PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – It’s interesting as we learn how Aaron Rodgers thinks. Wednesday, he described the team recovering and responding from the loss to Seattle, Plus, how critical the run game is to taking it to another level.
Binary
Don’t think I’ve ever heard a football player say he didn’t want to get too binary as a response. Maybe there have been, I don’t remember that. When Rodgers was asked about bouncing back, there is was.
“I don't like getting too binary, but winning, that's a good response, but we can't get attached to the binary system that our league is judged on necessarily because it is a 17-game season and the process has to be great,” Rodgers said. “So just dig into the details in the process, enjoy it, practice well, and then let game day take care of itself.
Heads up
It’s still early in the practice week, but Rodgers likes the attitude from the team Wednesday in so far as no one has been hanging their heads. He went to the cliché of an NFL season being a marathon, not a sprint.
“You can't ride the ups and downs,” Rodgers said. “You have to embrace the results that happen and take a look at your process every single week, whether it's win on the scoreboard or loss. Great competitors know that sometimes their best is not going to be good enough on some days, but your best is, not just a game-day performance, your best is a weekly accumulation of how you prepare on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. How you practice Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then the communication that you exhibit during the week as well. So as long as we stay on those things, game days take care of themselves.
Jaylen is a number 1 back
Mike Tomlin said there are still mistakes here and there, spread around to a multitude of people associated with the run game. He praised Jaylen Warren for winning one-on-ones. Rodgers was impressed with number 30 as well.
“I think the biggest compliment I can give him is when you're behind a four straight thousand-yard rusher, you're seen as a change-up back,” Rodgers said. “And he's a guy who could be a number one back on any team in the league. So. I'm really thankful for him. I think the play that he had the other day was one of the greatest catch-and-runs I've seen. That catch and run and those jukes that he made was pretty incredible.”
There is one thing Rodgers is disappointed about with Warren. He’s never seen the movie ‘Point Break’. He thought he would have given that it’s a surfing movie.
Chunk runs
Rodgers said for the entire group to take the next step, they need some 10-plus yard runs or chunk runs. It’s what the coaches are harping on and obviously the players want it as well.
“Our backs are slippery enough, we got to get them up to the second level clean,” Rodgers said. “So we just keep hitting our aiming points. You know it's not always on the lines, sometimes the combination blocks, sometimes the track. So we've just got to be perfect for our execution. If the track is supposed to be a certain way, let's run that track. We're supposed to get it to capture an aiming point, it's captured aiming point. And then we've seen our backs on secondary players has got a good matchup for us.”
He said for them to beat able to beat those two-deep zone defenses they keep seeing, they have to show a threat of the run. It makes play-action believable, which it likely is not right now.