The one thing Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is still doing well in this disappointing season is avoiding interceptions. In fact, if Rodgers keeps up his current pace, he’ll set a new NFL record for the lowest interception percentage in NFL history: He has thrown just one interception this season, on 463 attempts, for an interception percentage of 0.2 percent. The single-season record is 0.4 percent.
But avoiding interceptions isn’t quite so impressive when you’re doing it by throwing the ball away every time someone isn’t open. And that’s exactly what Rodgers is doing: As noted by Peter King in Football Morning in America, Pro Football Focus has been tracking throwaways since 2006, and Rodgers is on pace to have the most throwaways by any quarterback in any season in that time. Rodgers is throwing the ball away more than once in every 10 throws.
Rodgers has completed just 61.8 percent of his passes this season, well down from his 64.8 percent career mark -- even though league-wide completion percentages are at an all-time high this year. When 10 percent of your passes are throwaways, you’re not going to have a good completion percentage.
Now that Mike McCarthy has been fired as the Packers’ head coach, the priority in Green Bay will be to get Rodgers playing like the Rodgers of old. If, at age 35, Rodgers is just past his prime and not capable of playing like he did when he was league MVP, then the Packers have a bigger problem on their hands.