Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers has been through too many NFL games and too many seasons to allow a single loss to send him into a spiral of doubt.
"It's never as bad as you think it is and never, unfortunately, as good as it feels at times," Rodgers said on Wednesday, one year to the day after he sustained a torn Achilles tendon in last year's season opener. "There's a lot of stuff to clean up, but I felt like, as I said, after the game, I thought the pass protection was good. I thought we're good on the checkdowns, we just missed some stuff in the run game. And [I] missed a couple of throws that could have kept drives going, and a couple penalties. The long drive was kind of textbook."
The 32-19 loss at San Francisco was Rodgers' first (excluding last season's game) in his 10 previous games on "Monday Night Football." Rodgers, who gave way late in the game to backup Tyrod Taylor, completed 16-of-21 passes for 167 yards, a TD and an interception for a rating of 82.8. As the Green & White (0-1) prepared to travel to Tennessee (0-1) on Sunday afternoon, Rodgers repeated his mantra that "it's a long season."
"I think at times, people think the season is like you're out in the prairie or the desert and you're wandering around trying to find water, but it's more like nice, slow Boléro where we're just swaying with the music and reacting to whatever comes through, and just trying to not get too high with the highs or too low with the lows," he said. "The league is a lot different than when I said 'relax' years ago in that there's just so much more coverage, that there's so much more opportunity for overreaction. So I get it. We want to win, and fans want to win, the organization wants to win, but the process has to be the same. So, we gotta stick to the process and the preparation, the way that goes, and trust that it's good enough, like a nice, smooth Boléro."
After the first couple of series -- a quick three-and-out after Allen Lazard's dropped pass, followed by a Breece Hall fumble on the next series -- Rodgers and the Jets put together a 12-play, 70-yard drive that consumed more than 7 minutes. On that drive Rodgers connected on 4 passes with Garrett Wilson before Hall crashed over from 3 yards out as he followed a nice block from Lazard.
Lazard and Rodgers were tight teammates in Green Bay, and although the wide receiver who signed in free agency last season faced challenges, Rodgers said he never doubted that Lazard would bounce back.
"I mean, he played really good," Rodgers said of Lazard (6 catches on 9 targets, for 89 yards and 2 TDs). "I'm as proud of him on the goal-line play [Hall's] as anything else, because that's how he got paid. He got paid being the grimy guy, sticking his head in there and blocking guys and finishing plays. He caught a great fade [for 26 yards] to get him going after he had the drop, and then great adjustment on the free play [a 36-yard TD pass] and had a stick route go for 15 yards. So really proud of Allen. You know, that's what I expect of him. So the cool thing is, that's what he expects of himself. So last year was definitely really hard for him, but that was the Allen that I know and love on Monday night."
With the offense limited to 49 plays as the 49ers controlled the ball for more than 38 minutes, Rodgers' 13 completions were divided amongst Wilson (5), Lazard (4) and Hall (4).
"It's not super frustrating," Rodgers said. "I mean I think the most important thing is for those guys to remember that it's a long season, and we're trying to get the ball, obviously, to everybody. To only have five different guys catch passes, it's not kind of a typical game that I've played in, but, you know, we're on the sideline for a lot of the game, and part of that's our fault, third downs, not converting, three-and-outs, not converting a first, second down. Defensively, we didn't get off the field as much as they would have liked, I'm sure. But in those situations, we got to help our defense out. If it takes 30 [points] to win, we got to score 30. So, it wasn't good enough on our part."
