Gracefully Deferring to Aaron Rodgers’ Greatness
This is supposed to be the annual Devastated Cowboys Fan piece that I always end up writing. The Dallas Cowboys had such a fantastic season, bouncing back from a potentially devastating start to the preseason with Tony Romo getting injured, thanks to the absolute draft steal and magnificent human being that is Dak Prescott. Add in a resurgent Dez Bryant (by the end of the year at least), the never faulting Jason Witten, the defensive mastermind that is Rod Marinelli and, of course, my MVP nomination, the Beast of the NFC East himself: Ezekiel Elliott. A franchise record 11 wins in a row, top seed in the NFC and a first round bye. It was all shaping up nicely and I’ll admit I thought this was the first genuine chance I had at supporting a Super Bowl team since I began following the Cowboys.
Then they went and lost a heartbreaker to the Green Bay Packers. Now they’re out, it’s all over. Dreams of glory are placed carefully back in the cryogenic chamber for another 12 months.
And yet… I’m not even mad.
No honestly, I’m not. I’m definitely a little sad about the whole thing but there are humiliating collapses and then there are defeats that just sorta happen. When you come back from 17 points down to tie things up inside the two-minute warning with a 52 yard field goal then there’s a lot to be proud of. A slow start doomed them, really, but on the whole this was a game where Dak played great, Zeke played great, Dez played great… they all rose to the occasion. The defence not so much, but that defence has always secretly sucked anyway. Plus they were playing Aaron Rodgers.
Aaron Rodgers, who has come out #1 on all four of the Preseason QB Rankings that I’ve written for this fine website. I was all but ready to drop him down a few notches for next season’s ranks and then it’s almost like he somehow attuned himself to my inner thinkings and came at me personally for revenge.
With the scores tied at 31-all and seconds ticking down, I’d be lying if I said I was confident. Spiking that ball instead of taking the last timeout felt like a mistake once they ran out of downs with 58 seconds still left on the clock. Too much time, Rodgers was gonna get it done. Even if he didn’t then he’d probably make it happen in overtime anyway. He quickly pegged off 17 yards to Ty Montgomery on a short pass to his left.
But then we sacked the sucker. 2nd & 20, 18 seconds left and still 30-odd yards from field goal range. Okay now, just take this thing into overtime and we’ll see if we get lucky. It has to be said, that Rodgers managed to hold onto that football as he was smashed by Jeff Heath in the back… I still don’t know how he did that. There was a Jeff Heath-sized imprint on his back afterward, the dude got crushed and somehow maintained control of a ball he only had in one hand to begin with. Next play he goes incomplete to Jared Cook and it was 3rd & 20, 12 seconds left. In those situations as a fan you’re not really thinking, it all sorta passes you by as it happens in a mist of anxiety and nerves. At this point the prospect of up to 15 more minutes of this was almost as frightening as the prospect of defeat.
But I needn’t have worried. Rodgers had just enough time left to do this:
They called their last timeout, Mason Crosby entered and drilled another 50+ yard field goal (for a second I did think it was missing, but it whipped back straight like a knuckleball) and the Cowboys’ season was over.
But come on, to lose to a play like that? I’ve seen seasons end on interceptions, on fumbles, on catch/no catches, on stupid coaching decisions… all sorts. To lose to a play like that, which it was later revealed was entirely improvised by Rodgers, giving the runners their routes in the huddle without even calling a play… it’s an honour to go out like that. No chokes, just one of the finest players in the history of the sport producing one of the finest plays of his career. Sometimes you simply have to tip your cap to greatness.
Tom Brady couldn’t have made that play, no other quarterback on the planet could have. It’s not only the improvisation or the timing of it at such a crucial moment. It’s also the agility to get out of the pocket, the patience to allow his guys to get free, the control and the arm strength to hit his man perfectly on target (and I mean PERFECTLY) despite throwing off his wrong foot with his weight going all against the toss.
Hey and the catch wasn’t half bad either. Take a bow, Jared Cook.
I thought he was out of bounds at first, so did one of the refs in attendance. Mostly, though, I was beyond thinking anything at all.
So who now wants to bet against the Green Bay Packers going all the way? Their offensive juggernaut clash with the Atlanta Falcons is going to be essential viewing, as will the Tom Brady vs Ben Roethlisberger, Patriots vs Steelers, clash over in the AFC. One way or another, offence is going to win this year’s championship… which is a change from the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks of recent years. We’re definitely into ‘Anyone But The Patriots’ territory now.
The Falcons and Patriots have been good all year. The Steelers needed a late push to fulfil their own potential (hey I love me some Dak/Zeke/Dez but the finest QB/RB/WR trio in the NFL is Big Ben/Le’Veon/AB). The Packers? A few months ago they were in serious doubt over making the playoffs at all. Four straight losses in the middle of things left them at 4-6, the knives were most definitely out. Mike McCarthy was a fraud of a coach, the wide receivers were walking in off the street, there was no running game at all, the defence was utter pants. Most of all, the man copping it was Aaron Rodgers (despite actually playing extremely well during that losing streak).
That’s the price of being a leader. There’s no doubt that he hadn’t been the same player for about a year and a half at that stage. The MVP form of old had sunk back to mere goodness, at times even worse than that. His personal life was in the papers with talk that he hasn’t talked to his family in months, that he resents his Bachelor brother Jordan for coat-tailing on his success, stuff like that. There was a Bleacher Report thing on that a few weeks back and on the day of the Dallas game his father confirmed that they don’t really talk to the New York Times. Dating a Hollywood actress doesn’t really take the limelight off you either, sadly.
For the first time in years, he seemed fallible. This was how he finished the 2015 season:
184/340 PASS | 57.5% COMP | 1884 YDS | 12 TD | 5 INT | 80.5 RATE
He then extended that narrative with five poor games to start the 2016 season. Well, four poor games and then almost inexplicably a brilliant 4 TD/0 INT game against division rivals Detroit smack-bang in the middle of it:
109/181 PASS | 60.2% COMP | 1170 YDS | 10 TD | 4 INT | 88.4 RATE
There’s nothing super awful about that but remember that includes the Lions game. Take those TDs out of there and it’s a different story. Although Rodgers then pulled a few resurgent games out after that, the losing streak overshadowed it. Once 4-6 happened it was pretty much crisis time (btw, one of those losses was a 33-32 defeat away in Atlanta).
Ha! Aaron Rodgers laughs at your talk of crisis. The Packers then won six straight to not only make the playoffs but to win the NFC North as well and these were Rodgers’ immaculate numbers:
142/200 PASS | 71.0% COMP | 1667 YDS | 15 TD | 0 INT | 121.0 RATE
That’s not only up there with his MVP seasons but it’s better than them, albeit in a smaller sample. And just in case you were a complete shut in who refuses to budge on opinions, he went and proved that he was back against the Giants in the wildcard round of the playoffs with four touchdowns, extending his unblemished pick rate to what’d end up (until he was picked in the second half vs Dallas) being 318 straight passes without an interception. That’s unworldly.
Oh and he also did this:
Yeah… he might be the Greatest of All Time. I think I can handle losing to that.