The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers have competed in the National Football League (NFL) since 1921, two years after their original founding by Curly Lambeau and George Whitney Calhoun. [1] They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference (NFC) and play their home games at Lambeau Field in central Wisconsin. [2] [3] The early era of the NFL and American football in general was not conducive to passing the football, with the forward pass not being legalized until the early 1900s and not fully adopted for many more years. [4] Although the quarterback position has historically been the one to receive the snap and thus handle the football on every offensive play, [5] the importance of the position during this era was limited by various rules, like having to be five yards behind the line of scrimmage before a forward pass could be attempted. [6] These rules and the tactical focus on rushing the ball limited the importance of the quarterback position while enhancing the value of different types of backs, such as the halfback and the fullback. [7] Some of these backs were considered triple-threat men, capable of rushing, passing or kicking the football, making it common for multiple players to attempt a pass during a game. [8]
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As rules changed and the NFL began adopting a more pass-centric approach to offensive football, the importance of the quarterback position grew. [6] [7] Beginning in 1950, total wins and losses by a team's starting quarterback were tracked. [9] Throughout the late 20th century and early 21st century, the significance of the position has grown exponentially. [7] The modern starting quarterback is often viewed as the leader of the team and its player spokesperson. [5] The position is often the highest paid player on an NFL team's roster, with teams assigning significant resources in trying to draft, acquire or trade for a franchise quarterback. [10] [11] These resources are based on the high expectations placed on the position, which include handling the ball on every offensive play (whether it be to pass the ball or hand it off to another player), relaying plays (or sometimes calling plays themselves) to the offense and understanding every teammate's role, formation and responsibility for every play. [5] The emergence of the dual-threat quarterback has also seen additional focus on the position, with quarterbacks like Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen leading their team in both passing and rushing yards during any given game. [12]
Prior to 1950, the Packers had numerous players identified as playing the quarterback position, including Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee Arnie Herber. [13] However, the combination of unreliable statistics in the early era of the NFL and the differences in the early quarterback position make tracking starts by quarterbacks impractical for this timeframe. Since 1950 however, the Packers have had 34 starting quarterbacks in the history of their franchise. Five of those quarterbacks each made over 70 starts and between them started over 75% of the team's games in that time period, with varying levels of success. [9] Tobin Rote, who started 73 games in the 1950s, and Lynn Dickey, who started in 101 games in the late 1970s and early 1980s, saw little on-field success. [14] [15] However, Bart Starr, Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers all led the Packers to Super Bowl victories, with Starr winning five NFL championships in the 1960s. [16] [17] All three quarterbacks were named the NFL's Most Valuable Player at least once in their careers. [18] Favre started the most games as quarterback for the Packers, both in the regular season (253) and during the playoffs (22). [19] Favre never missed one start with the Packers, contributing to his NFL record of 321 consecutive starts by a quarterback. [20] After Favre was traded to the New York Jets, Rodgers took over as starting quarterback, a role he would hold for 15 seasons. [21] [22] Combined, from Favre's first start in 1992 to Rodgers' last start in 2022, the two quarterbacks started 476 out of 495 possible regular season games. [9] After Rodgers was traded to the Jets in 2023, the Packers named Jordan Love starting quarterback for the 2023 NFL season. [23] Love started all 19 games (17 in the regular season and 2 in the playoffs) for the Packers in 2023 and began the 2024 season as the team's starter. [24]
