15 Days Until Training Camp: Packers Quarterbacks Preview

For the 15th consecutive season, Aaron Rodgers will be the Green Bay Packers’ starting quarterback. Here are the battles, key questions and more as we get ready for training camp.

Author:
Bill Huber
Publish date:
Jul 12, 2022 2:15 PM EDT

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Green Bay Packers

GREEN BAY, Wis. – With a new contract and a new receiver corps, Aaron Rodgers is back to lead the Green Bay Packers. With the first practice of training camp set for July 27, here is a preview of the quarterbacks.

Packers QB Depth Chart

Aaron Rodgers: The drama from a year ago is a distant memory. Rodgers perhaps grudgingly returned for the 2021 season. He won his fourth MVP and led the team to 13 wins. In the Super Bowl era, there have been only five seasons in which a quarterback ranked No. 1 in the NFL in passer rating, touchdown percentage and interception percentage. Rodgers did it 2020 and again in 2021. With a rebuilt relationship with the organization's leadership, he is back to take a 12th swing at a second Super Bowl ring.

Jordan Love: Making his first NFL start against Kansas City and getting the second half of the finale against Detroit, Love completed 58.1 percent of his passes with two touchdowns, three interceptions and a 68.7 passer rating. Of the 50 quarterbacks with at least Love’s 62 attempts, he ranked 46th in passer rating, 44th in completion percentage and 47th in interception percentage.

Danny Etling: After serving a brief stint on the practice squad last season, the Packers brought Etling back with a futures contract. By the end of the offseason, he had unseated Kurt Benkert to be the third quarterback. A former seventh-round pick, he’s changed positions (quarterback to receiver and back to quarterback) and teams (frequently).

Leader of the Pack

Aaron Rodgers turned in another superlative season. After a dismal opener against the Saints, Rodgers fired 37 touchdown passes vs. only two interceptions the rest of the way. The 38-year-old has lost some of his athleticism but certainly not his skill.

He led the NFL in passer rating and touchdown-to-interception ratio the past two seasons and interception percentage the last four seasons. His two most-accurate seasons came the last two years, resulting in back-to-back MVPs. During the final seven games of last season, when Green Bay ranked second in the NFL in scoring, Rodgers threw 20 touchdown passes without an interception. He ended the season with seven consecutive games with two-plus touchdown passes and zero interceptions, a streak that trails only Tom Brady’s nine in 2010.

“In March, when I made the decision [to return], that’s 100 percent in,” he said. “But it doesn’t mean you don’t think about the other side. This is my 18th season. Of course, you think about the next chapter and what’s next in your life all the time. It doesn’t mean you’re not fully invested. When I said I’m back, I’m 100 percent invested. When I’m here, I’m all in, and those guys know that. They know what to expect from me, the type of play, the type of leadership, and that’s what they’re going to get.”

Rising Star

This was supposed to be Jordan Love. The 2020 first-round pick might have succeeded Rodgers by now had he played well in an upset victory of the Chiefs last season. Instead, Love struggled and the Packers lost a winnable road game. In playing barely one-tenth as many snaps as Rodgers, Love matched Rodgers’ total with four turnovers. You can’t turn over the ball that often and win football games at any level.

This will be a huge camp for Love. In fairness to him, COVID deprived him of offseason practices and training camp as a rookie, and a shoulder injury derailed him during training camp last summer. He figures to get the lion’s share of the reps in the preseason. Can he make some significant progress or is going to go down in franchise history as one of the biggest draft busts?

“I think just getting out there and being able to play was huge,” Love said. “Obviously, it’s a process being a quarterback in the NFL and the more reps you can get in that game, it helps. There’s a lot of takeaways and things I wish I can do better and obviously things I felt I did good. Just trying to work on those things, tightening the details and whatnot.”

The Training Camp Battle

Assuming they’re healthy, Rodgers will start and Love will be the backup. So, who will earn a paycheck as the No. 3 quarterback? The only other quarterback on the roster is Danny Etling. While he won’t have anyone to battle on the practice field, the reality is he’ll be battling every available quarterback in the NFL to get a coveted spot on the practice squad. The Packers do have an opening on the 90-man roster should he stumble his way through the first couple weeks of camp and the preseason opener.

“I’m just always thankful,” Etling said. “I’m going into Year 5 and I’m still playing the game I love. You just focus on your own self and your own work. With how much you move around in this league, you focus on being thankful for the opportunities you have and being thankful for getting to play a game you love. You don’t really worry so much about the end product of making a roster. It’s all just about the journey leading up to it. What I’ve learned is the fun part is the journey of each new place and each new thing.”

The Big Question

How will Aaron Rodgers adjust to life without Davante Adams? A great quarterback is the rising tide that lifts all boats. That’s why they get paid ridiculous amounts of money and franchises bow to their whims.

Rodgers has history, chemistry and trust with Allen Lazard, but is Lazard good enough to go from complementary weapon to featured player? He’s also got history, chemistry and trust with Randall Cobb, but is the veteran slot good enough to consistently win his reps? If Lazard, Cobb and Watkins aren’t good enough – or if one of those players goes down with an injury – will Rodgers have the patience with the likes of Amari Rodgers, Christian Watson or Romeo Doubs?

Best-Case Scenario

Working in harmony with coach Matt LaFleur, Aaron Rodgers is so great that it doesn’t matter who he’s throwing the football to once the regular season kicks off. Of course, it’s worth remembering the Packers won all seven games without Davante Adams the past three seasons. Inexplicably, the offense was actually better without Adams – 31.6 points per game without Adams compared to 27.2 points overall. Rodgers threw 17 touchdowns vs. one interception in those games.

Of course, as the famous investment disclosure states, past performance is not indicative of future results. Coming up with a winning game plan for a game or two without Adams is one thing. Having to do it for the entire season is quite another. But maybe Rodgers and LaFleur are so great together that it doesn’t matter.

Worst-Case Scenario

The opposite. Without Adams, nobody can get open consistently on the money downs, the Packers go from contender to pretender, another season goes down the drain and Rodgers says “enough of this crap” and retires, leaving behind an astronomical amount of dead money on the cap.

One Superb Stat

Someday, Aaron Rodgers will retire and fans will be provided a harsh reminder of what it looks like to have a mediocre (or worse) quarterback. Two generations of Packers fans haven’t a clue what that looks like beyond watching a Lions-Bears game from last season.

Rodgers is No. 1 in NFL history with a 4.83 touchdown-to-interception ratio. Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes (4.08), Russell Wilson (3.36) and Tom Brady (3.07) are the only quarterbacks at 3.00 or better. How dominant is Rodgers in this category? If he were to start this season with 16 interceptions and zero touchdowns, he’d still be ahead of Mahomes.