Beat Writer Breakdown: A look inside the Aaron Rodgers-Jordan Love drama in Green Bay – MLive.com
GREEN BAY, Wis. -- The Detroit Lions have a quarterback who hasnt won any division titles or playoff games or anything at all in 11 years. The Green Bay Packers have a quarterback who has won six division titles, 10 playoff games, one conference championship and one Super Bowl in 12 years -- and even threw in one Super Bowl MVP and two league MVPs along the way.
Guess which team just spent a first-round pick on a quarterback this year.
To the dismay of some Lions fans, Detroit chose cornerback Jeff Okudah over Tua Tagovailoa with the third overall pick in this years draft. Now Okudah is expected to make his NFL debut on Sunday against Aaron Rodgers, who remains Green Bays starting quarterback despite the first-round selection of Jordan Love in the spring.
And anyone watching in Week 1 could clearly see why.
Rodgers killed Minnesota with one of the best opening-week performances by a quarterback in the last decade. The numbers: 32 of 44 passing for 364 yards, four touchdowns and no picks. And Green Bay rolled to a league-high 43 points.
Now that guy is going to face a Lions secondary that is down two starting cornerbacks, and will almost certainly start one rookie who is attending his first NFL game.
Theres a lot going on here, and weve brought in Packers beat writer Ryan Wood of the Green Bay Press-Gazette to help us break it down in this weeks installment of the Beat Writer Breakdown. This is a weekly series where we put five questions to a reporter who covers Detroits opponent.
You can find Ryan Wood on Twitter here, and more of his work at the Green Bay Press-Gazette here. And with that, lets go.
MLive: How has Aaron Rodgers responded to the addition of Jordan Love? By the looks of it in Week 1, seems like he still knows how to do the whole quarterback thing.
Ryan Wood: The big storyline in Green Bay this preseason basically amounted to Aaron Rodgers being a willing smiler. Which probably says as much about the reality of remote coverage than anything. But, yes, teammates were pleased to report the quarterback is happy, and indeed he has seemed loose on the field. Rodgers hasnt always given off the best body language in the past, but thats been different since the team returned in August.
"Itd be fascinating to see what goes on behind closed doors, because Rodgers cant possibly be happy with how his future likely changed this spring. For all the comparisons to what the Packers did with Rodgers and Brett Favre back in the 2005 draft, there are clear differences. Rodgers, unlike Favre, has said over and over he intends to play into his 40s. He has never given any indication of impending retirement.
But its important to remember Rodgers has seen this before, from the other perspective, so it cant really be a surprise. He entered the league learning how the business works, even for a legend, and has always been aware his career might not end with the Packers -- because if it can happen to Favre, it can happen to anyone. So I do wonder if Rodgers has loosened his grip on things he cant control, something he has indicated in these Zoom calls. As for that right arm, yes, theres still plenty of juice.
MLive: Its easy to look at what Rodgers and the offense did on Sunday, and what the Lions are dealing with defensively, including probably starting rookie Jeff Okudah in his NFL debut, and see this as a lopsided matchup. Agreed? If you were try to beat this Packers offense, how would you go about it?
Wood: The Packers feasted on a young Vikings cornerback group last week -- Holton Hill on Davante Adams should be illegal -- and get another opportunity this week. I imagine Okudah might give Adams a tougher matchup, if that indeed is the matchup, because it would be hard not to. Still, the Packers will rightly view Adams against anyone in the Lions secondary as favorable. They were surely glad to see Darius Slay leave the division this spring.
As for the right approach, I wonder if the Lions will turn the tide on how to face this offense after the Vikings basically dared the Packers to throw last week. Aaron Jones is a stud, led the NFL in rushing touchdowns last season, and the Vikings were certainly aware. They loaded the box constantly against Jones, holding him to 66 rushing yards on 16 carries. But that allowed Adams to tie Don Hutsons single-game record with 14 receptions, a mark that had stood alone since 1942. Rodgers passed for four touchdowns and had a 127.5 rating.
In this league, you get beat quicker with the pass than the run. My guess is Jones might face fewer loaded boxes Sunday.
MLive: Not sure if you heard, but Adrian Peterson is in Detroit now, and actually looked pretty good in the opener. How is the Packers' run defense this year, and how will the loss of Kenny Clark affect that?
Wood: Different year, same reality for the Packers. Once again, they must stop Adrian Peterson. Theyve faced that challenge almost every year since 2007, and its never easy. The run game is certainly the big question for the Packers defense this season. You might have heard they gave up about 12,000 rushing yards in the NFC championship game at San Francisco. (The real number was 285. It felt like more.)
So far, the Packers are off to a good start. They kept Dalvin Cook in check last week, holding him to 50 yards on 12 carries. When they met Cook early last season, he had 154 yards on 20 carries. Maybe most important, the Packers didnt give Cook the big run. Cook had a 75-yard touchdown last season at Lambeau Field, meaning the rest of his 19 carries were somewhat ordinary. But it obviously did not matter because of the one. Cooks longest carry Sunday was 12 yards. Youll take that every time.
Now the Packers see a running back who broke into the league a few months before Aaron Jones was a teenager. Adrian Petersons name alone makes it impossible to overlook him, not that the Packers run defense can overlook anybody. His film from those 93 yards on 14 carries last week surely hammered home the point. It wont be easy without Kenny Clark -- the Packers defensive line is paper thin without him -- but my guess is coordinator Mike Pettine will try to load the box and let Jaire Alexander and Kevin King defend Matthew Stafford with minimal help on the outside.
MLive: Lambeau Field is always a daunting challenge. Lambeau Field for a home opener, especially so. Yet this time there will be no fans. What do you expect from that dynamic?
Wood: I think its going to be much like we saw across the league in Week 1. Which is to say, weird. Very weird. Look, we all knew football games without fans would be strangely different, but Im not sure any of us could have been prepared for just how strangely different it truly was.
Unlike basketball and baseball, football players never, ever play games without fans. From childhood, theyre conditioned to performing. Their ear is trained to recognize the sound of the crowd, how closely the noises in the stands are correlated to the play on the field. Without that, players said it was difficult to know how to respond, or even if plays were good or bad because the crowd wasnt there to tell them.
The biggest impact will be on the Lions defense contending against Aaron Rodgers' cadence. Rodgers used the hard count twice to draw the Vikings into neutral zone infractions last week on third down, picking up a pair of free conversions. He also got a free play because of an offsides in the second half, which ended with a 39-yard completion to Marquez Valdes-Scantling. Rodgers has long been arguably the NFLs best at dictating the game with his cadence. The absence of fans, with minimal ambient noise piped in over the speakers, only amplifies his ability to control the line of scrimmage.
MLive: Green Bay swept the series last year despite never actually leading in a game. It keeps rolling against Detroit on Sunday if ...
Wood: ... they show up and play clean football. Their best against the Lions' best is just better.
Ryan Woods prediction: I predicted comfortable wins for the Packers last season too, and they were certainly anything but comfortable. But considering the Lions will not be at their best because of the injury situation, its hard to see how the Packers lose this. Packers 34, Lions 17
Continued here:
Beat Writer Breakdown: A look inside the Aaron Rodgers-Jordan Love drama in Green Bay - MLive.com
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