#8 - Aaron Rodgers
Aaron Rodgers embodies everything a modern QB should be. He has an incredibly live arm, able to throw 40-yard passes on a straight line with no wiggle and a tight spiral. He is mobile enough to scramble for 1st downs and avoid the rush, while being able to launch those perfect throws from every angle running right or left. By all accounts, Aaron Rodgers is among the most, if not the most, gifted QBs to every play football. He has also had the best statistical start to his career of any QB, with all-time highs for career passer rating (102.4) and TD-INT ratio (364-84) and interception percentage (1.4%). He has this ridiculous resume despite his career being slightly 'off'' since 2015, when he put up career lows everywhere, and has alternated between a ridiculous hydra and a moody, dour, weirdo who values incompletions over even attempting a pass that might get intercepted.
It's weird to even write these last few sentences. The last time I did this was after 2015, when he set career lows everywhere but was throwing to Jeff Abrederris and Jeff Janis by the end of the year. His next four seasons (2016-2019) have been a mixed bag, from a dramatic run to the 2016 NFC Championship Game, to missing the playoffs despite playing 16 games, going 6-9-1 in 2018. He even had a season where he went 13-3, but was billowed because of his 95.4 passer rating and a more obvious than ever distaste for taking risks. But those same risks he doesn't take, allows him to have earned two MVPs, a Super Bowl run, and a series of ludirously efficient games and moments.
In today's game, we value efficiency a lot more than we used to. The simple tenant to this is passing is better than running, a fact at this point all teams have more or less accepted. To this, a short pass is better than a handoff, and a sack taken is better than an interception. No QB, with the exception of late-career Brady, has been so reticent to throw interceptions as Aaron Rodgers. Passer rating as a stat overvalues not throwing interceptions (in the stat, a TD is worth less than an interception - which is definitely wrong). It is also a statistic that doesn't factor in sacks at all, which again helps Rodgers look even better by this stat. But this shouldn't turn into a focused examination of passer rating, but it points out how Rodgers used his prodigious skills combined with modern passing theory to master the elements that make him so statistically incredible.
Even if you strip away all the elements of the modern NFL, Rodgers can be hailed as an all-timer based on the more ethereal (the pessimist would say 'subjective') ways of judging QB play. Aaron Rodgers is an incredibly gifted player, who harnesses so much ability in that right arm. His ability to throw on the run will etch him in NFL films clips and haunt dreams of Bears, Vikings and Lions fans for decades to come. Whether its the Hail Mary's that defined his 2015 seasons, or the ridiculous throw while rolling to his left to beat the Cowboys in the 2016 Divisional Round. The moments are still there, even if not at the same pace as it used to.
His story is also one of pure America. Consistently undervalued, he was not offered a D-1 scholarship coming out of high school, playing a year at Butte Community College. He was passed up in the draft by numerous teams that needed a QB only to go to a team that had the same starting QB for 13 years. He was wedged into a civic mess with Favre and Ted Thompson politicking their way through the 2008 offseason. Through all this, he worked diligently on his ability, refining his throwing montion, making him this multi-faceted hydra that would dominate the league. He got his shot, ran with it, and created a stable foundation in Green Bay only matched by those in New England and whatever team Peyton Manning was QB-ing.
Aaron Rodgers is, at his peak, probably the best physically gifted QB in the history of the NFL. He probably also has the highest floor of any QB in the history of the NFL. His only real weakness is he takes too many sacks (again, something that has no impact on his pristine passer rating - but in advanced statistics that factor it in make him something of a Top-10 all time player). So much of where Rodgers ends up in that Top-10 will depend on how his prodigous skills age in the final years of his career. If his malaise in 2015-2018 was really about the souring relationship with Mike McCarthy, it could spell a great end. But with the Packers potentially drafting his replacement, and his malaise continuing, maybe we will never see the Aaron Rodgers that was so ridiculous from 2009-2014. And that is fine, not all players will age gracefully. Even with that he leaves behind such a ridiculous high, the lasting nightmare for so many opponents and fans, and a trove of memories that won't disappear, even as he and his team somewhat try.
