Q& A: Rodgers on recovery, near-miss,
QB says Packers can win more Super Bowls
Aaron Rodgers is the NFL’s all-time leader in passer rating by more than eight points and has won two NFL MVP awards and one Super Bowl.
He’s probably about halfway or a little more through his NFL career and is on a pace that could place him among the top quarterbacks in NFL history.
But does he think he can do more than that and end his career as the best ever?
“Not with one Super Bowl win,” Rodgers said this spring during the Green Bay Packers’ organized team activities. “I think we’re going to have to win a few more until I’m even talked about in that kind of context. So go win a couple, and then figure out what you guys think.”
Rodgers shared that among his many answers during an extended interview:
Q: From the end of the season to the start of the official offseason workout program in April, how do you train?
A: Usually the first month of the offseason I don’t do any weightlifting. I like to kind of offload my joints, I’ve felt that’s helped me come back stronger. I just really give my body time to heal. The first month I just do yoga and stretching and core (workouts). Once that month is over ... so this year starting at the end of February, I started getting back into my workouts. It’s about three days a week for the first month and then four days a week from the end of March until we get back. That’s incorporating the weights back in. This year was a little bit different weight-wise, I couldn’t do a whole lot with my calf (injured late last season) until about the middle of March. So there was a lot of yoga. Golf when I felt up to it. And just kind of relaxing, core stuff for the first month. Once I got into my workouts, do that for a few hours a day, and then find some travel time on the weekend or whatever my schedule makes possible.
Q: What’s your lifestyle during that time? Do you travel a lot?
A: I definitely can. It’s just making sure I put in the proper time working out. I don’t do a ton of throwing in the offseason, I never felt like I needed to. It usually takes about a week to get my arm back in shape, so I throw a few times in the offseason and really work on flexibility in my shoulder. As far as traveling, just depends on when I can travel and (if ) it matches up with (girlfriend) Olivia’s (Munn) schedule. Being in California is kind of enough of a vacation. The weather’s so nice out there, and the beach is close. So I don’t do a whole lot of trips in the offseason anymore because it’s such a long season you need a couple months just to unwind and relax.
Q: You say your calf is fully healed. How much did it affect your offseason training?
A: It did affect probably the first two weeks of when I get back more into heavy lifting. So I had to be smart about it and not push it too much. But I actually did a lot more legs this offseason than I had in the previous couple years, felt good about how I responded to those workouts. Don’t do a ton of wind sprints. We do quick movements in our conditioning, but I don’t run great lengths a whole lot in my job, so I try and match a lot of the movements that we do on the field with what we do in the offseason workouts. It responded well to all the stuff we did after I gave (the calf ) a lot of time off.
Q: Do you beat the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC Championship Game and then win the Super Bowl without the calf injury?
A: I don’t look at it that way. We get there and hopefully win it if we just take care of business (against the Seahawks), everything that was in front of us. It was frustrating that the way I felt the week after — it would have been a week off — two weeks after our (Seattle) game was the Super Bowl, and I felt a lot better in those two weeks. I was thinking it would have been nice to be playing that day because my calf was feeling a lot better than it had the previous weeks. I think we still had a lot of opportunities to win (against the Seahawks). I don’t look at it like, “If my calf was healthy we win that game.” I look at it like, “There were plays there to be made, and we didn’t make them.”
Q: Is there legitimate reason to wonder if you and your teammates will suffer a hangover from a loss as devastating as giving up that 12-point lead in the final four minutes of the NFC Championship Game?
A: I think it’s more the opposite, the effect that it has. I think there can be a Super Bowl hangover, where you win it and come back and some teams have shown to be maybe not as hungry. We came back and won 13 in a row (after winning the Super Bowl in the 2010 season), but I don’t think the (2011) team was as hungry as it had been the year before, or the focus wasn’t as sharp. This (Seattle loss) can actually increase the focus. But when you pair that with the fact that it’s really going to be a different team — you add new guys in the draft, you lose some veteran guys, and then the coaching changes we made, more in job responsibility, is going to make this football team look a lot different.
Q: You’ve had meetings and practices to adjust to the offseason changes in coaching staff duties. How do things seem different with coach Mike McCarthy handing over play-calling to Tom Clements this year, and Edgar Bennett moving up to offensive coordinator in place of Clements?
A: I think it’s going to work really well. Edgar has done a great job being in front of the (offensive meeting) room, being in more of a teaching role. Tom and I have had a good rapport for a long time, as far as our communication. Alex (Van Pelt, the quarterbacks and receivers coach) has an expanded role, but (offensive quality control coach) Luke Getsy has been helping out a lot. I think he’s very close to being a position coach on this team, which is a credit to him and his preparation and the way he sees the game. The biggest changes you see from practice are the defense, because Mike has been over there with them. They look different, they sound different, and their scheme is a little different. They’re doing some interesting things. I was joking that Mike was giving them our secrets, but I think he really has. He’s told them some things offenses like to do. We’ve done some coaching swaps where some defensive coaches will talk to the offensive guys about what they think about and vice versa, but this is a full-out secret sharing deal almost with what Mike has helped them with. It’s really increased the football IQ of our team in that sense, because the defense is playing faster and doing more things to try to disguise what they’re trying to do.
Q: It’s easy to see how that would help the defense in practice against McCarthy’s offense, but will it help