Rodgers Holding Ball Too Long?

[BorderRivals.com]

I saw a few post on this in the studs/duds section, but wanted to make it a separate discussion. I agree that Rodgers holds the ball longer than most QBs, to say the least. But, I think it's the catch-22 of Rodgers. He holds it that long because he trusts his ability - which he should - to make plays with his legs and outside the pocket. And he's also very strong with the ball in that he rarely fumbles it when sacked. Also to his credit, he doesn't make poor decisions - a la Brent Favre - when pressured. Instead, he takes the sack and lives to play another down. Think about it, he was sacked 5 times at the Dome, and he still posted 4 TDs and nearly 400-yards passing. The sacks really don't impact him or the game like they would to most QB's and offenses.

So, in sum, yes he holds it long; but he does so in order to buy time to make plays with his legs and when the play breaks down. I'll gladly take that trade-off.

 

[13 Times Champs]

You forgot another option he has which is throw the ball away. Those sacks he takes have killed drives.

 

[HyponGrey]

You forgot another option he has which is throw the ball away. Those sacks he takes have killed drives.

Throwing it away while getting hit? How many times should we have picked off Webb last night for that?

 

[13 Times Champs]

Throwing it away while getting hit? How many times should we have picked off Webb last night for that?

Don't think I said that. He has opportunities to throw the ball away before getting hit.

 

[HyponGrey]

Don't think I said that. He has opportunities to throw the ball away before getting hit.

He doesn't usually see the hit coming, most of the time his first alert is a mans arms wrapping him up from behind/blindside.

 

[13 Times Champs]

He doesn't usually see the hit coming, most of the time his first alert is a mans arms wrapping him up from behind/blindside.

And he is excused in those instances.

 

[ivo610]

I believe he holds the ball longer than any other starting QB in the league on avg. alot of what fans see as him getting sacked they put on the o line, when in reality it's Rodgers who deserves to be credited with those sacks.

It's something he needs to work on. It's the biggest flaw in his game.

 

[The Rivalry]

I think Rodgers gets greedy sometimes and looks for the knockout punch rather than take whats available. The problem with that is he puts himself in a position to get injured and/or get stripped from behind. Turnovers are huge in every game, but in the playoffs they end seasons. It would be great to see him take the 4 yrd dump off or throw the ball out of bounds, realizing that with our offense can always produce on the next play. But you can't ask someone as great as AR to NOT play his game, so there's always going to be some improvisation from him. And it usually ends well for GB so, what ya gonna do?

 

[13 Times Champs]

I think Rodgers gets greedy sometimes and looks for the knockout punch rather than take whats available.

agree

 

[HardRightEdge]

I saw a few post on this in the studs/duds section, but wanted to make it a separate discussion. I agree that Rodgers holds the ball longer than most QBs, to say the least. But, I think it's the catch-22 of Rodgers. He holds it that long because he trusts his ability - which he should - to make plays with his legs and outside the pocket. And he's also very strong with the ball in that he rarely fumbles it when sacked. Also to his credit, he doesn't make poor decisions - a la Brent Favre - when pressured. Instead, he takes the sack and lives to play another down. Think about it, he was sacked 5 times at the Dome, and he still posted 4 TDs and nearly 400-yards passing. The sacks really don't impact him or the game like they would to most QB's and offenses.

So, in sum, yes he holds it long; but he does so in order to buy time to make plays with his legs and when the play breaks down. I'll gladly take that trade-off.

Yes. It's a byproduct of the big play mentality, the style of quarterbacking. While coaching says protection starts breaking down at 2.5 seconds, the coverage starts breaking down as well. The clock in Rodgers head says "move", not "dump", to exploit the opportunity. You can't have the big plays that come out of those opportunities without taking some sacks from extending plays.

Jennings is one of the best in the game at re-routing in a breakdown. Cobb's getting the hang of it. Jordy's pretty decent at it. Let Rodgers be Rodgers. Don't try to make him into Peyton Manning.

 

[HyponGrey]

agree

Merrill Hog actually pointed out that he ignores the open short pass in order to look down field, showed a bunch of tape of him doing it.

 

[HardRightEdge]

Merrill Hog actually pointed out that he ignores the open short pass in order to look down field, showed a bunch of tape of him doing it.

Sure. It's been out there all season. Many fans don't notice it because (1) they hate Finley; he scrapes into open territory with some regularity and (2) Rodgers completes the ball down the field with some regularity.

 

[BorderRivals.com]

It would be great to see him take the 4 yrd dump off or throw the ball out of bounds, realizing that with our offense can always produce on the next play.

He throws it out of bounds when he escapes the pocket and can't find anyone open. But, he can't do that in the pocket, which is usually where he gets sacked - though, he could "overthrow" a WR so that there is a man in the area. He started looking for the dump off last night. Finally exploited the Tampa-2 with the drop off to Harris regularly.

 

[HardRightEdge]

Looking at the 32 QBs who had enough attempts to qualify for season passer rating, the median number of sacks is 29.5. Rodgers took 51, or about 1.3 additional sacks per game over the median, while most of the QBs had fewer dropbacks.

Rodgers was 10th. in the league in attempts. If you were to add in the sacks and QB scrambles to get total dropbacks, I suspect he'd be higher than 10th. Though this data is not readily available, if one were to calculate sacks-per-dropback, I'd surmise Rodgers logged approximately one additional sack per game over the median.

Then factor in that our offensive tackles are below average pass blockers.

The sack issue would seem to be exaggerated.

 

[Future12]

Merrill Hog actually pointed out that he ignores the open short pass in order to look down field, showed a bunch of tape of him doing it.

Have to say I'm not surprised. You can tell Rodgers is locking his eyes down the field to make a nice pass instead of just a simple one sometimes. Another thing that irks me is when he tries to dance around in the pocket instead of just trying to go forward and getting back to the line, he ends up getting sacked and losing some yards.

Still a remarkable quarterback and they all have little flaws that could be corrected.

 

[rodell330]

Alot of sacks he takes are a biproduct of trying to give wrs a chance to get open. Mre however are the reslt of bad oline play.

 

[ExpatPacker]

Alot of sacks he takes are a biproduct of trying to give wrs a chance to get open. Mre however are the reslt of bad oline play.

This is probably true, but I also think that Rodgers fails to resort to the quick dump-off enough. One QB who does this very well is Brady. One of the reasons why Brady is so hard to pressure is not only because of his OL, but because he makes very quick decisions about the short pass. He either looks for it first, or if the play isn't developing as it should, he gets rid of it in 3 seconds or less.

Once the pocket starts to collapse Rodgers tends to dance around to try and escape the pressure, which works maybe 50% of the time. He doesn't scramble nearly as much as he used to.

I think this is an off-season problem that Rodgers has to work on. I don't think he can change his style right now.

 

[I asked LT to delete my acct]

I FINALLY got to see the "live" game on my computer, and I`ve got to say as much as I love the guy, Aaron holds the ball far too long. It`s a good job I know we won or I swear I would have had a heart attack !!

 

[gbpowner]

In the playoff game last Saturday, Newhouse was credited with 1 sack allowed and the other 2 were Rodger's responsibility. I'm not going out on a limb when I say that A-Rod is the best in the business but even the best have things that they need to/are working on. Our OL is definitely not a bunch of pro-bowlers but they aren't the bunch of slackers that they are made out to be; especially when Mr.Rodgers is responsible for some of his own sacks.

 

[Alex]

Sometimes seems like he gets trapped in the pocket and tries to scramble with no way out and steps into a sack. Those are the times I wish he would just throw it away.

 

[FrankRizzo]

You forgot another option he has which is throw the ball away. Those sacks he takes have killed drives.

It is a catch-22 sometimes..... it's hard to throw it away in time to prevent the hit anyway.
He can do what Farve did, which in the playoffs results in interceptions that end seasons. Those are painful.

But he does have to stop this because he's going to get hurt sooner or later, so to avoid those hits, it's imperative.

The OL and he are the key to this game.
We can outscore anyone if the OL keeps Rodgers upright, and if he keeps himself upright.

 

[TJV]

This is from McGinn’s review of the Vikings game:

Two of the three sacks (4.5, 4.8 seconds) were Rodgers' responsibility. However, the Packers overcame a second-and-14 hole after one of them en route to their final TD. It would be far more difficult to overcome a turnover, and Rodgers hasn't thrown an interception since the third quarter of the first Minnesota game.

4.5 seconds or more is a testament to the OL and Rodgers’ escapability – or both. Rodgers does hang on to the ball too long at times but it pays off more often than it hurts. Also he’s been remarkable at not fumbling the ball – for as often as he’s hit/sacked. On some of the routes where it looks like he’s ignoring the short route, I think his progression is from the deep routes to the shorter ones. The only problem I have with it is the increased injury risk.

 

[FrankRizzo]

This is from McGinn’s review of the Vikings game: 4.5 seconds or more is a testament to the OL and Rodgers’ escapability – or both. Rodgers does hang on to the ball too long at times but it pays off more often than it hurts. Also he’s been remarkable at not fumbling the ball – for as often as he’s hit/sacked. On some of the routes where it looks like he’s ignoring the short route, I think his progression is from the deep routes to the shorter ones. The only problem I have with it is the increased injury risk.

Exactly.
I have seen some near misses when he gets sacked... his ankles, feet, legs..... it doesn't take much from one of those 300-pounders, or 250-pound LBers..... and they want to injure the QB if possible to. BountyGate or not, they want to take em out if possible, cleanly.

McCarthy and Rodgers will be drawing up some new stuff.... it's a chess match vs them. But the problem I see is that their front 7 is just better than our OL, but I hope to be proven wrong. Again.

 

[Oshkoshpackfan]

holding the ball to long because of looking for the "kill shot", or the O line being beaten, or the coverage on the WR's is good......all things that contribute to sacks this season. I think that Cobb is one of the only guys to see that the play is breaking down, comes off route back to the ball and Arod gets it to him ( not all the time, but a lot). More WR's need to do this and have better awareness. Also, someone mentioned that he ignores the shorter pass, that is true sometimes. I did see D. Harris open in the flat 3 times during the Minn game and Arod took a longer shot down field........checking down to that little guy aint a bad idea, he's got moves and speed.

 

[JBlood]

According to Football Outsiders (http://www.footballoutsiders.com/under-pressure/2012/under-pressure-long-and-short-sacks), there are "long sacks" (over 3 sec.) and "short sacks"(2.4 sec or less). Their last stats of Oct. showed Rogers with 11 long and 4 short sacks which they feel point to Rogers holding the ball too long. What the stats don't show is "time to pressure", which would force a QB to move to avoid the rush, which eliminates the short sacks that they feel are primarily due to the offensive line. So, there should be a "time to pressure" as an indicator of offensive line performance; "short sacks" and then the "long sacks" number. Those numbers would better point to offensive line performance, quarterback mobility, and QB ability on the run. A team with very short "time to pressure" and low short sacks shows the ability of the QB to avoid pressure, but still shows the ineffectiveness of the line. Average time to pressure with a high sack rate points to the QB. A team with short time to pressure and high sack rate--either short or long--points to the offensive line as the culprit and a QB ineffective at avoiding the rush. Time to pressure could also point out QBs who leave the pocket before any real pressure exists. We know Rogers is adept at avoiding the rush, and is terrific on the run, but I hate seeing the best QB in the game running around and being hit more often than any other QB. Vick, and RGIII are paying the price, and it's only a matter of time before Rogers gets injured. And when it does, Game Over.