Curiosity got the best of us as we decided to simulate the NFL season next year for the Green Bay Packers without recently retired star quarterback Brett Favre being the man under center. Instead, the new guy taking his place will be former California quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers will enter his first full season as the expected starting quarterback for an NFL franchise. Now let's begin taking a closer look at the simulation results from Madden NFL 08 to see what we can expect from Rodgers and the Packers in the upcoming season.
To say that Rodgers will be under a great deal of pressure is clearly an understatement. No one ever wants to be the guy after the guy who was a legend. It's better off if you're the guy after the guy after the guy to avoid having to live up to a God-like status to fans. As the simulation began, it was interesting to see that Rodgers' stats actually weren't that bad for his first full season. Rodgers threw for 3,266 yards, 18 touchdowns, and just 5 interceptions. Obviously, Favre produced a bit more last season as he threw for 4,155 yards, 28 touchdowns, and 15 interceptions while leading his team to the NFC Championship Game. Unfortunately, the Packers didn't have the same success under Rodgers as they could only manage to finish 3rd in their division with an overall record of 5-11.
Green Bay's offense as a whole managed to only score 326 points on the season. The 326 points scored are a far cry from the 435 (2nd in the NFL) points that Favre and the Pack put up just a season ago. No one should expect Rodgers to come right in and lead this team back to where they were. However, if Green Bay fans have to experience a season like the one we simulated you can bet there will be a number of people calling for Rodgers' head. The real truth to poor simulated season in Green Bay is the fact that the defense gave up 426 points. Last season the Packers defense ranked 11th in the NFL and gave up a total of just 291 points.
There's no way that Green Bay will succeed this season if the defense isn't the anchor on this team. Rodgers isn't going to be the type of quarterback this season that you can ask to go out and win games for you. Typically, learning how to win games at the quarterback position takes a few years before that level of comfort sets in. For instance, both Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger were both asked to simply not lose games instead of trying to win games whey got their first chances to lead an offense. Now both of these great quarterbacks want the ball in their hands in the final two minutes of the game and they expect to succeed.
We'll all miss Brett Favre. Even if you didn't like Favre as a person, you still can't deny how much fun it was to watch him make throws that many of us try to make in every game of Madden that we play. The throws that I'm talking about are rolling out with the quarterback to the right, then doing the unthinkable by throwing back across the field trying to hit the open receiver. There's not another quarterback in the league that has had more success without mastering the fundamentals of the quarterback position. Favre is unlike any other quarterback that we have, or will ever, see again in this league for a very long time. I think it's safe to say that both Packers' fans and users in Madden 09 will have their hands full next season.
