It’s almost always stupid to blame of the offensive line for a QB injury, but it takes the cake when it’s the first time he got hit that game and it wasn’t even some blind side hit with a whiffed blocking assignment. I can see some whacky argument about the cumulative effect of sacks but how can you blame the line when they allowed one sack? Was it going to be the offensive line’s fault if he wasn’t hit until game 4?
At some point during the season a quarterback is going to have a big d lineman bearing down on him no matter how stellar the protection. Rodgers certainly didn’t help matters by passing on the open slant and trying to elude an obvious sack, exposing himself to more risk. All that said, we clearly had a combination of bad luck (almost all injuries require an unlikely angle, force, and circumstance) and an achilles that was already deteriorating and vulnerable.
Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to review the play again and share what I saw. Link to the replay is below.
IMO there was a wiffed block by his LT which is his blind side.
If you look at it you see the LT Brown lunges to try to get in the cut block but Floyd jumps back and tosses him to the ground like a rag doll.
Rogers looks right as his first read, then center as his second, then by the time he looks left for his third, Floyd is only a step away from him.
There was an opening to throw to the slant guy who he should have saw when he looked center for his second read, but I imagine Rodgers thought he had more time to look left and do his third read because he didn't expect Brown to wiff. I think he expected the RB to be open in the flat, which IMO is consistent with Brown doing a cut block then getting downfield to help block for the RB.
I see the point that Rodgers should have not fought to stay up, but as he himself has said, extending the play is his thing.
I hear what you are saying that no QB should expect a perfect OL, but that doesn't give the OL a free pass in my book.
I think it's hindsight to say he should have taken his second read to the slant instead of him thinking he had time to do his third read to the RB in the flat and then decide what to do, because that's what the play was designed to do. If anything, it's on Hackett for drawing up unrealistically long plays, and/or for not emphasizing to Rodgers that he probably won't have time to do the third read.
Overall I think the bulk of the blame goes to Brown, with the rest a tie between Rodger's decision to not take the sack, the bad luck / vulnerabilities issues you called out and the slowly developing play that was called.
**** happens, but on this play IMO **** mostly happened because Brown wiffed on his block.
