After the Packers slipped to 1-2 following a miserable loss to the Lions in Detroit, Aaron Rodgers had some advice for antsy Cheeseheads.
“Five letters. R-E-L-A-X. Relax. We’re going to be fine,” Rodgers said.
Fine they’ve been. With wins over the Bears, Vikings, Dolphins, and Panthers, all that’s standing between a 6-2 record at the bye week are the Saints at the Superdome. In a conference call with New Orleans reporters, Rodgers was asked about the reaction to his R-E-L-A-X routine.
“First people were impressed I remembered how to spell it,” Rodgers said, via quotes distributed by the Saints. “I think when you say something like that you take on greater responsibility as a leader and you take some of the focus off the team and I think there is a time and a place for that. Maybe we needed a little something like that before our Week Four game in Chicago. We responded with a good performance, four in a row, our defense is playing really well, offensively we are starting to get things going a little bit, so every now and then you say stuff like that that sticks. If we had lost Week Four it probably wouldn’t have gone over as well as it has because we’ve won four in a row.”
It won’t be easy to extend the run to five.
“They are better than that,” Rodgers said of the Saints’ 2-4 record. “They are 2-0 at home I believe. They are better at home. They have lost some close games. Very talented offense, a very talented defense and very well coached. I have competed against Coach [Rob] Ryan before and I have a lot of respect [for] the whole family, Rex, Rob, and their father, a guy who obviously changed how defense is played in the league. I have a lot of respect for them and their defense. Talented group, they play really well at home, they put up a lot of points. You have to be expecting Drew [Brees] and those guys to be scoring points so we need to score touchdowns in the red zone and score some points ourselves.”
We’ll find out how it plays out on Sunday night. And hopefully it’s play out with a closer game that what we’ve seen on Monday Sunday nights this season.