game. We need to be better with the 11 people on the field that we have, regardless of the phase that we’re in. Ultimately that’s my responsibility.”
Colin Kaepernick, who has had difficulty finding a job since becoming the face of league-wide demonstrations during the national anthem that protest social injustice, and Tony Romo, who joined CBS as an analyst after retiring from the Dallas Cowboys, could be outside options to fill in for Rodgers. But McCarthy said after the game he was not considering anything like that yet.
“Brett Hundley and Joe Callahan, that’s what we’re going with,” he said.
Despite several key injuries to the secondary, the Packers entered the game against their NFC North rivals at 4-1 after Rodgers engineered a game-winning touchdown drive to beat the Dallas Cowboys the previous week.
Vikings coach Mike Zimmer’s defense has always targeted Rodgers in these tense matchups, and it happened again in the first quarter when Barr drove him into the turf after he got rid of a rollout pass.
The impact did not appear to be that violent at first glance as Rodgers rolled through the hit. But it became apparent quickly that he was in considerable pain. He writhed on the turf as McCarthy argued for a roughing-the-passer penalty.
“I know Anthony Barr personally,” said Hundley, a fellow UCLA alum. “I wouldn’t imagine he’s a dirty player. I didn’t really get a good look at it.”
Rodgers rode a cart to the locker room for further tests and remained there throughout the first half.
He was initially deemed questionable, but the Packers announced at halftime he would not return to the game.
=Since becoming the Packers’ starter in 2008, Rodgers has been remarkably durable. He missed seven games in 2013 with a fractured collarbone, but he has started 132 of the other 134 games during that time period.
Of course, being able to count on a quarterback to take the snaps is nothing new for Green Bay. Since Brett Favre took over for the injured Don Majkowski in the third game of the 1992 season, the Packers have had Favre and Rodgers for all but nine games.