Goodness! He looks like the angel of history. He also, I dunno, kinda looks like Kid Rock. Wait, is Kid Rock the angel of history?
This is the kind of question Rodgers likely wishes he were contemplating over a nice cup of tea. Instead, he played football today. The game was one single catastrophe which kept piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurling it in front of Rodgers’s feet. The future Hall of Fame QB—and last year’s NFL MVP, mind you—threw three red-zone interceptions today as the Lions beat the Packers, 15-9.
The Lions did fire their DBs coach this week, but the players were the same as the ones that had given up the most points in the league this year (225) through seven games. The Detroit defense has been so bad, some teams have played eight games and the Lions still had the worst scoring defense in the league. Over at Football Outsiders, the Lions are last in pass DVOA.
Against this defense, Aaron Rodgers threw for 291 yards and a touchdown, but he was just 23-for-43 and also had those three interceptions deep in Detroit territory. Let’s go through them!
That one was pretty bad. Rodgers threw it right off linebacker Derrick Barnes’s helmet, and it bounced into the arms of corner Kerby Joseph. Then, five minutes of game time later, he threw another one!
At least this one was on fourth down. Rodgers’s pass appeared to be headed for lineman David Bakhtiari on a tackle-eligible play, but No. 2 overall pick Aidan Hutchinson picked it off in the end zone. (Anybody remember No. 1 overall pick Steve Emtman’s big interception 30 years ago? No? Just me?)
Per ESPN, Rodgers had never thrown two picks on goal-to-go situations in a game before. He also hadn’t thrown three interceptions in a game since 2017, and has only done it five times in his career. His third pick came two plays after a Jared Goff pick; he looked for Robert Tonyan but found only Joseph for the second time.
Rodgers did have four carries for 40 yards—more yards than Aaron Jones or A.J. Dillon could muster on the day! At least he can take solace in the fact that he was the team’s leading rusher and passer. The Packers are 3-6.
