An NFC North team that is all-in on 2021 but stumbled through a drama-filled offseason, only to arrive at Week 1 of the season hoping the slate would we wiped clean, had a humbling experience on Sunday.
Packers doing even more soul-searching than Vikings after blowout loss
Green Bay lost 38-3 to the Saints, the most surprising result during an 0-4 day for the NFC North.
September 13, 2021 at 4:45PM
But enough about the Vikings. Their penalty-fueled 27-24 overtime loss at Cincinnati was frustrating, but it wasn't even close to the level of what the Packers achieved against New Orleans.
In case you missed it — but I hope you didn't, if you are a Vikings fan who needed a salve for the noon kickoff wound — Green Bay lost 38-3 to the Saints, who were displaced from their home by a hurricane and were playing in a half-empty stadium in Jacksonville.
Patrick Reusse and I talked extensively about the Vikings on Monday's Daily Delivery podcast, but we saved some time for the Packers as well.
If you don't see the podcast player, tap here to listen.
Aaron Rodgers, subject of much offseason drama, gave a recorded pregame interview to FOX in which he reiterated everything that had made him angry this offseason.
Then Rodgers went out and played one of the worst games of his life. He's made 211 starts in his NFL career, including the playoffs. That was the most lopsided final score of any of them.
Per ESPN, citing Next Gen stats, Rodgers was just 4 of 15 when given at least 2.5 seconds to throw. ESPN also reports that it was just the third time in Rodgers' career that he finished with no TD passes and multiple interceptions. Final line: 15 of 28, 133 yards, zero TDs, two INTs.
After the game, it sounded like Rodgers and head coach Matt LaFleur weren't on the same page any more than they were during the game or in the months leading up to it.
From ESPN's story:
"They came ready to play; absolutely embarrassed us today," said Packers coach Matt LaFleur, who also called the loss humbling.
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Rodgers had a slightly different take.
"I'll let him use those words and I'll use, 'it's just one game,'" Rodgers said. "We played bad. I played bad. Offensively we didn't execute very well. One game. We've got 16 to go.
Rodgers might be right. I think back sometimes to the 2009 Vikings and how rusty Brett Favre looked in the first two games after taking so much time off. The difference, of course, was that the Vikings still won while they waited for him to return to vintage form.
Here we have a QB in Rodgers who might not want to be there in the first place putting up an absolute clunker in his season debut.
But hey, if you had "Jordan Love will play for the Packers in Week 1" as a bet with a friend, you can cash in.
Love got mop-up duty when it was 38-3 in the fourth quarter.
When he was hired after the disastrous 2016 season to reshape the Twins, Derek Falvey brought a reputation for identifying and developing pitching talent. It took a while, but the pipeline we were promised is now materializing.
