This is my take on Packers rankings with and without Rodgers.
WITH. WITHOUT
Aaron Jones Mid Tier RB1. Top 5 RB
A.J. Dillon. RB3 High Ceiling. Low End RB2
Kylie Hill. Waivers Possibility. Late Round Flyer, Dynasty midround
DeVante Adams. 1st WR Taken. 3rd Round Pick
Other WRs. Late Flyers on whoever starts. Undraftable
Robert Tongan. High Ceiling TE2. Mid Tier TE1
Mercedes Lewis. TE3-4 Waiver Candidate. Solid TE3
My thinking is fairly straightforward. With Rodgers expect similar production from skill players as last year. Rodgers attitude had nothing to do with his performance in Matt LaFleurs offense last two seasons. I might be wrong on my RB/TE assumptions without Rodgers, but I see a heavy dose of the run game and a significant increase in check downs to RBs and TEs. There is one scenario that keeps Adams elite. That would be opposing defenses stacking the box often enough to force Love to seek Adams in single coverage. However, reading about Adams comments about the Rodgers situation opens the possibility of the talented WR not giving his best effort and maybe being less likely to play hurt if Rodgers doesn’t play. I should also note that Love would be a high ceiling QB2 and a must start in Superflex Leagues as a starter.
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Lol for my attempt at making separate columns for With and without! Obviously the first rank is with and the second without:)
The big question is: How is Jordan Love? If Love can be anywhere close to Rodgers, the offense doesn’t lose much. The jury is still out on that: https://www.espn.com/blog/green-bay-packers/post/_/id/50908/packers-dont-hold-back-any-of-offense-because-its-jordan-love-at-qb1
If anyone recalls, Rodgers actually looked better than Favre did when Rodgers replaced him (Favre threw too many picks). I doubt Love will look better than MVP Rodgers, but anything is possible.
P.S. Any offense with Jones and Adams won’t be bad.
If anything is true in the NFL it’s that when the stud QB is missing the entire offense suffers. Gone are the days when a great defense will dominate enough that an offense just needs to run the ball with a game manager. Brady vs. Mahomes was no fluke. Would the Bucs have been in the big game with James Winston? As a Packer fan I’ve seen this team without Rodgers, it’s ugly and obvious the skill players are lost and frustrated , both during a play and in the huddle!
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When a team has no obvious replacement for a stud QB (see the Cowboys last year), then I agree about your comment on the whole team suffering. But if they have already planned to replace an older stud, as Green Bay did with Favre in replacing him with Rodgers, the results can be dramatically different. My point is that we don’t know what they have in Jordan Love. The fact the Packers seem to be calling Rodgers’ bluff tells me that maybe they have a bit more confidence in Love being at least an acceptable alternative. And that tells me the Packers offense may not be going over a cliff without Rodgers.
Agree that there’s a big question mark with Love. Will be interesting to see if Love is turned loose in the preseason games if Rodgers is gone. If Love’s preseason snaps are limited or vanilla we won’t get clarity on the offense until the regular season. Another factor in a Love led offense is the efficiency of the defense. It appears that the Packers will field a decent defense which, if that’s the case, could result in a more conservative playbook for the first year starter.
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Which supports your rankings for Jones and Dillon.
The one place where I question your rankings is with the TE’s. A lot of young QB’s, even when they are being held back by a coaching staff, may feel safer checking down to RB’s rather than TE’s. We’ll have to see where Love’s security blanket throws go.