GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Losers aren't heroes, which makes it difficult to slot Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers into a neat and tidy box after his performance Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons.
On the one hand, he was darn near heroic, or as heroic as a professional football player can be. He didn't charge into a burning house to rescue the family dog, but he did play a football game in massive amounts of shoulder pain -- a sprained right shoulder for a right-handed quarterback. Not easy.
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| Aaron Rodgers' left arm might be sore, too, after using it for all non-throwing activities. (AP) |
He played hurt, and he played extremely well. Rodgers threw for 313 yards and three touchdowns. He was 25-for-37, and that doesn't do his day justice. Three of his throws were dropped, and he dumped four others out of bounds to avoid a sack. Take away those, and Rodgers hit 25 of 30 passes. With a painful throwing shoulder.
Heroic? Not quite. Right? Heroes don't lose, and Rodgers lost. The Packers lost.
Atlanta won 27-24, continuing its surprising surge in the wake of Michael Vick and Bobby Petrino. Rookie quarterback Matt Ryan threw for 194 yards and two touchdowns and made just one mistake -- albeit an awful one, a ridiculous interception into the end zone on a play that should have resulted in his third TD pass.
Michael Turner remained the most productive back in the NFL, adding 121 yards to his league-leading total on 26 bruising carries. Receiver Roddy White staked another claim to a Pro Bowl spot with eight catches for 132 yards and a TD. Michael Koenen dropped two successive punts inside the Green Bay 2. Jerious Norwood produced a game-changing play -- a 54-yard kickoff return in the fourth quarter that set up the go-ahead field goal.
Sunday was a great day for those Falcons -- but they have nothing on Aaron Rodgers. Nothing but a victory, that is. And a victory, as hard as it is to come by in the NFL, isn't everything. Wins and losses, they come and go. But reputations are forever, and Rodgers wrote his in permanent ink.
"Everyone knows he's in a tremendous amount of pain," Packers tailback Ryan Grant said. "We could see it, and we appreciate what he did for us. It's too bad it came in a loss."
Indeed it is. What do you make of Aaron Rodgers on Sunday? Green Bay fans didn't seem all that impressed. They booed him in the third quarter after he missed receiver Greg Jennings, all alone 40 yards away, by throwing a one-hopper.
"I ran out of arm on that one," Rodgers said.
On the next play, a third-and-20, Rodgers dumped a 2-yard pass to running back Brandon Jackson and Lambeau Field booed him and his offensive teammates off the field.
Packers fans are a hard-core bunch. They join 100-year waiting lists for season tickets, and even with the smallest market and the coldest temperatures in the league, they have sold out Lambeau Field 272 games in a row. They're tough, but when it comes to Brett Favre, they're a little demented. They remind me of Indiana fans, always pining for Bob Knight, even though Knight was the jerk who all but forced Indiana to get rid of him.
