Is Aaron Rodgers injury prone?
The Green Bay Packers are doing nothing in free agency, the NFL draft is still too far away for me to care about, and the weather is warming up outside.
In other words, these are the dog days of the offseason for Packers bloggers. There is only so much you can write about 1) Ted Thompson’s philosophy on outside free agents, 2) draft prospects (everyone pretends to be an expert, but only a few actually are), or 3) whatever hot topics still have legs from last season.
So today, I’m going to try something completely different: Trolling. Everyone put on your swimming trunks because we’re about to dive in a giant pool of hot-takery.
Ready? I don’t care, because either way, there’s a hot Packers take coming your way whether you’r ready for it or not. Look out! Here it comes:
Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is injury prone. Our worst fears about Rodgers when he took over for Brett Favre have come true. The guy can’t stay healthy.
A broken collar bone forced Rodgers to miss half of the 2013 season. If that wasn’t bad enough, Rodgers took forever to return from the injury. I bet if he pushed himself harder, he could have been back before the season finale and been sharper for the playoffs.
And how about last season? Sure, Rodgers won MVP, but the Packers’ Super Bowl chances were diminished by Rodgers’ injured calf. Yes, the guy who brags about doing yoga and all kinds of other stretch-bendy stuff to stay in shape so he can play until he’s 40 years old strained his calf on some random play against the freaking Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Oooooof.
That’s two seasons in a row where a Rodgers injury has significantly hurt the Packres’ chances for success. And I haven’t even taken into account the two concussions he suffered in 2010.
One knock to the head in 2015 and Packers’ fans might be kissing that season goodbye as well.
Alright, alright, alright. I can’t do it any more. Pretending to be a Skip Bayless-style troll is kinda fun at times, but Jersey Al doesn’t pay me nearly the salary that Bayless earns for his full-time trolling.
So, let me try to bring this post around to something that we — the intelligent, thoughtful, insightful and non-trolling writers and readers of ALLGBP.com — can dive deeper into, if we so choose.
Does Rodgers’ health concern you? Yes, the trolling bit from above was me being facetious, but there’s at least a kernel or two of truth in there. Rodgers has suffered significant injuries the last two season. One he wasn’t able to play through and the Packers went into a tail-spin. The other he played through, but clearly wasn’t as effective as he normally is.
I’m not sure what Rodgers could have done differently to avoid breaking his collar bone or straining his calf. The collar bone injury is just a matter of how he lands when taken to the ground. I suppose you could say Rodgers could train better in the offseason to guard against muscle strains, but I haven’t heard one person ever question Rodgers’ physical fitness or his offseason routine.
The only logical argument one might have when contending Rodgers is now injury-prone is his: age. Rodgers is 31 years old. When you get past 30, your body starts acting like its more than 30 years old, no matter how good a shape you’re in.
Is Rodgers injury prone? Nah. But he is 31 years old.
It’s silly to be a troll about Rodgers durability. But it’s rational to hold your breath a little longer whenever Rodgers goes down now that he’s past the age of 30.
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