Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers still isn’t practicing, but the week off was still beneficial for the healing of his fractured left pinky toe.
Rodgers said he won’t have a good feel for the toe’s recovery timeline and if he can get over the injury by the end of the regular season until he gets through another few days of healing and then recovers from Sunday’s game against the Chicago Bears.
“This was really, really positive, the time to heal and not do anything now for going on 10 days has been really, really helpful,” Rodgers said Wednesday. “We’re hoping we can get on the other side of this. We don’t know until Sunday after the game and Monday how it will react to all the healing that’s taken place and the pounding that will happen on Sunday, so we’ll see how it recovers on Sunday and Monday.”
Rodgers initially hurt his toe during his 10-day quarantine period after testing positive for COVID-19. He’s now about a month removed from suffering the injury and has enjoyed “some really good weeks of healing.”
By combining the bye week with another week of rest during prep for the Bears, Rodgers is confident he’s trending in the right direction with five games to go.
“I feel good that these two weeks are going to give me a real good chance of getting a lot of the healing done,” Rodgers said. “We’re so far out now from the initial injury that I’d like to think that any damage I might do on Sunday will pale in comparison to the healing that’s been done the last few weeks.”
Rodgers didn’t practice on Wednesday but participated in a walkthrough. He said it isn’t “optimal” to sit out during the week and “would love” to be on the field practicing, but he’s “making it work,” which can be seen in the numbers.
Since returning from the COVID-19 reserve list, Rodgers has completed 64.3 percent of his passes, averaged 8.6 yards per attempt and thrown six touchdown passes to just one interception. His passer rating over the three games was 105.1, and the Packers averaged 28.0 points per game. Green Bay beat the Seattle Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams but lost a shootout to the Vikings in Minneapolis.
Rodgers said he’s experiencing “very little pain on gameday” thanks to various treatments.
During the bye week, Rodgers flew to Los Angeles to get a second opinion on the toe injury but elected not to have surgery. He’s hopeful rest will allow the injury to heal over time.
The Packers return to practice on Thursday. Rodgers said he’ll likely do nothing more than call in plays during the on-field work.
