Did Aaron Rodgers hinder the Chicago Bears offense?

Should we have foreseen the issues on offense the Chicago Bears are currently experiencing? Let’s take a look back at history, shall we?

After firing head coach Mike McCarthy during the 2018 NFL season, quarterback Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers were at a crossroads. Rodgers, already an MVP and a Super Bowl champion at the time, had many problems with how McCarthy ran the team and the offense specifically. According to a detailed Bleacher Report article from 2019, “the worst kept secret [in Green Bay] was that Rodgers seemed to loathe his coach from the moment McCarthy was hired.”

In the wake of this public drama, the Packers hired former Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator Matt Lafleur. At the time, Lafleur was not a big-name candidate, but as a disciple of the Sean McVay/Kyle Shanahan coaching tree, there was optimism that Lafleur would bring balance and creativity to the Packers offense. The Packers’ offense certainly had the talent to be competitive, but in a scheme that took Jared Goff and Matt Ryan to Super Bowls, there was hope that Rodgers would truly flourish.

The Matt LaFleur coaching tree is already spreading across the NFL

Fast forward a little over three years from the hire of Matt Lafleur and Aaron Rodgers is coming off back-to-back league MVP seasons. But in 2022, the Packers’ offense does not look the same as in recent history, and there are a lot of reasons why.  Star receiver Davante Adams left Green Bay for Las Vegas in free agency, leaving Rodgers with a strong run game but few weapons to target in the passing game. Rodgers also lost his offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach who he had been working with since Matt Lafleur was hired in 2019.

Nathaniel Hackett, the former offensive coordinator, took the head coaching job in Denver and eventually landed Russell Wilson, and former Packers’ quarterback coach Luke Getsy became the Bears’ offensive coordinator to help develop Justin Fields. Early in everyone’s first season away from each other, it seems that no one is thriving on their own.