The last time Aaron Rodgers threw 40 touchdown passes in an NFL season, it was 2016, when he hit that number exactly and led the league. The time before that? 2011, when he threw 45 touchdown passes to just six interceptions, put up the best single-season passer rating ever at 122.5, and won the NFL’s AP MVP, PFWA MVP, and Bert Bell awards. A decade after that historic season, Rodgers is playing every bit as well as he was then, and the Packers are certainly benefiting from it.
Green Bay came into Saturday night’s game against the Panthers as the NFC’s one-seed with a 10-3 record, they’re on pace to have more touchdown passes than punts, and Rodgers had a passer rating of 119.7 — which would put him third all-time in a single-season sense, behind his own record, and Peyton Manning’s 121.1 in 2004.
Rodgers added another record to his quiver early on against Carolina when he hit tight end Robert Tonyan on this one-yard touchdown with 9:54 left in the first quarter:
That's five straight games with a TD catch for @RobTonJr!#CARvsGB | #GoPackGo
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Watch live 📱 https://t.co/dzY7gmCcsR pic.twitter.com/Fk8I5Qnr20— Green Bay Packers (@packers) December 20, 2020
Tonyan, as ESPN’s Rob Demovsky points out, is the NFL’s first tight end to catch touchdowns in five straight games since Rob Gronkowski did it for the Patriots overhanging the 2014-2015 seasons.
That gave Rodgers 40 touchdown passes for the 2020 season, and he’s the first player in NFL history to throw 40 or more touchdown passes in three separate seasons. Dan Marino, Manning, and Drew Brees are the only players to do it twice, and Tom Brady has only done it once — when he threw 50 in 2007. Brady did throw 39 touchdown passes in 2011, and Manning threw 39 in 2014, so that gives you an idea of how difficult it is to do what Rodgers just did, even in the NFL’s modern era that favors the passing game above all.
