Lost in all of the consternation and panic over our offensive line, running game, run defense, and safety positions, Aaron Rodgers has yet to throw a pick.
In fact, Aaron Rodgers has made 90 attempts this season without a pick. Only two other starting quarterbacks in the entire league have made it through three games without a pick (Kyle Orton and Marc Bulger), and one of those guys didn't even finish his last game.
How impressive is this? Well, I'm no stat master, but I can tell you that the NFL record for most consecutive pass attempts without an interception is 308 by Bernie Kosar. The Packer record is 294, set by a guy named Bart back in 1964-65.
Note those records were set over the course of a couple of seasons. If that is the case, Aaron Rodgers threw no interceptions last year in the season finale against the Lions (31 pass attempts).
In fact, Rodgers has not been intercepted since the 2:16 mark in the first quarter of Week 16 against the Bears, which by my estimate, would add another 28 pass attempts to his total.
All tallied, since the Bears game, Aaron Rodgers has now attempted 149 consecutive passes without an interceptions, which may mean he has a while before he reaches the rarified air of Starr and Kosar, but given the problems this team has had since the start of the 2008 season, it's pretty impressive.
In this 149-attempt span, the Packers have gone 3-2, with two of the wins coming against perhaps the most inept teams in the league (the Lions and the Rams). In other words, not throwing interceptions is not a guarantee of success. Certainly, there have been concerns with Rodgers and the amount of time he's been hanging on to the ball, as well as not throwing the ball away as well as he used to.
But, if we were looking for the anti-Favre, we may have found it in Rodgers. A few more games taking care of the ball, and we might be looking at a challenger to the record.
4 comments:
Having the anti-Favre hasn't gotten the job done. He really needs to get rid of the ball quicker as taking all of these sacks is killing drives (the pass protection could definitely be improved too). I think Rodgers needs to take more chances. I think he's often so concerned with not taking chances that it has hurts us down the stretch of games. The anti-Favre may look good on paper, but it hasn't produced the same results as his high risk predecessor had.
Interception streak
Is impressive to be sure
Might end Monday though
www.PackerHaiku.com
It is interesting, because I had people tell me back during the Favre era that not throwing interceptions was pretty much a guarantee for winning. It certainly helps, no doubt, and the fact that Rodgers has accomplished this is fantastic.
But, despite having no interceptions, his QB rating is below 100, and he also leads the NFL in sacks. There's certainly room for the argument that there's more to being a great quarterback besides just taking care of the ball.
I think you probably misinterpreted what people were telling you about interceptions. Of course it's not a guarantee, but it's the single biggest predictor of success, especially in the playoffs......a much stronger correlation than TD passes, yards, completion %, etc.
Look at the best teams in the league at protecting the ball: Packers, Broncos, Vikings, Pats, Giants, 49ers, Falcons, Colts. Not a single losing record among them.
If you can protect the ball, you have a very, very good chance of winning; if you can't, then regardless of how many TD passes you throw you'll eventually come up short, especially in the playoffs against quality opponents.
Anybody who watched the Packers over the last decade could tell you that.
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