NFL: Third and Long: What do the Packers do without Rodgers?

The failure of Aaron Rodgers overshadows Week 6 – and raises huge questions from the Packers’ point of view.How can Green Bay react now?Should Colin Kaepernick come as a rescuer?And what will the offense look like in the future?In addition: Adrian Peterson’s spectacular debut, the quarterback exchange in San Francisco, the Eagles as title contenders and much more – in his SPOX column, NFL editor Adrian Franke looks back on last week’s NFL.

The superstar injury wave reached its sad climax on Sunday.Aaron Rodgers’ injury is a sad affair, not only for Packers fans.Nevertheless, Green Bay is of course still in focus, and the question: What are the Packers doing now?How can they compensate for the failure of the NFL’s most talented quarterback?

The structure of the offense is now becoming a central problem.Although the Packers had already built in more successive route combinations into their scheme over the past season, many of the receivers’ itineraries are still isolated.Rodgers can, if the receivers take longer to run freely than any other quarterback, expand the play and then fire an exact pass from a seemingly impossible angle.This quality will be lacking in the packers with board Hundley.

So how could the offense for the rest of the season – after it is clear that Rodgers has to be operated on, a comeback is almost impossible – look like?Green Bay will have to adjust the offense, that’s for sure.Rodgers often overlays the weaknesses in the scheme and possible problems in the offensive line, the packers of Hundley can’t expect that.

First of all, Green Bay means that Hundley has to give lighter reads, and this works primarily through route combinations.Whether it’s curl flat combinations, generally rub-routes, bunch formations or slant mixes – the packers must finally use routings that build consistently on each other in order to give Hundley a chance.Against Minnesota, Hundley showed what his arm can do with impressive passes at Out-Routes.But he also showed that he has problems with pressure and reads.

And especially the pressure part will not disappear into thin air.With Taylor, Bulaga and Bakhtiari three O-Liners injured themselves against the Vikes, the line is already a problem all year round.So Hundley doesn’t get a clean pocket, so much more has to be done about the play designs.In addition, Green Bay now has to focus more on the run, next to the problem with the insulation routes, the second major construction site of the Packers’ Offense in recent years.According to ESPN Stats, the packers had the second most dropbacks (71 percent) of all teams before Week 6.With Hundley, this formula doesn’t work.

There is still one aspect left, because of course questions about possible replacements arose promptly – especially Colin Kaepernick was mentioned.This is understandable and in my opinion Green Bay Kaepernick should at least invite you to the training and consider it as a backup.The fact that the Packers are the only team without a direct owner makes the situation with Kaepernick’s protests and accusations against the 31 franchise owners all the more exciting.

At the same time, however, one must also understand why Kaepernick is currently not an option as a starter for Green Bay.The Packers are more committed than almost any other team to trust their own scouts and young players.Hundley has now learned and developed since 2015 behind Rodgers, he knows the offense, the language of play-calling, the adjustments.

Under no circumstances could Kaepernick be thrown into this offense and be expected to succeed, not only because the West Coast scheme with its precise timing concepts would not necessarily address Kaepernick’s strengths.Hundley is the right and logical choice of starter for the moment and now needs every training snap with the starters he can get.

I too was one of those who were very critical of Arizona’s commitment to Adrian Peterson.The low risk (less than $800,000 salary, a maximum six-round draft kick as prize) made the decision easier to understand – the game against Tampa made all critics look pretty bad. 134 rushing yards and two touchdowns at 5.2 yards per run, 74 percent of the snaps he played (48, and thus four more than a total for the Saints).Peterson experienced the worst run game of the current season so far, with a 180-degree turn by Peterson.

Nevertheless, Arizona’s offense is not an explosive weapon in one fell swoop, but it was a joint step in the right direction.The return of Humphries, Watford and Boone to the starting line-up made the offensive line healthier than it has been since Week 1, and you can tell.Peterson had a lot of space over the outstanding humphries and the left side in particular, and 57 of his 134 yards came over the left side at eight runs.

However, one must also praise Peterson individually.He showed constant patience behind the Line of Scrimmage and made the line easier to block, with the right vision and power he was able to attack gaps aggressively several times.He scored yards after contact with opponents, the first run was something Cardinals fans had barely seen this season.

Most of all, however, it was impressive how changed the passing game with Peterson’s presence in the backfield looked.Play-action passes and screens worked a lot better than last time – Arizona was one of the league’s most inefficient teams, and Tampa’s receivers were always open for play action.The best example was Fitzgerald’s touchdown.

Palmer had much more time in his pocket and didn’t have to put up with hit after hit again.Coach Bruce Arians set Peterson up very deep in the I formation, where he feels comfortable, but also let him run some routes from outside positions, which is a central part of a running back in Arizona’s offense.

A promising debut, no question about it, and much more than you could have hoped for.Peterson, there is no doubt about it, has much more in the tank than Chris Johnson, who was fired during the trade.But it becomes really exciting when the line gets more problems with the enemy front.Cardinals Managing Director Steve Keim summed up the trade like this:”We won’t sit around quietly if we think we can improve” At first glance this seems to be successful.

Maybe he arrived a little earlier than expected, but Hoyer’s performances so far, but Kyle Shanahan certainly give Kyle all justification for the quarterback exchange.And he was confirmed by the rest of the game against Washington.With Beathard, the offense seemed much more dangerous than before with Hoyer, although he came from the extremely run-heavy Iowa-Offense.So what does his Redskins tape reveal?

Page 1: The Packers without Rodgers, Adrian Peterson and the Falcons

Page 2: Bradford, Eagles, Beckham, Steelers, the 49ers and your questions