Green Bay Packers star quarterback Aaron Rodgers is once again among the candidates to win this year’s MVP award, and he will only help his case this week against the Los Angeles Chargers.
While the Green Bay Packers have missed star wide receiver Davante Adams, the offense has finally found a way to win football games without its best playmaker. The Packers will be a stronger team once Adams returns to the lineup, as Aaron Rodgers led the team to victories over the Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders with 300-yard passing days in each of the past two weeks, including a perfect 158.3 QB Rating against Oakland.
Adams’ return could come as early as Week 9, when the Packers will take on their third straight AFC West foe. But even if Adams doesn’t give the offense a boost, Rodgers should be able to put together another exceptional performance under center.
This has been quite the rebound year for Rodgers, who didn’t really stand a chance in 2018 due to a combination of inexperienced wide receivers and incompetent coaching from Mike McCarthy. In 2019, Rodgers is back to being a bona fide MVP candidate, as he has the Packers in position to be Super Bowl contenders with a 7-1 record in the loaded NFC.
Individually, Rodgers’ statistical brilliance has been impossible to ignore. Only Russell Wilson and Patrick Mahomes have better touchdown to interception ratios than Rodgers, who has thrown just two picks to 16 touchdowns. Rodgers is fourth in QB Rating, averaging 290 passing yards per game in spite of Adams’ injury and other issues with his pass-catchers.
On Sunday, Rodgers will face a Los Angeles Chargers team that seems to be playing well defensively. They rank 10th in points per game allowed, after all.
But the Chargers are also 27th in the league in net yards per pass attempt, surrendering 7.3 yards per play. They also struggle to generate turnovers, which means the cautious Rodgers should have no trouble putting together another game without an interception.
Rodgers is locked in a tough battle for the MVP award and is likely behind Russell Wilson and Lamar Jackson in the race, at least among quarterbacks. But Rodgers has clearly locked himself into the conversation, especially with his marquee performance in Week 7.
The issue is that Deshaun Watson, Mahomes, Wilson, and Jackson are so good that it’s going to take special performances week-in and week-out for Rodgers to win the award over the others. Based on how he’s played against the Raiders and the Chiefs, though, the Chargers had better be prepared for that level of performance from Rodgers, who looks like a good bet to throw three more touchdowns. It’ll be a struggle for Los Angeles to pick him off, too.
Green Bay is in the midst of quite the turnaround from last season’s woefulness, and both Rodgers and the Packers seem to be getting back to their form from 2014 when they were one of the NFL’s most feared teams.
A key for the offense will be Adams’ health. As well as the Packers have played without him over the past couple of weeks, Rodgers is that much better when he has one of the top 10 receivers in the NFL on his side. Adams is a touchdown machine, and the Packers won’t always get to throw three touchdowns to running backs, nor will they face a group of linebackers as poor in coverage as Kansas City’s.
But in Week 9, the Chargers present as another soft matchup for Rodgers to pick apart, so with or without Adams, expect No. 12 to have another MVP-level performance on Sunday.