On Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers sitting his first several years in the league and if there was a generational shift at quarterback leading up to him starting as a rookie:
“I think his [situation] is different with Brett Favre there. I’m sure if he had to come in and play right away he would have played well, too. He’s a confident guy, so I’m sure he believes he would as well. It’s just different situations. We were called upon to perform at a high level immediately and he didn’t have to because of who was on his team. It could be a generational thing, but I just think it was just his unique situation.”
On if he can imagine not playing in his first few seasons:
“I mean, that would be tough, you know. He handled himself well throughout that whole process. Who am I to give you a statement on that? I’m a second-year player. This guy’s won a Super Bowl and done a whole bunch of things, so he’s probably the better one to ask that question.”
On the NFL’s policy regarding his knee brace and the plan for the knee brace in the game at Green Bay:
“I heard that it was a miscommunication and that I don’t have to cover up my knee brace, so just move on accordingly. Other than that, I can’t say much.”
On what he learned about himself in the game against Philadelphia:
“I think we learned a lot about our team again. Every year is a new year. You’ve got to find out the identity of your team. I don’t think we found that identity in that first game, but we did find out about the character of this team. It’s similar to the one from last year. We’re going to fight, never going to give up, and that’s something you can be proud about. As far as execution-wise, we weren’t very solid in execution all the first half, and then into the second half we started getting better. So hopefully we can ride that execution into this next game. I think it started in practice today. Guys came ready with the right mindset. It’s not that we didn’t have that last week. You just have a wakeup call sometimes and you’ve got to push even harder, and that’s what we did.”
On how his knee feels two days after the game:
“The knee feels fine. Typical soreness from getting hit. Philly got me good a couple times. That’s just the way it goes. You just work those kinks out. As far as the knee goes, it’s fine.”
On if he welcomes the pressure the Philadelphia defense brought against him and what he expects going forward:
“It’s going to happen. Teams are going to decide to blitz you here and there. We did get blitzed last year. The biggest thing was we weren’t getting blitzed on third down very often. In this Philly game, they didn’t blitz a ton, but when they did, it was effective. They had some gaping holes to come through and get me. You just try to go with whatever you see and if the teams are going to blitz you, you’re ready for that. If they don’t blitz you, you’ve got to be prepared for that, too.”
On if he feels like he was being tested by Philadelphia’s blitzes:
“I think it was probably their strategy. Blitzes don’t really make the quarterback move. Free defensive linemen make the quarterback move. I was able to escape a couple of those, but it is what it is. A couple of those, they got us on that play, and you’ve got to move on.”
On differences he noticed in how he was defended:
“I think when you just talk about Philly, they played a little bit different. New defense, a bunch of new faces, new staff, so they played us differently in that game than they have in the two previous games last year. I don’t think you take just one game and say, ‘Hey, teams are going to play you like this this year.’ You’ve just got to get a couple of games in and figure out what teams are trying to do. Every team’s going to be different. We’re not going to prepare for Green Bay like we prepared for Philly. They’re just a different defense, they run different coverages. Maybe Green Bay sees something that worked in the Philly game and they try to put that in. That’s why you correct it. That’s why you watch game film. We’ll have all that stuff down, and whatever wrinkle they throw at us, you just have got to adjust.”
On if he had a good line of vision to the pressure or felt it coming against Philadelphia:
“I don’t think the hits on the blitzes were as far as me not playing and being the first game back. They ran some good blitzes, they got us a couple of times and the outlets that I had were covered. You’ve just got to eat those plays and try to make up for it in the next down. We did that in the second half pretty effectively. We didn’t do that very well in the first half.”
On if his preparation for Week 2 will be more routine compared to the hype leading up to Week 1:
“You guys played that up, too. Don’t put that on me [laughter]. Don’t put that on me. Everybody was excited about it. I talked to my family after the game and at the end of the day, we lost the game, so you’re disappointed about that. The fact of the matter is we went through a hard offseason this year, not just me but this team. To get out of that game healthy, to move forward to the next week, I think that’s a big load off everybody’s shoulders. The game didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to turn out. You want to get that win, you want to have that first win at home, you want to protect your home field, and we didn’t do that. If anything, it’s going to make us even hungrier. Not just me, but the team as well, because the team wanted to win that game just as much as I did. It was disappointing, but it doesn’t ruin your season and you move on to the next week. In that sense, yes, it’s a more routine second week. Last year, we won our first game, lost our second. This year we lost our first game and hopefully we win our second.”
On if he wants to play more like Rodgers by passing more and running less frequently:
“We run a different scheme, and scheme is a big part of the game. You have to work to the strengths of your teammates, and the strengths of our offensive line, our receivers our running backs. I’ll never try to be like any of those other quarterbacks out there. Do I want a Super Bowl? Oh, yeah, I want a Super Bowl. As far as trying to measure my game up to his, or be like Aaron Rodgers, that’s not something that I try to go about every day. We just want to win, and Aaron Rodgers and the Packers have won a lot of games over the years, so in that sense, yeah, we want to win.”
On playing at Lambeau Field:
“They’re going to be hostile. They’re really excited about their team. It’s their home game and they want to win. As far as just the history around the stadium and everything, it’ll be a good experience. To be there, to play in that venue, it’s always an honor. You respect their home field, you respect the history that’s gone on there, and then you try to go get the win. We’ll have fun, hopefully, and go get the win.”
On if the game against Philadelphia felt like a preseason game considering he did not see game action during the preseason:
“Everybody said it, but a lot of guys were designated 20-25 plays in the preseason each game. After those 20-25 plays, it’s like, ‘OK, this is the real deal. We’ve got to play four quarters.’ For me, I knew we had to be prepared that way. Not having any preseason, this is just a game. I’m going to get hit and things are going to happen, but I don’t look at it that way. All we need right now is the support. For people who say that was my first preseason game, I’m not going to use that as an excuse. It’s not what I’ve ever done. You always try to live by the mantra ‘no excuses.’ That’s what this team is about, so you won’t hear anybody making excuses about the way we played. We didn’t play very well. We’ll play better, and I won’t use that either.”
On what he appreciates about Rodgers:
“I appreciate the way he plays. I appreciate what he’s done for the game. You have to look back on the guys that were before you and appreciate what they’ve done. So I appreciate that. I appreciate the way he plays, the swagger he plays with, how he treats his teammates, all those different things. So you look up to those things. When you’re playing him, you’re on opposite sidelines. There is no looking up to that. You’ve just got to go play.”
On when he first began admiring Rodgers:
“In college, obviously they won the Super Bowl. Coming into the league, he’s just done it over time. That’s what you want to be and that’s what we want to be, our rookie class. We want to be quarterbacks that play well over time, not just for one season, two seasons, but five, six, seven, 15 seasons.”
On the next steps he needs to take having played a game since his knee injury:
“We’ve just got to win, period. Offensively, we’ve got to clean everything up. That’s just the way it is. I passed the hit test, got hit a lot. I got hit every kind of way, too. I think that’s another huge relief for everybody, the coaches, players, myself. Other than that, I think we just got to clean up our execution of the offense.”
On if it is more challenging to regain his comfort level in the pocket or on the run:
“I don’t know. In the pocket, you don’t see the rush. You have to eye your keys, and if there’s a blitz that’s not going to make you hot, then you don’t worry about that blitz. You trust your guys and you move on and you try to go through your progressions. If there’s a blitz that makes you hot, you get rid of the ball. I don’t think I was uncomfortable at all in the pocket. Like I said, we’ve just got to execute better.”
On if he thinks he was mechanically sound against Philadelphia:
“I think you can always improve your mechanics. There’s going to be times when you’re in the pocket and you have to make an off-balance throw. You’ve just got to do that. But also, I’m not paying attention to that stuff. If I make a bad throw coming off of an injury, it’s ‘my mechanics’ and ‘I’m not driving off of my back leg.’ But if a healthy quarterback makes a bad throw, it’s just a bad throw. I understand that. There’s just stuff you have to just not look at. You know when your technique is sound, you know how you throw the ball, and you know what you have to do if you make a bad throw. You fix those things in practice, you fix them in the game and that’s what we’re going to do.”
