Steelers Now
Analyst Steve Palazzolo thinks Aaron Rodgers is a first-ballot Hall of Famer, but he doesn’t consider him among the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history.
“You look at Rodgers in comeback situations, the Browns game last year, through his career, he hasn’t been great in comeback situations,” Palazzolo said Thursday on his Check the Mic podcast. “His curve, he didn’t have the tick up and aggressiveness. He’s like, ‘No, I’m not throwing a pick.’ But an incompletion’s the same as a pick if it’s on fourth down.
“Rodgers is a first-ballot Hall of Famer. He’s awesome. I don’t think he played winning football. I hate the whole talent conversation. ‘There’s the most talented quarterback.’ That doesn’t matter…At some point, how well you play matters more than talent. I don’t think Rodgers has played winning football at the same level as Peyton, Brady, Mahomes, and some of the other elite quarterbacks. I think he’s just a tick below that.”
Rodgers holds the best career touchdown-to-interception ratio in NFL history, boasting a roughly 4.28 TD-INT ratio, having thrown 527 passing touchdowns to only 123 interceptions.
One stat really illustrates how Rodgers is the best in NFL history when it comes to avoiding interceptions. Rodgers has thrown only five pick sixes in his 21-year NFL career. Of the 12 QBs who have thrown for 50,000 yards in their career, here’s how many pick sixes they’ve thrown: Brett Favre (32), Matthew Stafford (32), Dan Marino (28), Peyton Manning (27), Drew Brees (27), Philip Rivers (26), Eli Manning (22), Matt Ryan (20), Tom Brady (18), John Elway (18) and Ben Roethlisberger (18).
Eli Berkovits of Packer Report also notes that Rodgers’ 123 career interceptions are significantly fewer than the 11 other quarterbacks mentioned. Matt Ryan has the second-fewest INTs at 183.
With Rodgers returning to the Steelers, he is likely to leap over Peyton Manning on the NFL all-time touchdown passing list this season. Rodgers, who has thrown 527 touchdown passes, needs just 13 TD passes to move ahead of Manning for third all-time.
Rodgers would likely need to play two more seasons to surpass Drew Brees (571) for second place, while Tom Brady’s all-time record of 649 career touchdown seems to be out of reach.
Rodgers finished 15th in the NFL in passing yards (3,322) last season, along with posting an impressive 24-to-7 touchdown-to-interception ratio. He played in 16 of the 17 regular season games, only missing the Week 12 game against the Chicago Bears due to a suffering multiple fractures in his non-throwing (left) wrist.
In Week 3 last season against the New England Patriots, Rodgers surpassed his former Green Bay Packers teammate, Brett Favre, for the fourth-most career touchdown passes.
“It’s just a longevity achievement,” Rodgers said when asked about surpassing Favre. “Some touchdowns, you make exceptional plays. Some, the scheme is so good, like the one to Jaylen (Warren) in the game. All I’ve got to do is not screw it up. And then sometimes you throw a short one to a...
