Aaron Rodgers is widely considered the best QB in the NFL, and for good reason. In 2014, he led the Packers to their fourth straight division title, was ranked second in passer rating, and won the MVP award. This article will examine the TD passes and runs he had in 2014.
Over my next few articles, I’m going to be covering the biggest positives (touchdowns) and negatives (turnovers) from the NFC North QBs in 2014. Aaron Rodgers had 38 regular season passing and 2 rushing TDs in 2014, along with four passing TDs in the playoffs. First, I’m going to cover some charting data I came up with while watching his passing. Then, on page 2 and beyond, there are my thoughts of the individual plays themselves. Here are the articles in the series that I have completed so far:
Here’s data on the yardage from Rodgers’ TDs:
Yardage Breakdown
| Yards | 905 | Average | 21.5 |
| Yards after catch | 384 | Average | 9.1 |
| Yards in Air | 521 | Average | 12.4 |
| Yards in Air+ | 643 | Average | 15.3 |
The difference between “Yards in Air” and “Yards in Air+” is that I give credit for yards in the endzone in “Yards in Air+.” So, if the line of scrimmage is the 2 and he throws a TD pass that’s caught 7 yards into the endzone, the YIA for that play is 2 while the YIA+ is 9.
Rodgers throws bombs. With such a large volume of TD passes, you might expect his average yardage on the passes to be relatively low, but that’s not the case. He is helped considerably by a high average yardage after the catch by his receivers, but there were a number of plays where he’d throw a pass 30 yards downfield that Jordy Nelson would take 30 more yards to the house. So, as you’ll see later, it’s not that his receivers are necessarily breaking tackles on every TD, but that they have wide open paths to the endzone after catching the ball.
Despite his receivers amassing a large amount of yardage after the catch, his YIA+ average is still almost three yards higher than his YIA average. This means that when Rodgers throws the ball into the endzone, he’s throwing it near the back line.
This brings me to the next tables, which break his TD passes down by distance and location:
Distance Breakdown
| Fewer than 6 Yards | 14 |
| Between 6 and 15 yards | 12 |
| More than 15 yards | 16 |
Location Breakdown
| Deep Left | Deep Middle | Deep Right |
| 4 | 3 | 10 |
| Intermediate Left | Intermediate Middle | Intermediate Right |
| 3 | 9 | 2 |
| Short Left | Short Middle | Short Right |
| 1 | 3 | 7 |
In terms of TD distances, there’s a pretty even spread here in the first table. However, when you look at the second table, it becomes clear that Rodgers is most dangerous when passing down the field, instead of throwing to shorter routes. His TD passes heavily favor throws to the right on both short and deep routes, but his intermediate passing game sees the most success on routes over the middle of the field. Since Jordy Nelson normally lines up on the right and is amazing at vertical routes, it’s no surprise to see the deep right passes leading the bunch with 10 total TDs to that area of the field.
Now let’s take a look at the route types he threw to:
Route Breakdown
| Vertical | 9 |
| Slant | 6 |
| Flat/Screen | 6 |
| Crossing | 6 |
| Broken Play | 5 |
| Post | 4 |
| Corner | 3 |
| Fade | 2 |
| Curl | 1 |
As with pretty much every other QB I’ve studied, vertical routes lead the way, and screens/flat routes are near the top as well. The Packers seem to do well with routes that break towards the middle of the field, with crossing routes and slants taking up a large percentage of the TD passes. That makes sense, because McCarthy is a disciple of the West Coast offense. Another one of Rodgers’ many skills shows itself here with 5 TDs on broken plays. Rodgers is great at keeping the play alive and then burning the defense with a pass.
Speaking of rollouts, I also tracked plays where Rodgers was pressured or didn’t have a standard dropback:
Dropback Breakdown
| Nothing Unusual | 30 |
| Rollout | 5 |
| Pressured | 9 |
The Packers’ offensive line did a very good job of protecting Rodgers last year, but even when Aaron was pressured he made things happen, with 9 TD passes while facing pressure. That’s the most so far, but it’s also a smaller percentage than most of the other QBs I’ve studied because Rodgers threw a lot of TDs.
Speaking of pressure, how did Rodgers do in close moments? Here’s a look at his TD’s in “Crunch Time” (which I define as the game being within 8 points in either direction with less than 5 minutes left in the game) and “Garbage Time” (down 9 points or more with under two minutes left, 16 points or more with under 6 minutes left, or 21 points or in the 4th Quarter) TDs:
Situational Breakdown
| Crunch Time | 1 |
| Garbage Time | 1 |
Rodgers didn’t come through in the clutch often for the Packers in 2014. That’s not because he’s bad in pressure situations, but because he didn’t need to. The Packers went 12-4, and won a lot of games by a healthy margin. It’s actually also impressive that he didn’t have many garbage time TDs. You’ll see the reason in the next table.
With this talk of crunch time and garbage time TDs, let’s look at his TD breakdown by Quarter:
Quarter Breakdown
| 1st Quarter | 12 |
| 2nd Quarter | 15 |
| 3rd Quarter | 7 |
| 4th Quarter | 8 |
Down Breakdown
| 1st Down | 15 |
| 2nd Down | 9 |
| 3rd Down | 17 |
| 4th Down | 1 |
Rodgers and Co. jumped out to leads early in the game and never looked back. They didn’t need to pass much in the second half because they tended to be up by a lot. So Rodgers comparatively didn’t throw many TDs in the second half. In addition to a strong preference for throwing TDs in the first half, the data shows that he throws a lot more TDs on first and third down than second.
Receiver Breakdown
| Jordy Nelson | 13 |
| Randall Cobb | 13 |
| Devante Adams | 4 |
| Eddie Lacy | 4 |
| Andrew Quarless | 4 |
| Richard Rodgers | 4 |
| Brandon Bostick | 1 |
Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb is a really difficult duo for defenses to defend, especially since Rodgers is the one throwing to him. Adams really played well against the Cowboys in the playoffs, and him emerging as a strong receiving threat would make the Packers’ offense even more overpowered. They even have two big TE targets for plays near the goal line in Quarless and Richard Rodgers.
