When, if ever, will offense catch ‘greatness’?

After Sunday's game, Aaron Rodgers spoke of wanting to be great on offense. At this point, it's not even mediocre. At some point, the offense is going to have to go out and win a football game, but is it capable?

As the legendary Vince Lombardi once, said, “Perfection is not attainable but, if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”

Through the first three games of the Matt LaFleur era, the Green Bay Packers are a perfect 3-0. But the flaws are obvious for all to see, especially with an offense that has a way to go to catch mediocrity, let alone excellence.

The Packers are averaging 19.3 points and 286.7 yards. Last season, Mike McCarthy’s much-maligned offense averaged 23.5 points and 369.1 yards. Those are differences of 4.2 points and 82.4 yards. With the Monday night game to be played, the Packers are 28th in total offense, 24th in rushing offense, 27th in passing offense, 28th in first downs and 29th on third down. The two saving graces: a turnover-producing defense that hand-delivered 14 points against Denver and an exceptional red-zone attack that has six touchdowns in seven opportunities.

LaFleur was hired to fix the offense, generally, and quarterback Aaron Rodgers, specifically. In time, that could happen. After all, it took until McCarthy’s second season to fix the Brett Favre-led offensive attack.

The question is whether LaFleur can fix the offense this year. Getting back to the playoffs after back-to-back seasons of 7-9 and 6-9-1 would be a nice accomplishment for LaFleur, but there’s a reason why there aren’t playoff banners hanging inside Lambeau Field. This is Titletown, and Super Bowl championships – not division championships – are the goal. Plenty of teams have won plenty of games with the recipe of excellent defense, solid special teams and an offense that doesn’t mess things up.

However, Rodgers is a two-time MVP quarterback with the personal and external expectations of being something more than a high-priced game manager.

“I want to play better. I want to score more points,” Rodgers said when asked if it’s nice to not have to carry the load, like he has for so many seasons. “Obviously, you love having that defense but I don’t take any satisfaction in having an OK performance. No, I want to have greatness out there.”

The Packers, however, are miles away from greatness. And that starts with the production of the quarterback. Once of the most accurate passers in NFL history, he ranks 24th with a completion rate of 61.3 percent. Once of the most efficient quarterbacks in NFL history, he ranks 24th with 6.94 yards per attempt. Still the owner of the best passer rating in NFL history, Rodgers ranks 13th with a mark of 96.5. With ever-increasing passer ratings around the league, Rodgers’ mark is actually a bit less than the league average.

Where Rodgers remains historically great is avoiding stupid plays. With the way the defense is winning, that’s smart football. In a span of six dropbacks in the third quarter against Denver, Rodgers threw the ball away five times. Those throwaways obviously are bad for stuff like completion percentage and yards per attempt, but it’s better than turning the ball over and putting the defense back on the field.

At some point, though, the offense probably is going to have to go out and win a football game. There are better quarterbacks on the schedule than Chicago’s Mitchell Trubisky, who has been terrible through three games, Minnesota’s Kirk Cousins, who stupidly threw the ball up for grabs on first-and-goal late in the fourth quarter last week, and Denver’s Joe Flacco, who committed two turnovers and lacked the mobility to escape Green Bay’s rush.

Whether it’s Philadelphia’s Carson Wentz on Thursday, Dallas’ Dak Prescott next week or Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes in Week 8, or Los Angeles’ Jared Goff or New Orleans’ Drew Brees in the playoffs, there probably will come a time when the opposing quarterback avoids the critical mistakes that the Packers have coaxed out of the quarterbacks they’ve faced thus far. When that happens, is Rodgers capable of doing what he’s done so often in his career and carrying the team on his back?

Mahomes, the reigning MVP, has a league-leading 134.9 passer rating. Rodgers hasn’t had even a single game like that since his famous comeback in last year’s opener against Chicago. He hasn’t been consistently brilliant since the run-the-table ending to 2016, when he threw 21 touchdowns vs. one interception during an eight-game winning streak.

Is it Rodgers, a 35-year-old quarterback who dealt with three serious injuries over the previous six seasons? Is it the lack of a supporting cast, with Rodgers trying to make something happen with an over-the-hill tight end and a receiver corps in which only Davante Adams (second round) and Marquez Valdes-Scantling (the final pick of the fifth round) were drafted? Is it the slow acclimation to LaFleur’s offense? Is it an inefficient melding of LaFleur’s scheme and Rodgers’ background? A combination of things?

We’ll get those answers as the season unfolds – perhaps Thursday against Philadelphia, which is allowing almost 300 passing yards per game and could be without its top cornerback. If the Packers can’t have a breakout performance on Thursday, when will it happen? After the Eagles, the Packers will face Dallas (13th in opponent passer rating but seventh in yards per passing play), Detroit (seventh in rating, 11th in yards per passing play) and Kansas City (eighth in rating, 14th in yards per passing play).

Who knows, maybe this defense will dominate all season and the Packers will keep on winning. The Broncos had an impotent offense in 2015 but won Super Bowl 50, so it’s not as if this can’t be a winning formula.

Perhaps it’s worth noting how Rodgers tried to temper expectations before the season-opening game against Chicago. He was right to do so. He also remains optimistic about the future of the offense. Maybe he will be right again. With Adams and Aaron Jones, there are legit game-changers.

“I think all of us who have been here for a significant amount of time realize how different this feels,” Rodgers said. “It’s just a different energy. It is palpable. It’s contagious. It’s charismatic. And it’s fun. It really is. It’s obviously fun to win. We hold ourselves to a high standard offensively, and we’ve got to play better, but it’s fun watching those guys on defense, you know? We’ve got to keep picking up our load and being a little more consistent. But it is a different vibe.”