Devastating loss
MINNEAPOLIS — Walking gingerly to the sideline with his throwing shoulder throbbing in pain, Aaron Rodgers turned back toward the field and barked at Minnesota Vikings linebacker Anthony Barr.
Rodgers likely already knew that his season was in jeopardy after Barr’s hit broke his collarbone, and the fiery quarterback’s frustration boiled over.
Now the Green Bay Packers have to try to make sure their season as a whole doesn’t go down the drain with it.
Rodgers was knocked out of the 23-10 loss to the Vikings in the first quarter on Sunday with an injury that could cause him to miss the remainder of the season .
It’s a crushing blow to a team that entered the season with Super Bowl aspirations, optimism based primarily on the right arm of one of the game’s best quarterbacks.
“It’s devastating,” receiver Randall Cobb said. “No question about it. First and foremost, that is one of my closest friends, so to see him go down with that is tough. We still have to play football. We have a long season ahead of us to figure out what we are going to do.”
Brett Hundley, the only other quarterback on the roster outside of practice squad player Joe Callahan, was rushed into duty. He finished 18 of 33 for 157 yards with one touchdown and three interceptions.
“Losing Aaron Rodgers speaks for itself,” Packers coach Mike McCarthy said. “In my opinion, he’s the best player in football. This is the ultimate team game. We need to be better with the 11 people on the field that we have, regardless of the phase that we’re in. Ultimately that’s my responsibility.”
Colin Kaepernick, who has had difficulty finding a job since becoming the face of league-wide demonstrations during the national anthem that protest social injustice, and Tony Romo, who joined CBS as an analyst after retiring from the Dallas Cowboys, could be outside options to fill in for Rodgers. But McCarthy said after the game he was not considering anything like that yet.
“Brett Hundley and Joe Callahan, that’s what we’re going with,” he said.
Despite several key injuries to the secondary, the Packers entered the game Sunday against their NFC North rivals at 4-1 after Rodgers engineered a game-winning touchdown drive to beat the Dallas Cowboys last week.
Vikings coach Mike Zimmer’s defense has always gotten after Rodgers in these tense matchups, and it happened again in the first quarter when Barr drove him into the turf after he got rid of a roll-out pass.
The impact did not appear to be that violent at first glance as Rodgers rolled through the hit.
“I know Anthony Barr personally,” said Hundley, a fellow UCLA alum. “I wouldn’t imagine he’s a dirty player.”
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