GREEN BAY, Wis. -- After enjoying a mini-bye weekend following the Green Bay Packers' win last Thursday night, Aaron Rodgers met with the media Wednesday to discuss personal records, situational statistics and more.
Here are five question-and-answer highlights from Rodgers' media session:
1. One hundred games into your career, you've had a lot of records and great numbers. Does any of that mean anything to you?
RODGERS: "It does, yeah. It really does. You realize you're getting a little older in the league when you're getting some achievement balls early in the season like this; 25,000 yards was a cool number, as was 200 touchdowns. Definitely gets dwarfed by Peyton (Manning's) 500 (touchdowns) when that happens in a short amount of time there. It's still special. It means I've been able to play pretty consistently and the guys around me made a lot of plays for me. This is my 10th season, and I like to think I'm halfway in; nine in and hopefully nine to go. It's about being consistent from this point forward, keeping my body in great shape and playing at a high level and making the guys around me raise the level of their game, as well."
2. Given your numbers so far, how do react to Peyton Manning's numbers after he just threw for his 500th touchdown pass?
RODGERS: "That's impressive. It's consistency over a long period of time and staying healthy. I think that's the goal of all of us is to have a long career and play at a high level for a long time. He helped himself out with 55 in one season, getting to that number quicker. But 500 touchdowns, him and Brett (Favre) the only guys to do it. If you take a deeper look at some of the top touchdown guys, I think there's only seven (quarterbacks) over 300 (touchdowns). So, seven over 300 and only two over 500, and there's big gap now between Brett and Peyton, and then Dan (Marino), who I believe is third at 420. It's really impressive, he's been doing it for a really long time at a high level and you have to give him a lot of credit and respect."
3. You've been good against the blitz and on third down this season. Has that been a focal point, and do you like where you're at right now in those areas?
RODGERS: "Yeah, that situational stuff is always really important. Red zone, I'd say, was even a bigger point of emphasis for us. We were 4-for-4 last week. Last year we got down there a good amount, but we didn't score a lot of touchdowns. This year, I don't know if we're getting down there as many times on average, but we're scoring more touchdowns. So I would guess we're in the top 10 for sure, maybe top 5 in touchdown percentage. That's where we want to be. I think we're 10th in third down right now. We need to get that up a little bit. But we'd like to get over 45 percent third down and definitely over 65 touchdown percentage in the red zone, and those are things that we talk about every week and we try and hit those marks. Those are a focus for us all the time."
4. Are you looking forward to facing off against Joe Philbin?
RODGERS "I would say everybody in here has a ton of respect for Joe and always appreciated hearing him talk. Joe's a guy that can really control the room. When he got up in front of the group, whether it was the team or the offense, which he usually did a couple times a week, Joe always had some great words about football and about life. I always appreciated his way of kind of bringing it all back together on Saturday mornings as he would give a talk and talk about what he did the night before, what he was thinking about during the week, maybe a book that he read in the offseason that was applicable or a quote that he saw. I always appreciated hearing his voice. I knew from really my second or third year that he was head coach potential and I was happy to see him get an opportunity."
5. What have you seen on film from the Dolphins defense?
RODGERS: "A talented group. They do a lot of different things. Some of the things that a lot of the teams around the league are doing now is some of that pressure package where they put a lot of guys at the line of scrimmage and they have versions of that. They also get after you with their front four. They have two really talented guys off the edge -- Cameron Wake is obviously a name that everybody's familiar with and played at a high level for a long time. They've got some veteran guys in the secondary, and they're getting a guy back from a suspension inside, as well, at the linebacker position. It's a talented group and we're going to have to play well."
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