Should the Packers sit Aaron Rodgers before it's too late?

A point of emphasis caused by a hit on Aaron Rodgers last season is benefiting quarterbacks league-wide. But Rodgers himself, interestingly, hasn’t been able to benefit much from the roughing-the-passer tweak.

After an offseason full of Rodgers buzz, with the quarterback seemingly being groomed to take over as the face of the NFL, he’s now far off his optimal form, laboring throughout the past two Packers games after banging up his knee in Week 1.

The precise damage to the all-universe quarterback’s left knee is unknown, but it’s affecting his play and thus lowering the Packers' ceiling. Few NFL teams can match Green Bay’s capabilities when Rodgers is healthy, but on this present course it doesn’t look like he’ll get there again this season. 

So it’s worth asking: Should the Packers consider sitting Rodgers for a while and committing to a real recovery effort?

As the bulk of the 2017 season showed, any Rodgers absence makes the Packers a mediocre-at-best operation — closer to the 2011 Colts than ’08 Patriots — and jeopardizes their chances of making the playoffs. But at this rate, how capable is Rodgers of even lifting the Packers to within striking distance of Super Bowl LIII?

It’s worth risking multiple early-season losses to find out if Rodgers can re-emerge healthy enough to make a bigger impact down the stretch. The Packers have a unique window to try this, too. 

Their next three games bring a home tilt against the Bills, a trip to Detroit and a Lambeau Field assignment against the now-Jimmy Garoppolo-less 49ers. Green Bay’s bye arrives in Week 7 before two key midseason meetings (Week 8 at the Rams and Week 9 at the Patriots). If Rodgers is going to look like he has the past two weeks — a limited version of this era's most talented quarterback — how live of an underdog will the Packers be in those games?

Nothing’s emerged from the team about Rodgers sitting this week against Buffalo. He's questionable and is all but certain to play. But the Packers should reconsider their present strategy if their leader still looks like he did against Washington last weekend. And he continues to miss practices or trudge through them in a limited capacity. Not that such participation is vital for a 14th-year player, but his presence is important for the rest of a Packers offense that ranks 18th thus far.

Despite being two weeks removed from his season-defining knee injury, Rodgers limped throughout the Packers’ Week 3 loss. His stat line in the end was serviceable — 27-of-44, two touchdown passes, no interceptions — but Green Bay trailed 21-3 at halftime and its centerpiece continued to show obvious signs he’s not on the verge of resembling his usual self. The two-time MVP's 6.02 yards-per-attempt figure was his lowest, among games he's played throughout, since October 2016.

Rodgers sits 17th in Total QBR and 13th in Football Outsiders' defense-adjusted yards above replacement. These middling assessments are understandable, given his current state. 

Rodgers backup, DeShone Kizer, did not have a good rookie year, but he was placed in one of the worst situations in NFL history. Not many passers would’ve fared well on the 2017 Browns. While it’s not like Green Bay’s defense (27th in DVOA) is capable of lifting a Kizer-led team, the Packers could probably beat the C.J. Beathard-piloted 49ers at Lambeau with their backup in the lineup. Given that the Bears — who aren’t exactly taking advantage of the new passing climate themselves — are leading the NFC North, a Kizer-QB1 setup may not leave the Rodgers edition of the Packers in too deep of a hole exiting the bye.

Recent Packers teams have proved they're adept at navigating early-season issues, too. They've consistently displayed an ability to round into form during seasons' second halves, shaking off unremarkable starts with strong Novembers and Decembers. They need to call on that experience amid this crisis.

Any Rodgers hiatus would obviously be a week-to-week strategy, at least on the surface, since the Packers wouldn’t declare they’re resting him until the Rams game. Their 34-year-old passer conceivably could be sufficiently healed before then. But it's in this current stretch of the Packers' schedule that it makes sense to try this, since their degree of difficulty increases after the bye.

The public doesn’t have enough information about Rodgers’ injury to know if this tactic would work, but the general protocol for injured players (or non-NFL-affiliated humans) is avoiding strenuous activity while recovering. It’s hard to imagine Rodgers not benefiting from time off rather than continuing to play hurt — especially at a non-critical juncture of the schedule.

This strategy worked for the 2015 Broncos, who sat Peyton Manning for six games once his attempt to play through a foot injury backfired. The eventual Super Bowl champions had the luxury of an all-time defense supplementing Brock Osweiler, but Manning’s return in Week 17 galvanized that team. And the foot problem didn’t recur in the playoffs, or at least it didn’t to the point a hobbled Manning was hurting the Broncos.

It’s understandable that Rodgers — who missed 16 games because of his collarbone breaks in 2013 and '17 — wants to play in as many prime-years games as he can, especially after watching the Packers' nine-year postseason streak stop during Brett Hundley's stewardship last season. But a tactical absence would surely benefit the Packers in the long run.

If the current circumstances persist, it would present a bleak late-season scenario in what promises to be a crowded NFC race if/when the Packers cannot make the kind of run many envisioned because their quarterback/cure-all is still restricted.

Rodgers’ assessment that he’s improving may well translate to Sunday success soon, but if the visuals that the past two weeks provided are any indication, this plan isn’t working. 

The Packers need to change course now before it’s too late.

Because if Rodgers still looks like this when the schedule intensifies in November, the Packers failing to give their quarterback a proper rehab route now will be seen later as a missed opportunity.