Aaron Rodgers offers striking endorsement for Randall Cobb: 'He's what we need'
-- With Randall Cobb nearing the end of a contract year, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers had some well-earned endorsement for one of his most trusted receivers following the team's loss to the Chicago Bears on Sunday.
"When Randall’s healthy, I think our offense has been different because we have a true slot guy who can make plays consistently," Rodgers said of the 28-year-old slot specialist.
Cobb returned to game action against the Arizona Cardinals two weeks ago after missing the previous three weeks with a hamstring injury that has hindered him for a large part of the year. He originally suffered the injury against the Washington Redskins back in September.
The eight-year veteran caught three of his seven targets for 30 yards against the Bears on Sunday, however, saw his team fall short by a touchdown. The loss gave the Bears the NFC North crown and, coupled with a Miami Dolphins loss in Minnesota, eliminated the Packers from playoff contention.
But moving forward, the Packers could have Cobb in their future plans, and Rodgers could be a driving force behind keeping him in town.
"Having a slot guy like that who legitimately can get open time after time, he’s what we need."
Cobb signed a four-year, $40 million dollar deal with the Packers entering the 2015 season and has since underperformed given the specs of his contract. While he hasn't put up the premier numbers you'd expect, he's often been utilized as a third-down outlet and a security blanket in must-have situations for Rodgers.
The Packers have been able to get back to using the quick passing game with Cobb back in the fold, more so last week against the Atlanta Falcons. That's been an area in which the Packers haven't been able to emphasize with Geronimo Allison, another one of Rodgers' trusted targets, on injured reserve and a rookie duo still finding their place in the offense.
Despite Rodgers' praise for Jordy Nelson over the offseason, the Packers still opted to release him. While this situation is different with Cobb's contract simply expiring, the Packers would likely try to bring him back at a discounted price.
"Obviously, there’ll be some changes over the offseason," Rodgers said. "We’ll finish this year out the right way and look forward to the future which I still think is really bright in Green Bay."
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Zachary Jacobson is a staff writer/reporter for Cheesehead TV. He's the voice of The Leap on iTunes and can be heard on The Scoop KLGR 1490 AM every Saturday morning. He's also a contributor on the Pack-A-Day Podcast. He can be found on Twitter via @ZachAJacobson or contacted through email at [email protected].
Comments (49)
badaxed
December 16, 2018 at 05:23 pm
Well maybe Mr. Rodgers could give Mr. Cobb some of "his" money if he really wants to keep him.
Cobb's time is up in Green bay just like Mathews, Perry and Bulaga.
Paying for people who performed in the past , are now declining and are constantly injured is killing the packers.
Time to let these people go.
Ryan3468
December 16, 2018 at 10:27 pm
Perry, Bulaga, and Cobb. Mathews has shown he has huge value to the team, and the future of the team. You don’t throw away value.
Barnacle
December 17, 2018 at 04:21 am
Badaxed
Yes, Mr Rodgers has hogged more of the salary cap than he is currently worth. Now he is whining for more better players to support him. I wish he would shut up and focus on fixing the guy in his mirror.
Gute and Mr Football foolishly extended a contract with franchise options that could have kept Rodgers a Packer for four years........if he was worth it. Instead we are locked into a massive contract whether he is worth it or not?
CAG123
December 16, 2018 at 05:26 pm
I mean y’all could pay me to be hurt, miss most of the season and make occasional plays when I am on the field I’m only 28 I’ve still got something left in the tank
jeremyjjbrown
December 16, 2018 at 05:26 pm
What the offense needs is a QB who can hit a wide open reciever and a OC who's not from the McCarthy tree. Maybe after we have those things we shod discuss the slot reciever.
Lare
December 16, 2018 at 05:32 pm
What the offense needs is a scheme that wasn't developed 10 years ago and helps the current players be as productive as they can be.
jhalwas611.com
December 16, 2018 at 06:57 pm
Dave Taub for HC. Tremendous special teams mind. Remember what he did with the Bears for years. Then with a new OC things would be better.
Lare
December 16, 2018 at 05:30 pm
Wouldn't mind keeping Cobb next year, but at a salary around the veterans minimum. His stats and availability dictate that he isn't worth any more than that.
HankScorpio
December 16, 2018 at 05:44 pm
I don't think he's a vet min kind of player but that's closer to his value than his current number. I doubt he's back but I don't close the door on the possibility.
dobber
December 16, 2018 at 05:47 pm
I think a lot of it will have to do with what the new coaching staff thinks of Moore, ESB, Allison, MVS, and Kumerow. If there's one thing we're learning this season, it's that they have to put better weapons around #12.
Pierre
December 16, 2018 at 06:38 pm
Cobb and MSV were open on deep patterns at 14-14 after the Packers D recovered a Bears fumble, and Rodgers just could not throw an accurate deep pass to either one. It’s not better weapons...it’s a better QB the Packers need to win again. Gute should see what draft picks he can get for Rodgers while he still can and use the money to build a dynamite defense with Boyle at QB. Otherwise, it’s just more of the same as what we are seeing from Rodgers. Poor completion rate and inaccurate passes along with holding the ball too long and taking sacks.
jeremyjjbrown
December 16, 2018 at 06:45 pm
Rodgers contract makes trading him infeasible until after 2020
HankScorpio
December 16, 2018 at 06:47 pm
GB pass catchers will be an interesting watch this off season.
fastmoving
December 17, 2018 at 12:51 am
more than most of the time Im agreeing with you Dobber, but not on this. AR has more than enought weapons. Way more than enough. Maybe a TE is missing........
But if he cant throw to an wide open guy (no matter how it is and how much he trusts him) it does not matter how many targets are there. They dont get the ball anyway. And even he gets better again, what is a huge if, if you look at his mechanics and his body, he needs 5 years to have trust in his new whapons and use them.
we got one of the better, maybe top 10, receiving corps. the only guy who was not near the top ten was AR and the TEs
Thegreatreynoldo
December 17, 2018 at 06:05 am
Over the last few games MVS has run some shallow crossing patterns where I have noticed AR hesitate to throw the ball to MVS for an extra tick or two. [Not sure if AR is looking downfield during this hesitation]. When AR finally threw the ball to MVS, he had taken two or three more strides towards the sidelines, making it harder for MVS to turn on the jets or make a guy miss. Anyway, it gave the defender a better angle and the sideline as a defense. As an aside, too often AR's short passes break the momentum of the RB or WR. Just seems to me like this has been limiting YAC.
4thand10
December 17, 2018 at 08:37 am
Dinner, I don’t know why you got all the down votes. That’s the closest thing to the truth that I’ve seen on here. Look at the receivers they put around Turdbiscut, stafford and other QBs around the league. We’ve got Adams who is good, Cobb who is washed up and injured frequently and after that...a bunch of scrubs.
johngalt
December 16, 2018 at 07:25 pm
.
Ryan3468
December 16, 2018 at 05:33 pm
Oldest 27 year old in the league. If he is cheap why not, but he is slow, small, and Rogers doesn’t do check downs. So let him slowly walk away as a formerly great player.
KCMackRVA
December 16, 2018 at 05:40 pm
How many drops has Cobb had in critical situations? How many games has he sat out with injuries? Too many to be of anything other than nominal value to this team. AR's loyalty is feigned. If you can't be honest, don't open your mouth....
KCMackRVA
December 16, 2018 at 05:40 pm
How many drops has Cobb had in critical situations? How many games has he sat out with injuries? Too many to be of anything other than nominal value to this team. AR's loyalty is feigned. If you can't be honest, don't open your mouth....
HankScorpio
December 16, 2018 at 05:46 pm
I bet Cobb would have much rather had a decent pass from Rodgers on that 4th Q bomb than kind words at a presser. A 50+ yard TD is a better bargaining chip than post-game hot air
Packers0808
December 16, 2018 at 06:03 pm
Let this sink in, remember Brett Hundley is the last QB to win a road game for the Packers! Is Rodgers really good or washed up?
CAG123
December 16, 2018 at 06:32 pm
He needed OT to beat the 0-16 Browns let’s calm down lol
Doug Niemczynski
December 16, 2018 at 09:30 pm
Aaron Rodgers must have thrown the ball out of bounds like 60 times this year to me that might as well be 60 interceptions wasted Downs wasted everything
CAG123
December 16, 2018 at 10:33 pm
So getting rid of the ball is equivalent to giving the ball back to the opposing team....? Sounds kind of silly when you say it out loud huh? That’s like saying a negative run or a run of no gain is a fumble.
Doug Niemczynski
December 16, 2018 at 07:34 pm
Cobb Sucks...He ONLY is good when they play Chicago....Bye bye. Cobb..thanks for the memories. ..
LeotisHarris
December 16, 2018 at 09:40 pm
Doug, is the swelling on your brain subsiding at all? Fever going down?
BamaPackFan
December 16, 2018 at 08:36 pm
Really? Because I was thinking we needed a quarterback who can shut his pie hole, support his team mates, and throw to the open receiver instead of always trying to be the hero. I'm really glad he threw an interception. Maybe now, he can throw a ball near a kinda covered receiver.
ILPackerBacker
December 16, 2018 at 09:14 pm
It is almost as if you are blind. The pick came on a fifty fifty ball that Graham got two hands on then had poked out.
Wake up or go back to college football
Oppy
December 16, 2018 at 09:24 pm
It's just too bad the throw was behind Graham where he had to fight through the defender to try and secure it, instead of leading graham, where he had a better chance to secure the catch without having to hand fight the defender.
Thegreatreynoldo
December 17, 2018 at 06:23 am
Plus AR threw a very contested ball to Cobb on a vertical route down the left hashmark roughly. Probably 25 yards downfield. Cobb has zero separation and the defender got his head turned around in time and easily broke up the pass. The 5' 10" Cobb jumped ineffectually but never really even contested for the ball.
AR sometimes will let Adams and Cobb contest a pass, and Graham a bit. Pretty rare for him to do that with the 6'5" MVS and ESB, though it has occurred.
Oppy
December 17, 2018 at 08:19 pm
TGR,
I have no issue with putting a ball up there and letting the WR go get it. In fact, I think it's something that AR needs to do more often. I personally believe his idea of "covered" is by far the most conservative definition in the NFL. There's too many guys he won't throw to because they're "covered", that the majority of NFL QB's would have no issue throwing to.
That said.. throws like the Graham throw did not need to be a contested throw. It was a poor throw, behind the WR instead of just leading him. Ball placement is critical, and that precision ball placement is what separates journeyman QB's from the upper-echelon passers in the league. I sincerely hope this entire season is simply an injury issue. If it is not, and Rodgers' accuracy going forward is closer to 2018 than what we've seen previously... The packers just paid a lot of money for a QB who is no longer elite.
Bearmeat
December 17, 2018 at 09:16 pm
The arm talent is still there. The mechanics are off and what's between his ears is WAY off. I sincerely believe that although he's not the guy he was at 29, he's still physically one of the GOAT QBs in the league.
Fix the space between the ears and the mechanics = Fix Aaron. I do believe this will be fixed. The bigger question is if ARod's enormous ego will take that hard word from the right coach.
Oppy
December 17, 2018 at 09:27 pm
Bearmeat,
this is the second time now we've seen this type of play from AR.
There's an 18 game stretch from 2015-2016 (was it the very tail end of 14 going through 2015?) where he was just plain off, too.
I would like to think it's just in between the ears and stubborness (remember when he told the press a few weeks ago there's nothing wrong with his fundamentals), but I am concerned the collar bone is a factor.
Time will only tell. I hope he gets his shit together, because we're stuck with him. I also would hope he'd quit throwing his team mates under the buss in the media all the time. Not a good look for a guy who's playing QB like a run of the mill, middle of the pack QB, instead of like a $120 M dollar GOAT.
Bearmeat
December 18, 2018 at 07:31 am
Oppy,
You're right. I was more worried last time - to the point that I was advocating trading him for 3 1st round picks and seeing what we had in Hundley. I was roundly (and rightly) excoriated for that around here. Let's not forget that after his sub-par 2015 play, we got "run the table" out of it. Probably the best 16 game stretch of QB play ever seen on planet earth (from week 10 of 16 thru when he got hurt last year).
He'll get out of it - IF he clears the space between his ears. And yes, we're stuck with him. I wish we wouldn't have torn up his old deal.
HankScorpio
December 16, 2018 at 08:56 pm
If they do bring Cobb back, I hope they view him differently than they have. He's been over 700 yards in 3 of 8 seasons. He's been under that mark the last 3 years (i'm assuming he doesn't go over 344 yards in the next 2 games). He's been above 50 yards in one game this year. That's not a profile of a legit #3 WR in today's NFL. When constructing their WR group, they cannot fool themselves into thinking he can be more than a #4.
He's still dangerous with the ball in his hands. Maybe putting him back on punts can juice his impact and the horrible ST at the same time.
Thegreatreynoldo
December 17, 2018 at 07:11 am
IMO most folks are underestimating Cobb's fair market value. He's probably worth something close to Amendola money, with perhaps some accounting for his injury history since Amendola has been relatively healthy. So, something like $4.5M plus $50K per game active ($800K), plus a $350K work out bonus. I wouldn't object to some incentives for snaps, yards, TDs that might add $1M to his possible compensation. Not sure if I'd be willing to give much of any signing bonus. Rolling roster bonus that guarantee in March and paid later would be my preference.
HankScorpio
December 17, 2018 at 08:56 pm
"So, something like $4.5M plus $50K per game active ($800K), plus a $350K work out bonus"
That's sweet cheddar for a guy that has been around 10 yd/catch for 4 years running.
Yesterday, someone wrote they needed to put better players around Rodgers. I just can't get those words out of my head when thinking about Cobb.
stockholder
December 16, 2018 at 09:07 pm
Cut him. We need guys that can hold onto the ball to move the chains. Not just a guy that can catch 1 deep, to add to Rodgers stats. This game changed momentum when Rodgers missed the deep ones. Mr. Rodgers must understand that this defense needs safeties. Mr.Rodgers needs to understand that the defense needs pass rushers. Paying a guy to drop balls in clutch situations won't get you into the playoffs. Cobb is not clutch anymore. He's had to many drops this year. You earn your salary being clutch, and not being part of the problem. Cobb is always missing in action. His injuries are not worth the $$$. Cobbs been part of two losing seasons now. He's damaged and it's time for change.
ILPackerBacker
December 16, 2018 at 09:12 pm
wow its almost like cobb did not drop another ball right in his hands in a critical time....just as he did on his way to the IR
a hair over 50% on targets and 6 yards per catch
Is Rodgers deflecting? Cobb has no value.
Wilment
December 16, 2018 at 09:36 pm
Some thoughts and observations....Rodgers accuracy has been so so all year. Some has to do with the rooks at Wide receiver, but a lot has to do with him. Is the knee suffered week one an issue, or maybe, just maybe, that shoulder injury has affected his throwing and accuracy. Bring Cobb Back, but at a more reasonable number. Id bring Jordy back if it made Rodgers more at ease. Jimmy Graham is still soft...Ive always said it, he should be shooting three pointers. Both of ARs picks this year bounced off his hands. I think Mathews has more time in Green bay. At the very worst , he is your second best backer on the roster. I think the D did the best it could today considering the injuries. I do think the edge rusher position needs to be addressed in the draft. One or more playmakers need to be added to the defense. A few years back , it was Woodson and Peppers. The packers passed on Treviathon and Mack in the past two years. Both have solidified the Bears d. BG needs to make something big happen in the off season. GO PACK!!
mamasboy
December 16, 2018 at 11:54 pm
Rogers should shut his arrogant mouth and focus on remembering how to hit WIDE OPEN receivers instead of trying to shape next years roster. Already playing GM. Wouldn't it be something, if Rogers' collar bone injuries have drained him of his throwing ability? Wouldn't it be something if he winds up with all sorts of nagging injuries the rest of his career? His calf, and today a hamstring. He is no longer better at 60% than most QBs are at 100%. All after taking us for $134,000,000. We could very well start hating Rogers more than Thompson if he doesn't start looking more like the real deal. SHUT UP AND PLAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PAPackerbacker
December 17, 2018 at 05:53 am
Rodgers job is to play football not decide who stays and who doesn't. He needs to keep his attention focused on his own performance and leave the management part of the game to the front office. Quit blaming everyone else for his poor performances. Maybe he should practice in the preseason instead of stating he doesn't need to practice. He gets paid handsomely for what he does. Quit making excuses and blaming others and concentrate on doing your own part to bring the Packers back into form. Let the front office do their job and Rodgers focus on his own issues. He needs to hold himself accountable instead of finding fault with other teammates.
Archie
December 17, 2018 at 07:51 am
Rodgers is our QB for the foreseeable future. Get used to it. I think it's obvious this offense has many needs. We have one high quality WR. We need another one. We need a high quality TE, we have none. We need more quality OL, we have two. Get those things fixed and 12 will have no excuse. Maybe 12 needs a psychiatrist - he produces most of the game but then when he needs the big play and a guy is open, all of a sudden he can't hit him. We lost to a pretty good team yesterday by 7 points and we had two chances for TDs late in the 4th Q to snatch victory, but like so many other times this season, our QB fired blanks or got sacked.
Oppy
December 17, 2018 at 09:30 pm
I would not agree that he produces all game and it's only the big play we need that he misses.
Packers have let a lot of games get away from them because #12 was MIA for 2-3 Q's of play.
joejetson
December 17, 2018 at 10:09 am
I would not be surprised to see Jordy back next year. The Raiders will not continue to pay him $10 million a year. Gruden is cleaning house and Nelson may be part of that Purge. If Cobb's demands are reasonable, we may see the old gang back together again in 2019. Now, if they can only add a pass rusher the defense may not cave in every week in the fourth quarter.
Oppy
December 17, 2018 at 09:35 pm
Nelson back in GB means the only two WR's rodgers will even look at on the field are Nelson and Adams.
No thank you. We need to cure Rodgers of his tunnel vision, not promote more of it. To be honest, I think that tunnel vision for Nelson is part of why the Packers decided to let him go. Rodgers' coming back from injury game in 2017- he told the press before the game that he thought "87 still has some juice left" and he was going to get him 3 TD's. Well, he certainly tried, basically ignoring most other WRs, staring down Nelson all game long, forcing the ball to him despite double and even triple coverage at times.. it was horrendous.
fthisJack
December 17, 2018 at 11:14 am
Cobb, Perry, Graham and Bulaga can all hit the road. none of them are ever available so whats the point in keeping them especially with YUGE salaries!
Reload in the draft and FA and be a much improved and younger team.
Free agent
December 18, 2018 at 12:52 am
Hey Aaron, just do your job and play QB. If you want Cobb resigned you would suck as a GM.