Rodgers sets table for success
Packers’ MVP candidate never lost confidence in team before run to NFC North title
“I feel like we can run the table.” When Aaron Rodgers said those words in late November after his Green Bay Packers got walloped 42-24 in Washington to fall to 4-6, most people snickered. Sure, Aaron. You and what team? At the time, head coach Mike McCarthy’s Packers were under-performing — worse than at any other time this decade. They’d lost four straight after opening 4-2. Rodgers himself was even beginning to look confused and frustrated on the field. Little was going right.
Seven weeks later, the Packers concluded preparations Saturday before playing host to the New York Giants Sunday at Lambeau Field in the weekend’s second NFC wildcard playoff game.
Rodgers’ prophesy became realized Jan. 1 in Detroit with the Packers’ sixth straight victory — a 31-24 nose punch to the Lions that gave Green Bay (10-6) its fifth NFC North title in the past six years.
If Green Bay should win its fifth Super Bowl a month from now, Rodgers’ promise is sure to become another treasured relic in Packers lore.
Hell, the way the locals honour Packers legends, a side street leading to Lambeau is sure to be renamed Run The Table by decade’s end. Or at least a sports bar.
Now, can the Packers extend Rodgers’ prediction into the post-season?
“Hopefully part of that table means four more games or whatever it is now,” linebacker Clay Matthews said.
That’s exactly what it would take to win a Super Bowl: Four more wins against the Giants, at either Atlanta or Dallas in the divisional round, in the NFC championship game and then Feb. 7 at Super Bowl LI in Houston.
A 10-win table? That’d be most rare after U.S. Thanksgiving. But then so is Rodgers.
“The type of leadership he brings,” Matthews said, “is one that I think is kind of infectious in what you see on Sunday and every day in practice.”
It’s important to note that Rodgers had been trying for weeks to prop morale in the sagging Packers locker-room — with actions privately and even publicly by calling out teammates en masse.
Mostly forgotten now behind his “run the table” prediction was when Rodgers two weeks earlier took a baseball bat to what he saw as his team’s fragile psyche.
“We’ve got to be mentally tougher,” he said immediately after Green Bay’s 31-26 home-field loss to a bad Indianapolis team on Nov. 6. “I don’t understand the way the sideline was after (the Colts opened the scoring with a touchdown).
“We’ve got to be a little tougher. That’s the mark of a team. We talk about that all the time at my locker. How you deal with adversity says a lot about the kind of players you’ve got and the kind of team you’ve got. We’ve got to respond a little bit better.”
Two more even uglier losses — 47-25 at Tennessee, then the dismantling by the Redskins — prompted Rodgers to spare the bat and stand on a table, as it were.
“That’s what you have to do sometimes as a leader,” Rodgers said after the win in Detroit. “You have to exude confidence even in a situation where it seems to the outside world that confidence shouldn’t exist and that’s kind of what I did.
“I believe in myself and my abilities, but I also believe in this team. This wasn’t just a shot in the dark. It was an optimistic belief in my team that we’re going to start handling adversity better.”
A 27-13 win at Philadelphia Nov. 28 ended Green Bay’s losing skid. A 21-13 defeat of Houston at Lambeau helped the Packers defence gain more confidence, then a 38-10 pummelling of recent nemesis Seattle raised eyebrows.
Green Bay then hung on for wins at Chicago (30-27) and against Minnesota (38-25) to set up last weekend’s showdown in Motown.
Throughout the streak, Rodgers shone perhaps as never before. He completed 142 of 200 pass attempts (71 per cent) for 1,667 yards, 15 touchdowns and no interceptions — a 121.0 passer rating that catapulted Rodgers into candidacy for league MVP honours.