Even When Aaron Rodgers Slips Up, He's Spectacular

Even with Patrick Mahomes stuck on the sideline, Sunday night’s game between the Chiefs and the Packers played out as an entertaining battle of offenses that kept matching each other blow for blow. But in a fight between the recently un-retired Matt Moore and the god Aaron Rodgers, it was only a matter of time before the latter gained the edge. That happened on a Packers TD at the beginning of the fourth quarter, on a play in which Rodgers looked like he was throwing the ball away while facing pressure on a goal line third-and-1. Instead, he somehow found Jamaal Williams, who was briefly and barely open in the last square inch of the corner of the end zone, to put Green Bay up 24-17.

“I was actually throwing a ball that I thought maybe Jimmy (Graham) could go up and get if he wanted to, and if he didn’t, the guy behind him might be able to get it.” Rodgers explained afterwards, noting that he couldn’t see specifically who was behind Graham. “Luckily the guy behind him got it.”If Rodgers truly was gunning for his tight end on the throw, he failed miserably. From this angle, you can see that even two Jimmy Grahams stacked on top of each other would have had an impossible time catching this ball.

But because he’s Aaron Rodgers, these kinds of improvisational marvels simply seem to just fall into place whenever he gets into trouble. The Packers look very scary all-around this season, sitting at 7-1 and blessed with an actual competent coach. More than that, they have a quarterback who, even when the game plan breaks apart and it looks like the defense has fatally disrupted the play, can somehow manage to get the job done in a way that makes your jaw drop.

“The wind probably helped out a little bit on that one,” Rodgers said at the press conference. Yeah, maybe, but when this kind of thing seemingly happens every dang time the Packers need a big dramatic play, it stops being lucky.