GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Aaron Rodgers met with the media Tuesday, moving up his weekly appearance by one day as the Packers adjust to a very shortened time frame in between games.
For only the second time in the past year, Rodgers is coming off a regular-season loss and answered more questions about areas of improvement than the NFL's Most Valuable Player is used to.
With the Chicago Bears heading to Lambeau Field on Thursday night with an opportunity to drop Green Bay to an 0-2 record, Rodgers talked about the Packers' Week 1 loss, Bears quarterback Jay Cutler, the replacement referees and much more.
Five question-and-answer highlights:
1. What have the past couple days been like after losing the first game of the season?
RODGERS: It sucks to lose but everybody's kind of moved on to Chicago. It's kind of the blessing of a short week after a loss. We know it was a tough opponent Sunday. Obviously, there's some things to work on and improve on. Hopefully, we get to see those guys down the road.
2. Is Bears defensive end Julius Peppers still a freak?
RODGERS: I can speak for on the field. He definitely still is. He's one of the top athletes in the game, at any position. A lot of length and a lot of athletic ability. He's a guy you've got to account for all the time. They're doing some different things, moving him inside a little bit, letting him rush from the three-technique and from a shade, which is something we haven't seen from them. Giants have done that with all of their guys – JPP (Jason Pierre-Paul) and (Justin) Tuck and Osi (Umenyiora) and (Dave) Tollefson when he was there, kind of moving those guys around. It looks like Chicago wants to do that to get (Shea) McClellin in and give Julius some different rush angles.
3. Have you talked to Donald Driver since Sunday's game when he only played three snaps?
RODGERS: This is a team that has a lot of guys that can make plays. It's a long season, as we saw with last season, maybe Game 1, some people didn't get as many balls as they wanted to. But you realize by the end of the season those guys are all going to be called on at different times to make plays. And it just depends on the personnel groups we're going with and kind of where we're attacking the defense on where the reps go. We know what Donald brings us, a lot of confidence in him. He's made a lot of plays in this preseason. He's going to have to make a lot of plays for us this season.
4. Now that Cutler has new weapons on offense like wide receivers Brandon Marshall and rookie Alshon Jeffery, do you expect this game to be a more high-scoring matchup than usual?
RODGERS: I kind of welcome a team that doesn't hold onto the football as long as San Francisco does. We had four possessions there in the first half and one of them was under a minute where you're in the two-minute mode. We like an up-tempo game like that. Jay is a big-time quarterback who can make some plays with his feet and throwing the football. Obviously he's got one of the strongest arms in the league. Now he's got some guys, Jeffery and Marshall, still have (Earl) Bennett and (Devin) Hester and those guys, so obviously with Matt Forte and (Michael) Bush in there, they have a lot of weapons. If we have to play a high-scoring game, hopefully we'll be ready for that.
5. Did the replacement referees affect at all how you operated on offense in Sunday's game?
RODGERS: No. Not at all. They got a job to do. We trust they're going to get the job done.
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