Aaron Rodgers May Not Save The Packers

There's a lot of good news for Packers fans these days. With the latest that Aaron Rodgers is likely to return for this Sunday's game, many are hoping that Rodgers can be the guy to lead this team into the playoffs, despite having struggled through many games of the season without him. But for one columnist, he believes that Rodgers may not been able to do enough to save the season for them.

Jordan Schultz, a Yahoo Sports analyst, told his readers today that he believes that Rodgers will not be able to propel the currently 7-6 Packers enough to even make the playoffs. Schultz cites the fact that in order for the Packers to even have a chance, he would have to win out against three quality opponents in Carolina, Detroit, and Minnesota and those are tall orders, considering that all three are potential playoff contenders, especially Minnesota.

Another issue he cites is that despite the Packers offense holding on without Rodgers and getting a 3-5 record as a result, the rest of those teams he cited are facing a badly beaten up Packers secondary that has been known to give up plays for the better part of the season, and that if this continues, then Aaron Rodgers's contributions will not matter for the Packers.

In the game against Tampa Bay, the secondary defense was definitely a problem. It gave up 270 yards and two touchdowns to a guy who has failed expectations much of this season in Jameis Winston. Against the Bears, it gave up 297 yards and a score to the incompetent Mitchell Trubisky. You can't give up those kind of yards against teams that you should be beating, both on offense and on defense. They're wins, of course, but they are wins that also forsee what could happen to the Packers.

As far as the playoff picture goes, they're ninth in the NFC playoff picture and that's a tall hill to climb and I'm not sure Aaron Rodgers is going to be able to win out against three quality teams to get over the hump, but I've been wrong before when it comes to Aaron Rodgers. Probably not this time.

Look, I tend to side with Scultz on this very issue. Aaron Rodgers is not going to be the main problem when the Packers face off against three good teams. It's going to be how the defense works. They've struggled since Aaron Rodgers went out, though you could say they struggled when he was there. So the defense definitely has to step up for the last three games if they're going to win out and get into the playoff picture. I just find it hard to believe it could happen.

But there's one thing I will say about Aaron Rodgers: He is next to Tom Brady in terms of clutch and moving on his feet. In fact, he could be the next superstar of this league when Brady retires. He's already become that in the NFC right now. But I think for this particular case, it's a long uphill battle that I hope they can do, but as long as the defense acts the way it is, they're not going to win all those games. It's going to be too hard and they're already banged up enough as it is.

So I will say this for the Packers: I hope it works and I hope Aaron Rodgers delivers. But even if there's one loss, you shut him down for the rest of the season, because one loss is most likely the doomsday scenario for the team this season, and I don't want Aaron Rodgers to get any more hurt if there's no meaningful game for him to play in.