Rodgers’ TD Passes To First Round WRs Doesn’t Tell Full Story

There are many times where I wonder… Is this worth a blog post about? Sometimes, it might be worth a funny line in something bigger than the thing itself. Cole Cubelic of the SEC Network on ESPN had a tweet yesterday where he outlined the amount of touchdowns that Aaron Rodgers had from first founders. He compared to other top quarterbacks in the NFL. Rodgers’ numbers are significantly lower than anyone else at one. But those numbers are flawed in the worst way possible. There could have been a better way to tweet this but Cubelic wanted the sweet, sweet engagement nectar that doesn’t mean a fucking thing.
This is inconceivable…
Career TD passes to 1st round picks:
Brees 104
Brady 105
P Manning 293
Favre 127
Marino 84
Rivers 35
*Rodgers 1
Roethlisberger 69*Marcedes Lewis 2019
— Cole Cubelic (@colecubelic) April 27, 2020
First-rounds picks are surefire hits every time you draft them. The year the Packers took Davante Adams, they could have drafted Kelvin Benjamin in the first round. Which one would rather have? In 2008 when the Packers drafted Jordy Nelson, no receiver was drafted in the first round. But Nelson was the first pick made by the Packers that year. See how easy this is to bend and twist the numbers to make your point? Rodgers also threw touchdowns to Greg Jennings, Randall Cobb, and James Jones who were second and third-round picks respectively. The numbers are entirely flawed.
Now, what could be discussed and maybe more interesting is the Packers did not prepare well for the departure of Nelson and Cobb. In 2018, Packers drafted two cornerbacks in the first two rounds to replenish a position that needed it. Josh Jackson also surprisingly fell after being considered a first-rounder. Packers could have taken Christian Kirk or Michael Gallup among others with that second-round pick. If Cubelic or anyone for that matter wants to be critical of Green Bay, the 2018 NFL Draft is where they should be doing their digging. This group of numbers does not help anyone.