GREEN BAY — With an artsy video montage set to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” recapping his 11-year Green Bay Packers career, five-time All-Pro left tackle David Bakhtiari bid farewell to the only NFL team he’s known on Monday, posting on social media a goodbye to the organization and to its fans — but not to football altogether.
With a gargantuan $39.99 million salary cap number for 2024 and a balky left knee that has endured five surgeries since Bakhtiari tore his ACL during a Dec. 31, 2020 practice, Monday’s news was not unexpected.
Still, it marked the end of the line for one of the franchise’s all-time great offensive lineman, one whose final three seasons with the team were marred by the aftermath of an injury that wound up derailing a career that had been on a Pro Football Hall of Fame trajectory.
“Don’t cry because it’s over,” Bakhtiari wrote in a message he posted to both Twitter and Instagram. “Smile, because it happened.”
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The Packers announced Bakhtiari’s release Monday afternoon.
“We want to thank David for an exceptional 11 seasons in Green Bay,” general manager Brian Gutekunst said in a release. “From the moment he arrived, David established himself as one of the premier tackles of his generation and one of the best linemen in the history of the Packers. His commitment and impact on the field and in the locker room cannot be overstated. We look forward to his inevitable induction into the Packers Hall of Fame and we hope for the best for David and his family moving forward.”
Said coach Matt LaFleur: “David is one of the best offensive linemen that has played in the NFL during my time in the league. His consistency and approach to his craft is unmatched. David’s presence extended beyond his impact on the field as he was a cornerstone of the Packers in the locker room when I arrived and was a great resource to our young team. We wish the best for David, his wife, Frankie, and their daughter, Felix, in the future.”
Gutekunst said at the annual NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis late last month that he wanted to make a decision on Bakhtiari’s future before the start of the new league year, which dawns on Wednesday. The NFL’s free-agent negotiating window opened less than an hour before Bakhtiari posted his farewell message.
“It’s part of my training from Ted Thompson. Different things can happen in the world, so don’t make decisions before you have to,” Gutekunst said, referring to his predecessor and mentor. “We have a few weeks here before free agency starts, (before) another league year starts, and we’ll get through that and go from there.”
The have-to time arrived on Monday, though, as the Packers were reportedly in the mix for big-ticket free-agent safety Xavier McKinney, one of the top players hitting the open market.
Bakhtiari will still count $19.1 million in dead money against the Packers’ salary cap next season, but the nearly $21 million in salary-cap space created by Bakhtiari’s release was vital to the team’s ability to sign outside free agents.
Bakhtiari played in just one game in 2023 — the Packers’ season-opening Sept. 10 win at Chicago — and underwent season-ending cartilage restoration surgery in November, the fifth surgery he’s endured on the knee.
Bakhtiari had that invasive surgery in hopes that it would finally resolve the knee issues that plagued him and allowed him to play in just 13 of a possible 57 games since the injury.
“He is a hell of a player,” LaFleur said of Bakhtiari after the season. “(But) he had a big-time injury.”
A fourth-round pick from Colorado in 2013, Bakhtiari was thrust into the starting lineup as a rookie when veteran Bryan Bulaga, set to shift from right tackle to left tackle that season, tore his ACL in August during the team’s annual family night scrimmage early in training camp that summer.
Bakhtiari took the job and ran with it. He went on to start 118 of a possible 127 games over the next eight seasons before the injury, earning five All-Pro nods and becoming one of the NFL’s best left tackles.
“Thank you for the last 11 years. It’s been a hell of a run,” Bakhtiari wrote. “I always wanted to raise a Lombardi on Lombardi Avenue, but I will never complain. I gave it my all. I always gave it my best no matter the circumstance, and to me, that truly was enough.”
Set to turn 33 on Sept. 30, Bakhtiari does not plan to retire. While his old teammate, four-time NFL MVP quarterback Aaron Rodgers, could certainly use a top-flight blind-side protector on the New York Jets’ offensive line, it’s unclear where Bakhtiari is in his recovery and what his market will be now that the Packers are moving on from him.
“Whatever happens next,” Bakhtiari wrote, “I look forward to it.”
12 most memorable moments of Aaron Rodgers' Green Bay Packers career
Aaron Rodgers traded to the Jets
GREEN BAY — Aaron Rodgers’ 18-year career with the Green Bay Packers is over.
He’s leavin’ on a New York Jets plane, and after Packers team president/CEO Mark Murphy’s comments at the annual WIAA girls state high school basketball tournament — where Murphy referred to Rodgers’ time with the Packers in the past tense and spoke of how Rodgers will be “in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he’ll be in our Hall of Fame” and vowed that the Packers “will bring him back and retire his number” — who knows when he'll be back again.
When those days of reminiscing do come, a cavalcade of highlights and memorable moments from Rodgers’ career with the Packers will be again celebrated. But given the awkward manner in which the final chapter of his time in Titletown was written, it feels like a good time to remind everyone of those good times.
“I’ve been there 18 years. I have lifelong friends in that organization. I have lifelong memories,” Rodgers had said on “The Pat McAfee Show” in late January. “I made some of my closest friends in my life because I was drafted by the Green Bay Packers and they paid me multiple contracts. Had amazing success. I met some really special, special people. So, why would I have animosity toward that?
“And on the flip side, hopefully there won’t be any animosity if that was the decision at some point. I have nothing but love for the fans and the amazing people I’ve met over the years at different events ... It’s a beautiful, beautiful town."
Here’s a look at what we believe are the 12 of the greatest moments of No. 12’s career.
12. ‘One of my better tackles’
Packers 21, Bears 14 — 2010 NFC Championship Game Jan. 23, 2011
With a berth in the Super Bowl on the line, Rodgers’ stat line against the Bears — 17 of 30 for 244 yards with no touchdown passes and two interceptions for a 55.4 passer rating — was hardly championship caliber. It was Dom Capers’ defense (and the Bears having to play third-string quarterback Caleb Hanie) that carried the Packers to the NFC title that day at Soldier Field, but Rodgers made two memorable plays that day: A 1-yard touchdown run for the Packers’ first points, and a shoestring tackle of Bears inside linebacker Brian Urlacher to prevent the future Pro Football Hall of Famer from scoring on what would’ve been a 94-yard interception return for a potentially game-changing touchdown.
The Packers were leading, 14-0, and driving on their first possession of the second half for what might have been a put-away touchdown when Rodgers faced a third-and-goal from the Bears’ 6-yard line. With a four-receiver set and fullback John Kuhn in the backfield for protection, Rodgers dropped back and found no one open. Instead of throwing the ball away, which he admitted he should have done instead, he tried to force the ball to Kuhn across the middle and drilled the leaping Urlacher right between the 5 and 4 on his jersey.
Urlacher, who had scored on an 85-yard pick-six interception against Brett Favre in a game at Soldier Field in December 2007, was off to the races, but Rodgers sprinted toward him with the angle and the two met at the Packers’ 35-yard line, where Urlacher tried to reverse course. Diving, Rodgers got just enough of Urlacher’s legs to trip him up, saving the touchdown and giving the Bears the ball at their own 45. With backup Todd Collins replacing an injured Jay Cutler at quarterback, the Bears went three-and-out and punted. With disaster averted, the Packers would later get key defensive plays by nose tackle B.J. Raji (an 18-yard interception return for a touchdown) and Sam Shields (a victory-clinching interception with 37 seconds left).
Rodgers on Rodgers: “It was a terrible throw. Once I threw it, I started sprinting, and I was hopeful that I was able to at least catch up to him. When he turned and faced me, I knew that I had to make a stand. I had missed a couple of tackles this season (after turnovers), and it’s kind of a joke that’s not real funny in the quarterback room. When you throw a pick and try to make a tackle, both Matt (Flynn) and I have looked pretty silly on a couple of those. So, I wanted to get him down.
“It was a real bad play by me. We could’ve gone up three scores right there. Good play call, bad throw, decent effort … and probably one of my better tackles.”
11. A San Francisco Treat
Packers 30, 49ers 28 — Sept. 26, 2021
If anyone questioned whether Rodgers’ 2020 NFL MVP award — earned during the COVID-19 pandemic that forced games to be played inside empty stadiums and fueled by Rodgers’ inferno of competitive fire after the selection of would-be successor Jordan Love — was a fluke, Rodgers announced his run for reelection with his triumphant rally over the 49ers in Week 3.
Facing the team that snubbed him with the No. 1 overall pick in 2005 and the team that many believed tampered with him during his offseason of discontent months earlier, Rodgers finished the game having completed 22 of 33 passes for 261 yards with two touchdowns for a passer rating of 113.3.
But it was what he did in the final 37 seconds that was miraculous.
With their team trailing, 28-27, Rodgers, coach Matt LaFleur and quarterbacks coach Luke Getsy began discussing their options to gain the 38 yards they felt they needed to get kicker Mason Crosby into range for a game-winning field goal.
With no timeouts left and starting at the Green Bay 25-yard line, LaFleur suggested a play the offense had run during practice two days earlier — Rodgers said it had been conjured up while “kind of scribbling in the dirt” — might be the way to start the drive.
“No timeouts, from the 25, you need two chunk throws. I knew that,” Rodgers said. “So that’s why I wasn’t going to ‘dink-and-dunk.’ You don’t have any time for that. We had to get at least 15 on the first play.”
They got 25, as Rodgers delivered a strike to Davante Adams just over linebacker Fred Warner’s reach, putting the ball at midfield. After a spike to stop the clock and an incompletion, Rodgers hit Adams again for 17 yards and spiked the ball again with 3 ticks remaining for Crosby to boot his 51-yard game-winner.
For the Packers, who’d been embarrassed in the season opener by the New Orleans Saints, it was a we’re-for-real victory that led to a run to the NFC’s No. 1 playoff seed — although, the season would end in the disappointment of a loss at home to the same 49ers.
Rodgers on Rodgers: “It gives some legitimacy to some of the things we’ve been talking about. That that (loss to the Saints) was kind of an aberration and that we are a talented football team. It felt like in the locker room (pregame) that we finally had the energy that I’ve been waiting to see. (And then) the energy in the locker room postgame, that felt like a win. It felt like it was such a growth moment for us. I’m really happy for the guys to feel that, and it feels like, ‘OK, now we’re on our way. Now we can get into this, now we know how to win, and we can get this thing moving in the right direction.’”
10. One-legged wonder
Packers 26, Cowboys 21 — 2014 NFC Divisional Game — Jan. 11, 2015
It is remembered by many — particularly by Cowboys fans — as the “Dez Caught It” game. What is often forgotten is how a one-legged Rodgers willed his team to a berth in the NFC Championship Game that day at Lambeau Field.
“I think I've got 120 minutes left in me,” Rodgers said after the game —referring to playing the NFC title game and, he hoped, Super Bowl XLIX. “So I'm going to do everything I can to make sure I can play all those minutes."
You surely recall the Bryant play. With the Packers clinging to a five-point lead and the Cowboys facing fourth-and-2 with 4:06 left in the game, the Cowboys went for it all, and at first, they got it — with Bryant making an acrobatic catch of quarterback Tony Romo’s throw over Packers cornerback Sam Shields at the Packers’ 1-yard line. Packers coach Mike McCarthy, who hadn’t won a replay challenge all season, threw his second red challenge flag of the day, postulating that Bryant had not maintained control of the ball. Referee Gene Steratore — and the NFL replay headquarters in New York — agreed, and the Cowboys turned the ball over on downs.
The Cowboys never got the ball back, with Rodgers hitting Randall Cobb for 12 yards on third-and-11 following the 2-minute warning, allowing Rodgers to kneel out the rest of the game.
That throw to Cobb was Rodgers’ last on a day when he completed 24 of 35 passes for 316 yards with three touchdowns for a 125.4 passer rating, and did it with a torn left calf muscle suffered during the regular-season finale two weeks earlier.
“I mean, when he turns it on, no matter if he’s hurt or not, he just plays lights out,” guard T.J. Lang said that day. “And to have a guy who’s ailing like that go out there and put up the numbers, do the things that he did, especially with that last throw to seal the game, is just a lot of fun to be a part of.”
Said McCarthy: “Once we opened things up and he was able to get into some rhythm throws and move around, he played like Aaron Rodgers. Just an incredible game for Aaron — especially for what he's been through the last two weeks.”
Rodgers on Rodgers: “I had an idea going in of what I'd be able to do, but it changed a little bit … It was a little stiffer than I thought it would be, so I just kind of adjusted from there. And the guys did a good job of protecting. For whatever reason, I was able to move to my left with a little less pain. I kind of figured going in, it would be the other way around. A couple of those plays I actually moved to my left and made some throws.”
9. In the ‘zone’
Packers 48, Falcons 21 — 2010 NFC Divisional Playoff — Jan. 15, 2011
Growing up in Northern California, Rodgers wasn’t just a Sacramento Kings and Vlade Divac fan. He loved the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls, and on Nov. 23, 1997, Jordan was in his final season with the Bulls — and Rodgers was an eighth grader sitting in the nosebleed seats at Arco Arena in Sacramento, seeing the greatest basketball player on the planet in person for the first time.
“I think something inside him felt he wanted to put on a show every time he went out, because there was somebody in the stadium that hadn’t seen him play before,” Rodgers said. “The last game that he played in Sacramento, I was in the top row, and it was kind of a late-addition ticket.
“He scored 33 points that night, and I was new to watching him live. I’d loved watching him on TV, but it was fun to watch him live. He always brought his A-game every night.”
Against the top-seeded Falcons at the Georgia Dome, Rodgers brought his A-game and delivered a Jordanesque performance: He completed 31 of 36 passes for 366 yards with three touchdowns, no interceptions and two sacks for 136.8 passer rating. For all of his great games, Rodgers’ play that night was magical — and perhaps the best single game he’s ever had. Rodgers’ 86.1% completion percentage was the fifth-highest all-time in a playoff game, and he also had a touchdown run in the game.
“He played absolutely phenomenal,” wide receiver Greg Jennings, who caught eight passes for 101 yards, said. “The performance he put on tonight, it was a treat to watch him. It was a treat to play with him."
Rodgers on Rodgers: “Yeah, this probably was my best performance. I think the stage that we were on and the importance of this game, it was a good night."
8. ‘Run the table’
8-game winning streak — 2016 season
When Rodgers spoke to reporters at his locker on Nov. 23, 2016, he did so with his team mired in a four-game losing streak and saddled with a 4-6 record with six games to play.
“I feel like we can run the table. I really do,” Rodgers began, having been asked why, following the team’s loss at Washington four days earlier, he’d said he was “very optimistic” about the team’s chances. “You just feel like it just takes one (win). We get one under our belts, things might start rolling for us and we can run the table.”
Turned out, he was right. The Packers went to Philadelphia and beat the Eagles on “Monday Night Football” that week — with Rodgers going 30 for 39 for 313 yards with two touchdowns in a 27-13 win — to kick off what became an eight-game winning streak that sent them to the 2016 NFC Championship Game. While they suffered a blowout loss to the Atlanta Falcons once they got there, Rodgers’ performance over the winning streak was arguably the greatest stretch of play he had in his time in Green Bay, completing 195 of 283 passes (68.9%) for 2,384 yards with 21 touchdowns and one interception for a 117.9 passer rating.
“The issue with the great ones like that, they put up such great numbers that the expectations are so high. So when you stub your toe a game here or there, everybody’s ready to jump on you because they normally don’t get to do it,” wide receiver Jordy Nelson said. “But what he does for this team, for our offense as a leader, as a quarterback, you see it. He’s playing incredible football. I don’t even want to try and guess what his numbers are. It’s fun to be a part of it and help him out.”
Rodgers on Rodgers: “That’s what it’s all about to me. It’s about challenging myself and rising to meet those challenges. I think that’s what every great player wishes that they can play at the level they know they’re capable of playing at. That’s why I enjoy the pressure being on me and I enjoy being out there and saying the things that I say, knowing that it’s going to come back onto me. As a quarterback, the spotlight’s on you, the pressure’s on you, the expectations are on you, and those are the things that I’ve taken upon myself over the years and looked forward to those challenges every single week.”
7. ‘R-E-L-A-X’
Packers 38, Bears 17 — Sept. 28, 2014
“Five letters here, just for everybody out there in Packer Land,” Rodgers said Sept. 23, 2014 inside a reporter’s cramped office. “R-E-L-A-X. Relax. We’re going to be OK.”
Rodgers made that proclamation on his weekly ESPN Wisconsin radio show — the precursor to the Tuesday appearances he’s done on “The Pat McAfee Show” the past three years — and he wasn’t just talking to listeners. He was talking to his teammates in the locker room, too.
The Packers were off to a 1-2 start with losses on the road to the Seattle Seahawks and Detroit Lions and a come-from-behind victory at home over the New York Jets.
Five days after his proclamation, Rodgers went down to Chicago and completed 22 of 28 passes for 302 yards and four touchdowns for a 151.2 passer rating — the second-highest in a single game in his career at the time, and 7.1 points shy of perfection, in a season-shifting win. The Packers went 10-2 over the remaining 12 games after that win and advanced to the NFC Championship Game.
Rodgers on Rodgers: “That’s what I want to do as a leader. I like to put the pressure on myself. As a quarterback, you’re going to get too much credit and too much blame at times. When you’re getting too much credit, you need to deflect properly, and when you’re getting too much blame, sometimes you need to tell everybody to relax — or just take it all and lead by example when you get on the field. It’s a long season, so there’s always going to be mini-freakouts along the way. You just got to stick together, stay the course. Sometimes when you say stuff like that, it can start to permeate throughout the team and guys start believing it a little bit, that, ‘Yeah, everything is going to be OK.’ (But), you’ve got to back it up with performance.”
6. Hello, World!
Cowboys 37, Packers 27 — Nov. 29, 2007
Scraggly long mane flowing out the back of his helmet, his white No. 12 jersey fresh and clean, Rodgers jogged onto the Texas Stadium turf with 9 minutes, 47 seconds left in the first half after iconic quarterback Brett Favre suffered an injured right (throwing) elbow and a separated left shoulder.
Three of the four passes he threw were incomplete on that first possession, and the one he did connect on went for 3 measly yards. His best play was an 8-yard scramble on third-and-7 that extended the drive for three more plays before a Jon Ryan punt.
It didn’t look at first as if the Packers’ next Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback was beginning his journey toward Canton. But it turned out, Rodgers was doing exactly that.
On the Packers’ next two series, Rodgers led touchdown drives — on their final possession of the first half, and on their initial possession of the second half — to pull within a field goal. With the ball early in the fourth quarter with a chance to tie the game or take the lead, though, they ended up having to punt. Dallas scored a touchdown on its next possession.
Rodgers, who weeing regular-season action for just the seventh time since entering the league as the Packers' No. 1 pick in 2005, hadn't been thrust into the lineup since Nov. 19, 2006 against New England, when Favre suffered another right elbow injury and couldn't continue. In that game, Rodgers was just 4-of-12 for 32 yards and played on what turned out to be a season-ending broken foot he suffered just after halftime.
Against the Cowboys, he completed 18 of 26 passes for 201 yards and a touchdown for a 104.8 rating. McCarthy said the Packers “didn't deviate from our plan” after Rodgers replaced Favre, calling all the same plays.
“I thought he did OK,” general manager Ted Thompson said in his typically understated way after the game. “He showed poise, he threw the ball accurately, he moved the ball.”
Rodgers on Rodgers: “We didn't put up an oh-fer when I was in, but at the same time, we had the ball on the 20-yard line with about 50 yards to get into field goal range, down by three, and we couldn't get the job done. That's disappointing. Hopefully these guys can believe in me like they did tonight. I just told them to trust me. I didn't promise them anything. I just said, `Trust me.' Just came up a little short.”
5. The Miracle in Motown
Packers 27, Lions 23 — Dec. 3, 2015
Incredibly, before Rodgers scrambled around Ford Field and unleashed a 61-yard prayer that only seemed like it scraped the ceiling on its flight to the end zone, he’d never thrown a successful Hail Mary.
Not for the Chico (California) Jaguars midget team as a kid growing up, not at Pleasant Valley High School, not at Butte Community College, not at the University of California and never before in the NFL.
“Good time for it,” Rodgers said with a smile.
That it was. The Packers had lost four of their previous five games entering the night, and during the first half of the game, the Green Bay offense had failed to score or convert a third down.
But the offense came to life after halftime, scoring 27 points — including the final six on Rodgers’ heave that tight end Richard Rodgers high-pointed just inside the goal line to turn a 23-21 deficit into a 27-23 victory.
Rodgers on Rodgers: “It’s the greatest feeling. We’re blessed to be able to play this game, and it reminds you at times how special this game is. You live for days like this, to be able to have something miraculous happen.”
4. Hail Mary x 2
Cardinals 26, Packers 20 — 2015 NFC Divisional Playoff — Jan. 16, 2016
As incredible as Rodgers’ game-winner was in Detroit, he had two more impressive throws — to little-used wide receiver Jeff Janis, of all people — a few weeks later in the postseason. Only this time, he was only able to force overtime, and the Packers’ season came to yet another disappointing playoff end.
The Packers went into their NFC Divisional matchup at Arizona without No. 1 receiver Jordy Nelson, who missed the entire 2015 season after suffering a torn ACL in his knee in a meaningless August preseason game in Pittsburgh. Nelson was coming off a 2014 season in which he’d set the Packers franchise record for receiving yards (1,519).
They also were without Davante Adams, who’d limped through most of his second NFL season with a debilitating ankle injury and was inactive against the Cardinals with a knee injury suffered a week earlier in an opening-round playoff win at Washington.
And on the second-to-last play of the first quarter against the Cardinals, they lost Randall Cobb, whose leaping, one-handed, 51-yard circus catch was nullified by penalties, to what turned out to be a punctured lung that sent him to the emergency room of a Phoenix-area hospital.
And yet, as unlikely as it was, the Packers pulled off one of the NFL’s most unexpected playoff comebacks ever in the final minute of regulation. First, Rodgers scrambled around his own end zone before uncorking a 60-yarder on fourth-and-20 from the Green Bay 4-yard line to Janis with 55 seconds left to keep the Packers alive. Then, he hit a leaping Janis on a 41-yard Hail Mary touchdown as time expired to force overtime at 20-20 on Mason Crosby’s ensuing extra point. Later, McCarthy said he considered going for a 2-point conversion after Janis’ touchdown catch, but because Janis injured his back when he landed on top of cornerback Patrick Peterson’s knee in the end zone, the Packers only had James Jones and Jared Abbrederis left at wideout, and McCarthy wanted to run a play from a three-receiver set.
He should’ve anyway. The Cardinals won a wonky coin toss, and Larry Fitzgerald ended the game with a 5-yard touchdown on a shovel pass that he’d set up with a 75-yard catch and run against an utterly lost Packers defense. Rodgers never touched the ball again.
Rodgers on Rodgers: “I’ve always been able to throw it pretty high. And I’ve said this many times in the locker room, the plays that happen on the field, the throws, I’ve done all those in practice. So even the Arizona throw, the Detroit throw … I’ve done similar plays where we’re moving the pocket slightly or not moving the pocket or escaping and resetting the edge and then you’re throwing it as high as you can and trying to judge trajectory and distance and then how hard you’re going to throw it and how high you’re going to throw it. It’s a matter of a quick mathematical equation in your mind based on your feel and your muscle memory.”
3. ‘Rodgers … Cobb … TOUCHDOWN!'
Packers 33, Bears 28 — Dec. 29, 2013
McCarthy called it “probably his finest hour as a Green Bay Packer” at the time. Rodgers couldn’t disagree.
While Rodgers won bigger games — namely, Super Bowl XLV and the playoff games that got the Packers there three years earlier — Rodgers said the Packers’ 33-28 victory over the Bears was probably his greatest regular-season moment of his career: In his first game in nearly two months because of a broken collarbone, Rodgers led a last-minute comeback against the team’s oldest rival in a win-or-go-home de facto playoff game on the road in inclement weather.
And the touchdown pass that won the game — a 48-yard strike to Randall Cobb with 38 seconds left to play on a fourth-and-8 with a seven-man all-out blitz coming — was the epitome of a clutch play.
“When the ball was in the air — guys have been talking about how it was slow motion and all that — all I was thinking about was, ‘All right. We’re in field-goal range.’ That’s kind of how my thought-process was,” Rodgers said on his weekly ESPN Wisconsin radio show after the win. “The ball’s in the air, I’m thinking, ‘OK, field-goal range, let’s go spike this.’ And then I see (Cobb) catch it and go in the end zone and just … one of the most amazing feelings ever. (I) just … blacked out. It was amazing.”
Even more amazing was the fact that the strike to Cobb was the third time on the drive that the Packers converted a fourth-down play — with their season hanging in the balance — and that a rusty Rodgers did all that in a game where he completed 25 of 39 passes for 318 yards with two touchdowns, two interceptions, three sacks, one fumble and a passer rating of 85.2.
And that Cobb, who’d missed 11 weeks of action himself with a fractured fibula, was on the receiving end of the game-winner.
“Oh my gosh, it was in the air for so long,” a beaming Cobb said after sending Green Bay to the NFC playoffs. “I had so many thoughts going through my head. ‘You better not drop it. If you drop it, they’re going to kill you. You better catch it. Just catch the ball. Body catch it if you have to. Do whatever you have to do.’ And I was able to make the catch.”
Rodgers on Rodgers: “As I looked outside, I felt Julius (Peppers) was coming free. I was going to try to elude him — which, the chances of that are pretty slim — and (Kuhn) comes out of nowhere and cuts him. I was able to get the edge and saw Randall running wide open. In my peripheral, I looked outside to make sure that we had a big play there, (and) I knew I had to get a little bit on it just to make sure that I didn’t way underthrow him. When that ball came down, it was just pandemonium.”
2. Drawing it up in the dirt
Packers 34, Cowboys 31 — 2016 NFC Divisional Playoff — Jan. 15, 2017
Nine months after seeing it live and in person with his own eyes — and not believing what he’d just seen — Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott was prepping for a 2017 regular-season rematch with the Packers and still thinking about one of the greatest throws he’d ever seen anyone make: Rodgers, rolling to his left on third-and-20, firing a how-did-he-do-that? 36-yard sideline strike to tip-toeing tight end Jared Cook, setting up Mason Crosby’s 51-yard winning field goal as time expired to send the Packers to the NFC Championship Game and the Cowboys into the offseason.
“No way,” Prescott recalled thinking at the time. “No way he caught the ball, and no way Aaron Rodgers made that play.”
But he did. And, it was largely conjured up on the fly. Fox Sports’ cameras caught Rodgers counting the number of players he had on the field and then gesturing to Cook, Davante Adams, Randall Cobb and Trevor Davis where to run their routes, since there wasn’t a true play call in the huddle.
Rodgers then took the snap, spun with his back to the line of scrimmage and took off to his left. He slowed his rollout to look to Cobb across the middle, then accelerated again before throwing across his body to Cook, who made a fabulous catch at the Dallas 32-yard line that stood up to replay-booth review with 3 seconds remaining, setting the stage for Crosby.
“The things that I do on the field, most of the time come with deep thought and contemplation — weeks, months before they actually happen,” Rodgers told the State Journal. “Sometimes (only) days, sometimes even hours. Sometimes I think of something before a game, and say, ‘Hey, we get this situation, I might check to this’ or ‘I’m thinking maybe this.’ But plays like that one, that is something I thought about for a few months ... how to call it and how to kind of put it in so guys would know what to do. And that’s how kind of my brain works at times. Things hit me in the moment and you learn to just … trust it.”
Rodgers on Rodgers: “We’ve got a good repertoire of plays for the end of the game — whether it’s the well-publicized Hail Marys or the other plays we’ve hit over the years — to draw from. We picked that one out and we executed well at the most important part of the game.”
1. Returning the title to Titletown
Packers 31, Steelers 25 — Super Bowl XLV — Feb. 6, 2011
In the most important game of his young career, Rodgers was at his absolute best. Three years removed from the organization turning the team over to Rodgers and parting ways with Favre, the Super Bowl-winning, multi-MVP predecessor — sound familiar? — who had a messy divorce with the organization to do so, Rodgers delivered a tour de force performance on the NFL’s biggest stage.
Of all the magnificent throws Rodgers made that night in North Texas — and there were many, as he earned Super Bowl XLV MVP honors by completing 24 of 39 passes for 304 yards and three touchdowns (111.5 rating) — he might have saved his best throw for the end. With the Packers clinging to a 28-25 lead with just under 6 minutes left in the game and facing third-and-10 at their own 25-yard line. Rodgers went to a play called "27 Tampa."
The play began with Rodgers lined up in the shotgun. With the franchise’s all-time leading receiver, veteran Donald Driver, out with an ankle injury suffered earlier in the game, Rodgers had four receivers — Greg Jennings, Jones, Nelson and Brett Swain — in a spread formation with running back Brandon Jackson in the backfield. Jennings, lined up in the left slot, got a clean release off the line of scrimmage and zoomed on a post toward the middle of the field.
Rodgers saw Jennings break open and delivered a perfect strike past the outstretched arms of lunging Steelers cornerback Ike Taylor, hitting Jennings right in stride. If Jennings doesn’t make the catch — and, on a night when his fellow receivers had some critical drops, that was no sure thing — it’s an incompletion that leads to a punt and gives the Steelers a chance to tie or win the game.
“Huge. Outstanding throw by Aaron,” Jennings said. “It just got over the top of (Taylor’s) outstretched hands. They were in 2-man, and it seemed like (the ball) brushed off the tip of Ike Taylor’s glove. But it just got over the top enough to where I could make a play on it. And here we are, Super Bowl champions.”
Although the drive stalled inside the Steelers’ 10-yard line, it was enough to set up a 23-yard Mason Crosby field goal that pushed the Packers’ lead to six points. Green Bay’s defense squelched the Steelers’ last-ditch drive, as Ben Roethlisberger’s fourth-and-5 pass with 49 seconds left fell incomplete.
“It’s named the Lombardi Trophy for a reason,” Rodgers said after his teammates hoisted him onto the shoulders of teammates when the final seconds ticked away. “We play and live in Titletown. We’ve got the best fans, an organization that believes in us, gives us the opportunity to be successful and I can’t wait to go home and see those fans and bring them the Lombardi Trophy. It’s been incredible to end four playoff games with ‘Go Pack Go!’ chants. It’s a special place to play, and all of us are blessed to live and play in Green Bay.
“The character in that locker room is like nothing I’ve ever been a part of. It’s just a special group of guys that believe in each other, love each other. It’s a great feeling, it really is. We accomplished our goals. We talked about it on March 16 when we met for the first time, and here we are, the world champions.”
Rodgers on Rodgers: “Early on I missed a couple throws. I was, maybe, a little bit hyped up. I never felt the nerves. Again, it just goes back to my preparation. When I get to Saturday night and Sunday game day, if I’ve put in the time and the proper preparation, I feel like I should be successful on game day. There aren’t any doubts; the confidence was there. It was no different (Sunday) night. I felt good about the plan, felt good about the way I practiced, the way I prepared, the way I studied and just knew I was getting a lot of opportunities. And (I was) expecting to make those plays that were going to be there.”
Aaron Rodgers has come a long way from the fresh-faced California quarterback selected by the Green Bay Packers with the 24th overall pick in …