That’s the assessment McCarthy gave today on FOX Sports Radio.

It’s a valid point - Rodgers is running one of the most complex offensive systems in the NFL and he has missed extremely extensive practice time since the Tampa game when he injured his shoulder. That said (and I hate to pile on McCarthy here, though I think he can take it) - isn’t that all the more reason to pack it in with heavy formations and call a less timing-intensive gameplan with fewer receiving options for his under-practiced quarterback to have to navigate? I know he’s the expert here, but McCarthy’s point about Rodgers’ lack of practice time makes his decision to spread it out on Sunday all the more curious.

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• Rodgers Watch

Where to begin?

Aaron Rodgers, by his own admission, had his worst day as a pro yesterday. And yes, a good part of it was due to the offensive line and McCarthy’s complete lack of attention to pass protection. But Aaron Rodgers did himself no favors in his reads and in his fundamentals. He continues to stare down his first read, and it is killing him and the offense. Asked about possibly missing open receivers in the progression, Rodgers bristled a bit yesterday, giving all the credit to the Vikings coverage as to why he was holding the ball too long on so many occasions.

The fact is this - he’s a first year starter in one of the NFL’s most complicated passing offenses. He’s going through the growing pains we all knew were coming. He’s having problems not only locking on to his first read, but in setting his protection as well. It just killed the offense yesterday. I counted three occasions where Lee or Humphrey motioned into the backfield. It needed to be happening with much more frequency in the face of that Viking pass rush and that is on Rodgers.

The fact that Rodgers has been sacked 21 times through nine games after Favre was sacked only 19 times all year in 2007 is not a coincidence. As many people had observed through the years - Favre’s ability to get rid of the ball quickly made the offensive line look better than it was. And now that a young, inexperienced quarterback is the one pulling the trigger, we’re seeing much more of this line’s deficiencies. Some commenters yesterday took issue with my bringing up Favre, saying that I had supported the move to Rodgers and that I was somehow in violation of that support by noting how the game yesterday would have been different if Favre was still taking the snaps for the Green and Gold.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Aaron Rodgers is a good quarterback with a chance to be great. But he has some serious growing to do, and as McCarthy said this summer, the only way for him to grow now is to play in real games. He’ll have great moments and he’ll have games like he did yesterday. But he is going to be fine. The frustrating part is watching rookie first year starters like Joe Flacco and Matt Ryan have such success. But of course, what do they both have? A running game. And the Packers had the start of one yesterday until McCarthy inexplicably went away from it.

Rodgers is a work in progress. Yesterday was a tough learning experience. We can only hope he and McCarthy both learned a few lessons…

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• No Veteran QB For the Packers?

The miscommunication between Jennings and Rodgers during Sunday’s game were readily apparent to anyone who watched the game. It continues a trend that has developed over the season - for whatever reason, Jennings and Rodgers have had some serious problem getting on the same page. The worst case this past Sunday, of course, was the called run play where Rodgers thought Jennings would be expecting a pass. It’s a play Favre and Jennings made several times last year. McCarthy has indicated in the past that there is a system that the receiver and quarterback have, dictated by what the defensive back shows, to know whether or not they can run the quick slant or back-shoulder play. Rodgers was visibly upset after he had to throw the ball away and looked at Jennings and barked something at him. It definitely didn’t look complimentary.

Less obvious was the 3rd down play where Rodgers threw the ball into the dirt at the feet of Ruvell Martin. On the opposite side, Jennings beats his man on an inside move and if Rodgers just looks to the right, he would have had Jennings wide open for a touchdown. Instead, Rodgers looks only at Martin and when he doesn’t have him right away, he throws the ball into the ground at Martin’s feet. I understand he’s being careful - an incompletion is a thousand times better than an interception. And I also understand he’s taken a lot of criticism (justifiably so) for holding the ball too long. But if you watch the replay, Jennings is non-plussed and it’s not hard to understand why. Later in the game, Rodgers goes to Martin on a slant route when Jennings is open on the opposite side and it’s eerily similar to a play in the Seattle game when Rodgers tried (unsuccessfully) to hit Martin on a slant in the face of a Seahawk blitz. On the opposite side, Jennings is running a ‘Go’ from the slot and is WIDE open. After he watches Rodgers throw at a quite covered Martin, Jennings can be seen jumping up and down in a rare exhibition of diva-like frustration.

It’s a telling moment.

I have no doubt Jennings is a tad frustrated at Rodgers continually looking at his self-described best friend on the team when Jennings is the unquestioned best receiver on the field and open more often than not on the plays in question. (I also have no doubt that Jennings is finding it hard to be patient with Rodgers when just last season he had a quarterback that could read defenses like the POV shot from the robot in a Terminator movie…) He has a legitimate gripe here. He is the number one receiver. He should not only get the majority of the looks, but he should not be playing second fiddle to Ruvell Martin. Ever.

(On a side note: Perhaps Tundra Vision was on to something… )

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• Tundra Vision Gets It Wrong

Tough game for the new $20 million man.

He made some good throws and had some good reads, but once again - when the game was on the line, when the game was there for the TAKING - Rodgers could not get it done. Sure the turnovers hurt - these fumbles are becoming alarmingly routine - and the interception was just a result of forgetting to look off the safety in the face of the blitz - but once again it was Rodgers’ inability to move the offense when it counted the most that doomed the Packers yesterday. Add to that the continuing problems in the red-zone and it was just a tough day at the office for the first year starter.

On that note - has anyone else noticed that the Packers have regressed to 2006 in their red-zone offense? I’m not sure what it is, but this team is a mirror image of the Favre-led squad that could move up and down the field between the 20s but almost always bogged down in the red-zone. And it’s no mystery what teams are doing - they are playing coverage, dropping seven to eight guys for Rodgers to navigate his way through. To his credit, he hasn’t thrown many interceptions - however, he hasn’t thrown many touchdowns either (though funnily enough, he did both yesterday) McCarthy must find a way to get Ryan Grant going and get some pressure off of Rodgers when it comes to getting the ball in the end zone, because right now teams know that Grant won’t or can’t beat them inside the 20.

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• What I Don’t Get…

The knock on rookie tight end Jermichael Finley coming out of college was that he was green as grass, and after seeing his reaction to his first extensive action from scrimmage, one might say he still has a thing or two to learn.

Regarding the 1st quarter 4th down ball from Rodgers that Finley couldn’t reel in:

I’ve made plays like that in practice - several…I think he should have led me a little more. Well, a lot more. Really he didn’t throw it good at all, to be honest. I just think…He knows my game, coaches know my game. I’m more like a run and jump. I’m really not no back shoulder or whatever he had going on back there. They just have to know what kind of player I am and use me in that aspect of the game.

Submitted without comment…

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• Work To Do

1. Congrats to Aaron Rodgers. What an unbelievable trip this kid has taken from the nearly three hour wait he had to endure on draft day to this Friday when he signed a contract that will keep him in Green Bay through the 2014 season. The shopworn adage when evaluating quarterbacks is that it takes 10 starts in the NFL to truly evaluate whether a quarterback is going to be any good. Apparently, it only took Ted Thompson 7 starts when it came to Rodgers. The man has been more right than wrong when it comes to personnel matters, so I’m fully on board with what can only be considered the new face of the franchise - the starting quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, Aaron Rodgers.
2. Lots of nice sentiments in the comment sections, both here at Cheesehead TV and elsewhere in the Packer blogosphere in regards to Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila’s tenure with the Green and Gold. I don’t have much to add to what has already been said - the man is a class act and the kind of vocal Christan I wish more “Christians” would try to emulate in our country - a man who truly lived the teachings he espoused publicly. My favorite remembrance of Kabeer will always be the sideline interview during preseason last year when he was asked how he thought the Packers would do during the 2007 season. He stated, without hesitation - “We’re going to the Super Bowl.” And you could tell he really believed it. He took untold amounts of grief for that interview (including shots from yours truly in an early episode of Packer Transplants) but it turned out he knew more than  all the blowhards in the blogosphere and in the media. Sure, the team fell one overtime throw away from reaching the big game - but they were closer to achieving Kabeer’s prediction than the mediocre finish most had predicted.

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• Why Thompson Is GM…and We’re Not

According to Packers.com Aaron Rodgers has signed a new contract extension:

The Green Bay Packers have signed QB Aaron Rodgers to a long-term contract extension through the 2014 season. Ted Thompson, Executive Vice President, General Manager and Director of Football Operations, announced the signing Friday.

“As we talked about in the past, we try to be proactive in our discussions with our current players and we felt like this was an appropriate time to try to come to an agreement with Aaron,” said Thompson. “We feel like this is good for the organization and the players, and we will continue this approach as we move forward.”

Update: Here is Aaron’s interview after announcement.

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• No Veteran QB For the Packers?

Nice piece from Greg Bedard on Aaron Rodgers and his play so far this year. Bedard highlights Rodgers’ maturation in the offense and his many accomplishments through his first seven games as a starter. He also looks at what Rodgers has to do to “take it to the next level” (To his credit, Bedard doesn’t use this phrase - I just like making fun of people who do) - namely, win a game on his own.

And here, dear readers, is where trouble comes in paradise for our young hero.

To be charitable, Rodgers has looked efficient at the end of halves and games. But his glaring weakness has been his inability to get the ball into the end-zone in crunch time. Of course, this deficiency is magnified ten-fold because it’s something his predecessor became a legend doing, but even without the Favre comparison hanging over his head, Rodgers play would be described as ’steady’. And ’steady’ does not get you to the Super Bowl, unless you have a dominating defense, which the Packers most certainly do not (the Colts game not-withstanding).

And I think Bedard is a bit too kind when he says:

Rodgers hasn’t been put in many tight spots yet but the circumstantial evidence, while a mixed bag, at least points to him being able to get the job done when it counts.

I would look at the Tampa and Atlanta games as times when Rodgers could have started to “get the job done when it counts”, but failed both times, throwing two game-killing interceptions. These are the types of games Rodgers needs to start pulling out for him to, yes, you guessed it, “take it to the next level”.

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• Bob Sanders Answers My Question