I was only 7 when Aaron took over, so I don’t remember watching him play that season. I’m sure you’ve all seen the stat comparisons this week with Jordan and Aaron almost identical through 11 games as the full time starter. But I’ve heard over and over that people could tell right away that Aaron had “it” and that Jordan has looked bad. There has been some more positivity after the last couple weeks, but still a lot of skepticism about Jordan and his potential.
Given all that, what was Aaron doing differently that made him look so much more impressive to the fans?
I’d say more similar than people realize.
Rodgers had better stats relatively speaking. But it was also somewhat inconsistent. He had some big games and bad games.
Rodgers probably had more arm talent. He made some wow throws, particularly deep, that we haven’t seen as much of from Love.
The knock on Rodgers though was that he didn’t have the “it” factor that Favre had. He wasn’t seen as a gamer. A lot of his stats were viewed as empty calories as they came once the game was already lost.
Basically, everybody judged him based on how he wasn’t Favre, instead of valuing him for what he was. Much like people are doing to Love now.
But yeah, Rodgers did look really good his first year. But anybody saying everybody saw it and believed in him is lying through their teeth. Most fans thought the packers made a huge mistake moving off Favre and that Rodgers would never live up to him.