Rodgers mum on no-look pass
Quarterback not about to divulge throwing secret
GREEN BAY - Tramon Williams laughed so loudly that a surprised Adrian Amos looked up from his phone a few lockers away. Nope, even after more than a decade sharing a practice field and locker room with Aaron Rodgers, the veteran Green Bay Packers cornerback has been given no special insight.
A.J. Hawk chuckled. The former Packers linebacker used to ask Rodgers for some tips, too, and got nothing.
“No, he won't. He definitely won't,” said Hawk, who played nine years for the Packers. “No, he won't. He's not going to tell you. He'll look at you and act like it's a dumb question.”
Williams, like Hawk and countless other Packers defenders, have been victimized by practice-session no-look throws from Rodgers, a skill the quarterback has been developing since he first got to Green Bay. And he just leaves it at that — no secrets can be revealed.
Hawk and Williams predated Rodgers' time as a starter in Green Bay, so Brett Favre was the first to get them with no-look throws. But it didn't take Rodgers long to start in on his teammates as well.
“Man, I have to go back,” Williams laughed. “I might be in single digits maybe like '08 or something like that. It might be like '08!”
It can also be a “welcome to Green Bay” moment for those who are new to the team. Jaire Alexander was blessed during his first training camp last season, in a two-minute drill. Packers linebackers coach Mike Smith, who watched Patrick Mahomes practice the last two years in Kansas City, was left laughing to himself and wondering what to tell his linebackers who were in the right position after Rodgers looked down the left sideline and instead zipped a 20-yard comeback to the numbers on the right side in training camp.
“It makes you so mad. You get so frustrated,” Hawk recalled. “A guy like Aaron, yeah I can still see him doing it, where he’ll just influence you, looking out like there’s somebody outside where you’ll have to break out instead of roll back in with him and he’s looking out and he still throws the ball and he’s still looking out, kind of looking at you, almost laughing. Then all of a sudden, bam, a guy’s behind you and then your linebacker coach is all pissed off and you’re screwed.”
Rodgers’ proclivity — and proficiency — at throwing away from his eyes was also new for some of his offensive coaches. Quarterbacks coach Luke Getsy, who was on staff from 2014-17, said he hasn’t seen anyone be as good at it. First-year receivers coach Alvis Whitted said he never caught a no-look pass in his career. But, there is a coaching point for Whitted’s receivers.
“Be where you’re supposed to be, at all times,” he said. “With him especially. Because yeah, he can manipulate a safety and stick one way but expecting you to be where you’re supposed to be. So that’s the teaching for us. Whatever route concept is called, be in the spot where you’re supposed to be, at that depth, at that landmark and at that time.”
Such was the case in the Sept. 26 game against Philadelphia, when Rodgers zipped a completion to Jimmy Graham after his eyes got an Eagles defender moving the other way.
“The funny part is that our coaches continue to tell us to read eyes,” Williams said. “Certain defenses that we’re in, ‘read the quarterback’s eyes,’ ‘read the quarterback’s eyes.’ But know your opponent. The first thing you need to do as a player is know your opponent.
“And you can’t read his eyes. If you’re playing Aaron, you can’t really read his eyes or he’s going to make you wrong. That’s a skill.”
And it’s one that is practiced over and again.
“They drill that,” Smith said. “They know where to go. Aaron knows exactly where they’re going to be at. It’s special and it’s tough to prepare for.”
As the Packers head to Kansas City on Sunday night, their defensive players might be spared having to face the latest of the league’s no-look savants in reigning league Most Valuable Player Patrick Mahomes (his playing status is uncertain after he suffered a dislocated kneecap last week), but Mike Pettine’s linebackers and secondary are more equipped to defend lying eyes than most.
“We see it on the daily so when somebody else do it, it’s like oh, we’ve seen it before,” Williams said. “They’re finally getting to see it publicly but we see it all the time.”
It is an especially useful tool in zone coverage where watching the quarterback’s eyes is emphasized, and a nolook throw off certain route combinations can leave a linebacker or defensive back leaning one way or reacting a halfstep slow, which is all that is needed for a completion.
“I’m sure a bunch of people have done that in practice and maybe it worked once or twice, but to have the marbles to do it in a game, especially a game where the ramifications are high, again it speaks to the level of trust somebody has in themselves,” said a secondary coach who has gameplanned for both Rodgers and Mahomes.
“Everything goes back to preparation. When you’ve done it a million times it probably comes second nature.”
Packers secondary coach Jason Simmons said all he can do is tell his players to stay disciplined in their coverage, and if necessary watch the ball out of the hand. And sometimes, like most have done with Rodgers in practice, you just have to tip the cap.
“Here’s how I look at it — he’s got a lot more regular plays than he does no-look plays and those are the ones I’m concerned about,” said another secondary coach who has game-planned Rodgers at various points since 2008. “I’m more concerned about what he does 98% of the time than what he might do 2% of the time. Those are hit or misses. You just know that happens sometimes. Great players make great plays. But really, when you’re game planning you can’t look at that and say one thing, you just say listen, here’s what he’s going to do 98% of the time and we’ve got to try to slow that part down.
“If he makes a play like that hey, we’ve got to line up and play the next play because there’s nothing we can do about that.”