Unless something drastically happens, it appears we won’t be hearing about Aaron Rodgers’ toe anymore.
The Green Bay Packers quarterback made it sound like his toe injury won’t be an issue in the playoffs. The first clear sign was of him taking part in the first of two practices the team will hold during their playoff-week bye.
Rodgers, who had been getting regular pain-killing injections to make it through games, said he has not needed one recently.
“I haven’t taken one in a number of weeks now, so that’s been the most encouraging thing,” Rodgers said Wednesday. “Got through last week without doing one. It was just a pretty standard shot in the toe, very painful, a numbing agent. That helped get me through the games. The whole goal was to be able to not have to do that. It’s been a few games without doing that. So I’m feeling good, practiced today, close to 100% but think I should be 100% by next week.”
He fractured his left pinkie toe in early November while he was quarantined because of COVID-19.
While he did not have to, Rodgers only played in the first half of Sunday’s regular-season finale at the Detroit Lions. The team was playing for nothing as they had already clinched the No. 1 seed in the NFC the previous week.
Rodgers said his goal this week is simple.
Click on ‘Follow Us’ and get notified of the most viral NFL stories via Google! Follow Us
“Rest,” he said. “Rest. I mean, I’m about to go home, and it’s what, 12:22 [in the afternoon]? That’s pretty frickin’ sweet. So I’m going to enjoy this rest. I’m sure many people, hopefully it’s not just me, I’ve still got a semi-messy house post-Christmas and New Year’s, and it’s the end of the season, so you don’t have time for that. So I’m going to clean my house, I’m going to rest, I’m going to read some books, and I’m going to relax. That’s what I’m getting out of this week.”
The Packers won’t know their divisional-round opponent until Monday, when the last of the Wild Card Round games wrap up. The Packers will play the lowest remaining seed, which means they could be playing the fourth-seeded Los Angeles Rams, fifth-seeded Arizona Cardinals, sixth-seeded San Francisco 49ers or seventh-seeded Philadelphia Eagles.
Even still, they will have home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs and playing at Lambeau at this time of year is not fun for visitors. This past season, Rodgers threw for 4,115 yards, 37 touchdowns and just four interceptions while completing 68.9 percent of his passes.
