Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and head coach Matt LaFleur seem to have different approaches to fixing the team’s offensive problems following their recent loss in Week 6.
LaFleur believed the players could correct their mistakes, whereas Rodgers wanted the offense’s difficulty to be reduced. The veteran quarterback said the Packers’ offense needs to be simpler.
“Simpler. Simpler. Simplify some things,” Rodgers said after defeat against the New York Jets, as per USA Today’s Ryan Wood. “All of it.”
When asked about the Packers’ protection issues, Rodgers said that the team had made a lot of simple mistakes. He believed that if he and the Packers were making simple mistakes on complex plays, they must simplify things.
The simple mistakes that Rodgers mentioned referred to execution mistakes. He wanted to reduce the difficulty of LaFleur’s offense so no mistakes are made.
“I’m not attacking anything,” the reigning MVP said. “I just think that based on how we’ve played the last two weeks, I think it’s going to be in our best interests to simplify things for everybody — for the line, for the backs, for the receivers, especially with (Randall Cobb’s) injury.”
“Just simplify some things, and maybe that’ll help us get back on track.”
According to his interview with Wood, the 38-year-old also acknowledged that he played a minor role in the offense. Rodgers said that he needed to step up his game for the Packers to win the last few games.
“I’ve got to raise my game probably a tick in order for us to come out on the winning side in some of these games,” Rodgers said.
This season, Rodgers has 1,403 yards, nine touchdowns and three interceptions while posting a 38.4 quarterback rating so far. He completed 26 of 41 passes for 246 yards and one touchdown in the previous game.
Asked #Packers coach Matt LaFleur if he was surprised to hear Aaron Rodgers says he wants to simplify the offense. "I don't know what that means," LaFleur said.
LaFleur stressed execution. He says scheme doesn't matter if they don't block better than yesterday vs. Jets.
— Ryan Wood (@ByRyanWood) October 17, 2022
LaFleur disagrees with Rodgers’ statement
LaFleur was on the same page with his quarterback. He said that he had no idea what Rodgers meant by simplifying things.
“I don’t know what that means,” LaFleur said. “We talked about it. Any time there’s a lack of execution… to me, it’s about digging at the details of what we’re doing. Because I think you could see that, and it falls on everybody.”
“Certainly, again it always starts with us as coaches, trying to do a better job of getting guys to understand all the little intricacies because I think that’s really what separates a lot of plays in this league. It really doesn’t matter what we do schematically. If we don’t block better, it’s hard to do anything. And I think that was really the No. 1 issue yesterday.”
LaFleur also did not hold back from criticizing his team’s offense, which had only averaged 17.8 points per game through six games of the season.
“That’s about as frustrating of a game that I’ve ever been a part of from an offensive perspective,” the 42-year-old coach said. “We’re in a pretty bad predicament right now.”
LaFleur said that he would take a closer look at everything and conduct some coaching evaluations. The team recently lost consecutive regular-season games for the first time in LaFleur’s tenure.
Green Bay is currently 3-3 and has scored 107 points this season. Rodgers and the Packers will face the Washington Commanders at FedEx Field on October 23.
LIVE: Head Coach Matt LaFleur meets with the media on Monday 🎙️ https://t.co/hqBdSnVCPF
— Green Bay Packers (@packers) October 17, 2022