Aaron Rodgers is heading into the twilight of his career. At 36 years old and with the Green Bay Packers drafting Utah State quarterback Jordan Love with our first-round pick during this year’s draft, the Super Bowl XLV MVP could be heading into his final season at Lambeau Field.
Though the star of the past dozen seasons in Green Bay has a contract that runs through until 2023 and proved this past season he is still among the best in the league.
Brett Favre’s replacement may end his career with just one Super Bowl ring, but he’s certainly deserved more. We’re currently back at 25/1 to go all the way in 2021, though that does make us the shortest odds among teams in the North. Anyone fancy backing us at 25/1 should consider using the Betrivers Affiliate Code for best value.
Super Bowl XLV Defense
Unfortunately, Rodgers has never had a supporting cast either side of beating the Pittsburgh Steelers at Cowboys Stadium in February 2011. We won 31-25 that day in what has been the only post-season we’ve had any sort of a defense since Rodgers has been at QB.
A secondary that included Charles Woodson, Nick Collins and Tramon Williams. Clay Matthews and A. J. Hawk and BJ Raji at Nose Tackle. We allowed 16 points in the Wild Card win at Philadelphia, 21 in Atlanta and 14 at the Bears in the NFC Championship.
51 in Arizona
In Aaron Rodgers’ first post-season match, the year before, we lost 51-45 in overtime to the Arizona Cardinals. As defending Super Bowl champions, and with a 15-1 record, we were beaten 20-37 by the 9-7 New York Giants.
6 Playoff Appearances on the Bounce
In 2012, we were 24-10 winners at home to the Minnesota Vikings in the Wild Card round before Colin Kaepernick ran us into the ground, guiding the San Francisco 49ers to a 45-31 victory.
A year later, the same opposition, the same result. This time we managed to contain Kaepernick a little better, but were beaten 20-23 all the same, at Lambeau this time.
After a controversial 26-21 victory over the Dallas Cowboys in the 2014 Divisional Playoffs, we were beaten 22-28 in overtime by the Seattle Seahawks.
There were signs of improvement the following season, beating the Washington Redskins 35-18 in the Wild Cards, before losing 20-26 in overtime to the Arizona Cardinals.
A similar start to the playoffs occurred in 2016, beating the New York Giants 38-13 but then relied on Rodgers to narrowly see off Dallas 34-31 at Cowboys Stadium in the Divisional round. However, the former California Golden Bears star couldn’t bail out the defense versus the Atlanta Falcons, losing 21-44.
Then there was this past season, Matt LaFleur’s first at the helm. After running away with the first half we managed to hold onto a 28-23 victory in the Divisional round against the Seattle Seahawks, but there was no coming back from a big early deficit in the NFC Conference Championship, ultimately losing 20-37 to the San Francisco 49ers.
The Future?
In terms of this year’s draft, it wasn’t until the fifth round where we took our first defensive player either; Minnesota linebacker Kamal Martin. Before two more defenders were drafted in the seventh round.