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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Andy Nesbitt

The Packers should just get it over with and bench Aaron Rodgers

This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning WinSubscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning.

The Green Bay Packers are a dumpster fire right now and things don’t feel like they’re going to get better any time soon (that’s what a loss to the Lions will do to your expectations), so now there’s really one thing Matt LaFleur and Co. should today, tomorrow, or at least sometime this week – bench Aaron Rodgers.

Chances are you might think I’m crazy for saying that, or maybe you’ve seen what I’ve seen over the past month, especially in yesterday’s disaster of a game, and are nodding your had while maybe letting out an evil little laugh.

However you feel about Rodgers this much is true – he has stunk over the past month and change. Both on and off the field. He’s thrown a bunch of interceptions (he had three yesterday in the red zone!), he’s looked like a shell of himself in moments when we’ve grown used to seeing him pulling off the impossible, and he’s often looked like he’d rather be anywhere else than on a football field.

Off the field he’s said that teammates who have been making mistakes should get less reps and see less of the field during games. If that’s not one of the best examples of projection then I don’t know what is.

Last week after the loss to Bills he said: “Pre-game, this was the first game of the season where it really felt like we were ready to play, energetically.”

It took until Week 8 to feel that way?! Really?!

That’s not a good thing to hear from your legendary QB who is supposed to be the leader of your team and should be getting guys fired up to play each week. That’s pretty much the last thing you’d want to hear from your leader and it tells you everything you need to know about him at this point of the season and at this stage of his career.

Now the Packers have reached a time in their season that I like to call – “why the heck not?” They’ve lost five straight games. They’re 3-6. Their next three games are against the Cowboys, Titans and Eagles, who are all pretty darn good at football. Their season is basically over.

So why don’t they just rip off the Band-Aid and throw in Jordan Love to see what he can do and let Rodgers stand on the sideline and play with his hair while the third-year QB gets a shot to show the team if he can do any better and if he could possibly be the future leader for this franchise?

What more are you really going to get from Rodgers? The writing is on the wall here – his career has hit the homestretch and there’s nothing wrong with pushing him further down that path. You’ve lost five straight. Fans will get it and the players might actually love it, no pun intended.

I know they paid Rodgers a bunch of money in the offseason but as we know by watching sports – money can always take a seat on the bench or be fired (just look at all the unemployed college football coaches who are making a ton of money to not coach).

The Packers really have nothing to lose here. Which is not something they’re used to this season.

Bench Rodgers. Give Love the keys to the offense. See what you’ve got.

Or just keep losing games and then listen to your QB trash your team on a radio show every week.

It’s up to you, Green Bay!

Quick hits: Tom Brady’s hilarious F-bomb after win… Josh Allen becomes funny meme… NFL Week 9 Awards… And more. 

– Tom Brady led another last-minute comeback yesterday against the Rams and then dropped a great F-bomb to start of his postgame press conference.

– Josh Allen’s dive into the end zone yesterday became a hilarious meme.

– Here are my Week 9 NFL Awards, leading off with the Jets kicker wiping out and having a miserable opening kickoff.

– Kate Upton and Justin Verlander had a lot of fun celebrating the Astros’ World Series win.

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