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Since winning the Super Bowl in 2010, the Packers are 34-13-1. A very good record, but it feels a little disappointing in light of their postseason performances (1-3 in those three years). Lots of blame is directed towards the defense, which lacked at times over the past few years.
Aaron Rodgers believes Green Bay's improved on that end and, overall, is now a "bigger, more physically intimidating team" than before.
"I think we're a bigger, more physically intimidating team," Rodgers told Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com. "We haven't had the kind of physical talent as far as size here in a while. I think there's been times -- I think back to playing Jacksonville in '08 in Jacksonville [a 20-16 Packers' loss], some of the battles we've had with our division teams at times -- where you walk on the field and feel like you're kind of a JV team."
He's not disparaging the previous iterations of the Packers. Again, they were very good. But Rodgers is referencing additions like Julius Peppers (6-foot-7, 287 pounds) on the defensive line and Richard Rodgers (6-foot-4, 257) at tight end.
"We've still won a lot of games looking like that, but it's fun when you walk around the locker room and you've got guys like [Julius] Peppers, [Adrian] Hubbard, Datone Jones and then with Derek [Sherrod] back with his size, adding size at receiver, tight end with Richard Rodgers," Rodgers said. "We just haven't had guys in some of these positions with those body types, and that's exciting."
Rodgers compared those bigger players on the Packers to a trend he sees with the defending Super Bowl champion Seahawks.
"It's natural when teams win the Super Bowl, everybody takes a hard look at what makes their team a championship-caliber team," Rodgers said. "With Seattle, you've got large players in positions you haven't quite seen that size player in a while."
The NFL, as it always will, remains a copycat league.
The question is whether or not it will work for the Packers. Considering they've given up 23, 45 and 37 points, respectively, in their playoff losses over the last three years, there's nothing wrong with taking a different angle.
Rodgers will take this team as deep as it wants to go in the regular season. But it's going to take a full team effort to push them back to the peak they saw four years ago.
