Scary good

In his three preseason appearances, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has posted the following passing statistics.

Game #1 (vs. Cleveland): 5-10, 102 passing yards, 1 TD, 119.6 QB rating
Game #2 (vs. Buffalo): 8-9, 98 passing yards, 2 TDs, 151.6 QB rating
Game #3 (vs. Arizona): 14-19, 258, 3 TDs, 155.2 QB rating

Count all that up. Rodgers has now completed 71 per cent of his passes for 458 yards and six touchdowns for a 142.1 quarterback rating. He also hasn’t thrown an interception, and at one point during the Arizona game, I read the Packers first team offence had scored seven touchdowns in nine possessions this preseason. That is very good.

The Packers went 6-10 last season in Rodgers' first year as a starter. But it wasn’t his fault. That was mostly on the defence. But now the Packers have brought in Dom Capers as defensive coordinator, they’ve switched to a 3-4 and the first team defence is actually giving teams mucho problems thus far.

The Packers defence might not be able to keep up that level of play throughout the regular season. However, they may not have to. As sharp as Rodgers looks right now, if the D can improve even slightly on what it did last year, the Packers will be very tough in 2009. (Note: Packers star wide receiver Greg Jennings did leave the Arizona game after a hard hit. If his injury is serious, that could alter things a bit for Green Bay.)

Anyway, the Vikings-Packers games – thanks to the Favre stuff and the play of Rodgers – should be the most hotly contested, entertaining games in the history of this rivalry. And we know every Vikings-Packers game is hotly contested, and with a few exceptions, always entertaining. It might even be the best rivalry in North American professional sports.

I can’t wait for those two games.

The Metrodome
KSTP reports that the Metrodome will undergo some cosmetic changes to make the place look more like a Vikings-only stadium now that the Gophers and Twins won’t be playing there anymore come October.

Is it too much to hope that this might be a sign Vikings owner Zygi Wilf is willing to look at ways of renovating the Metrodome to open up more revenue streams for him while he waits for the state to come around on the idea of partially funding a new stadium for the team?

Maybe 2011 – the year the Vikings lease at the Metrodome expires – isn’t going to be the year Wilf moves the team elsewhere. Maybe he will sign a lease extension, one long enough that he can anticipate the economy and the political climate improving to the point where state politicians will be more willing to consider his stadium proposal.

Late addition
The National Football Post's Matt Bowen writes about what he's seen in the preseason games he's watched this week. He's high on the Packers and he makes some nice observations about some other teams and players as well.