Aaron Rodgers isn’t just a cannon arm. He’s also a student of the game capable of reading defenses and changing up his playbook to best strike at his opponent’s weaknesses.
Rodgers explained his impressive skillset when it comes to engineering an offense during his weekly visit to The Pat McAfee Show Tuesday. When former teammate A.J. Hawk asked whether the reigning MVP thought he’d be a good in-game play caller as an offensive coordinator, he was happy to lay out his bonafides.
“I could call [plays] for another quarterback, and I have before … 2011, Week 17. I called that game,” Rodgers told the broadcast duo, grinning slyly. “[then-Packers backup Matt Flynn] had a nice day … I called a lot of that game.”
Flynn didn’t just have a nice day; he tied Green Bay Packers single-game records for passing yards and touchdowns in a 480-yard, six touchdown performance in a 45-41 win over the playoff-bound Detroit Lions.
It was a performance that earned Flynn a three-year, $19 million contract with the Seattle Seahawks the following offseason. However, Rodgers’ role in setting up his teammate to thrive is currently under investigation.
Had to audible outta most of them
— Matt Flynn (@mflynn3) September 27, 2022
Flynn was almost certainly busting his former teammate’s chops, but it’s the perfect deflating seven-word response to Rodgers’ tongue-in-cheek evidence that he may be the greatest playcaller in NFL history. The current Packer was quick to praise his former understudy as well, noting how he “balled out” and that the gameplan was secondary to Flynn’s ridiculous, video-game numbers in the first start of his career. Wildly enough, Rodgers was able to instantly recall no fewer than four of Flynn’s touchdowns that day.
“Drew ’em offside, threw a touchdown,” Rodgers noted. “Threw a key to Jermichael [Finley]for a touchdown. Had an empty pressure, threw to Donald [Driver] for a touchdown. We had a screen, that nobody ran the screen except for the receivers and Ryan Grant, Ryan went 80 yards for a touchdown.”
The lesson here is that quarterbacks remember everything. Whether or not that makes them good playcallers, however, remains up for debate.
