Green Bay Packers: Week 9 fantasy football profile
By Kenn Korb
TE – Richard Rodgers
Week 8 Statistics:
Rodgers – 0 catches, 0 receiving yards; 0.00 fantasy points
I’ll try to keep this one quick.
After putting up a lackluster 9 catches (17 targets) for 84 yards and a TD across the first seven games, Rodgers was on the field for only 26 snaps (2nd-lowest of the season) and received zero targets as the Packers spread out the field with their handful of wide receiver options.
As Green Bay continues to heavily emphasize the quick passing game, he should continue to see little-to-no usage, regardless of how bad Indianapolis is at defending over the middle.
With the short passing game, a big part of it finding success relies on the receiver creating yardage after the catch. Whether through speed (to blaze past defenders), strength (to bowl straight through them), elusiveness (to make would-be tacklers miss), or some combination of all three, the player catching the ball must be able to get beyond the oncoming opponents; if they cannot, the effectiveness of this sort of attack is massively capped.
While Rodgers does usually have decent hands when thrown to, has shown he cannot really do any of the aforementioned things at all, much less with any consistency. He can’t gain separation — much less outrun anyone. He isn’t agile, so he can’t make people miss. And since I’m still waiting for the day I can chalk up a broken tackle to his tally three years into his career, he’s probably not busting through anyone.
I do feel bad that this section has basically just been me ripping into Rodgers for practically two years running, but it remains so frustrating to see a spot which used to be the fulcrum of Green Bay’s offensive gameplan in years past fall so dramatically short of that game after game — especially when having a quality option over the middle could have helped to fix many of the recent ills the unit has experienced long ago.
I do think he still could be a decent contributor in certain ways, but he has to perform better before he can put the doubters to shame. Until I see some meager sign of that however, I can’t help but keep my expectations in the absolute basement regarding him.
Week 9 Predictions: