He may not have labeled it a revenge game, but any competitor would want to beat the team that chose to move on from them. Aaron Rodgers didn’t take advantage of the opportunity against the Green Bay Packers, and his emotions after the fact are best summed up by one word.
“Disappointed,” Rodgers said via the Steelers’ website. “Disappointed I didn’t play better; that we didn’t play better. Especially in the second half.”
Rodgers wasn’t why the Steelers lost, but he didn’t elevate his game in some of the biggest moments. There was a long stretch in the second half where they couldn’t get anything going.
Protecting a nine-point lead, the Steelers punted three times and settled for a field goal once on their first four drives of the second half. All three punts came from three-and-outs. This exacerbated the issues on defense as the game wore on.
At a glance, Rodgers’ 66.7 completion rating and 219 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions look decent. But that’s where box score scouting can get you in trouble. The Steelers’ final drive netted 70 yards and a touchdown in garbage time.
There were some drops, some untimely penalties, and some missed calls by the referees. But good teams can overcome adversity.
Rodgers talked about what changed in the second half after a decent start to the game.
“Not a whole lot. I just feel like we had some discipline issues and some penalties that were unnecessary, and then you are not gonna win a lot of games when we’re so bad on third down,” Rodgers said. “Playing good teams, you need to score touchdowns. And we just stalled out in the high red zone.”
It felt like every time the Steelers were starting to get within a reasonable scoring range, they would either have a negative play or a penalty to put them behind the sticks. The opening drive was a great example. DK Metcalf was called for offensive pass interference on a screen pass to him. They also had a run for a loss of five just outside of the red zone on one of their field goal drives in the second half.
Getting beat is one thing, and that certainly happened in this game. But the Steelers beat themselves in a lot of ways. Those kinds of losses hurt a little worse.
Rodgers had a chance to make history as one of only five quarterbacks to beat all 32 franchises. He had a chance to show Green Bay one last time that they never should have let him go. That opportunity slipped away, and there will likely never be another one again.
Disappointed only begins to sum it up.
