The Green Bay Packers are half a game up on the Detroit Lions for last place in the NFC North with two games to play. Yes, you read that correctly.

Like a college kid who awakens, in his bed, on the front lawn: “How did we get here?” How did the Packers, a Super Bowl contender at best and a playoff team at worst, end up falling out of playoff contention with two entire games left to play? And how does that happen with Aaron Rodgers starting every game?

There are peripheral reasons for their struggles: injuries along the offensive line, along with its general inadequacy (particularly on the right side); injuries to Randall Cobb and Geronimo Allison; Jimmy Graham’s fall from grace; injuries to Rodgers’ knee and groin; Mike McCarthy’s failed approach; a defense lacking sufficient playmakers to truly take over games.

Still, this team goes as Rodgers goes. If he gets a hot hand, it’s a safe bet that this team wins. In 2016, Rodgers willed this team into the playoffs with dynamic quarterbacking despite a defense that – by the end of the season – was one of the worst in all of Rodgers’ tenure as a starter.

To this point, Rodgers just hasn’t been good enough. He’s been inaccurate with the football, he’s taking too many sacks, and he’s throwing the ball away at an alarming rate.

All of the following analysis regarding Rodgers needs to be taken into the proper context. Rodgers’ cap hit is modest relative to his contract this year and next ($20.9 million this year and $26.5 next year before it escalates to $33.5 million in 2022 and $37 million in 2023). While Russ Ball (correctly) assumes that the salary cap will escalate each and every season, it’s still a pretty penny.

Rodgers can’t just be OK. He needs to be great. He’s paid to be great. He’s historically been great. The team is constructed on the premise that his extensive cap hit will make up for known, difficult-to-fix talent deficiencies.

A defense of Aaron Rodgers this season has pointed to his adjusted net yardage per passing attempt (ANY/A), which has often been correlated with winning. While Rodgers has sat inside the top 10 for most of this year, he slipped to No. 11 after Sunday’s performance in Chicago.

ANY/A heavily penalizes quarterbacks for interceptions and subtracts for sack yardage. What it doesn’t necessarily do, however, is provide a multiplier effect for third-down sacks, which are drive-killers and sometimes directly affect point-scoring opportunities.

The Packers lead the league in third-down sacks with 25, according to Ben Fennel of The Athletic. In fact, the Packers have led the league in that category in each of the three most recent seasons in which Rodgers started the majority of games. If Rodgers plays and takes four more third-down sacks, they’ll at least tie their own high-water mark set in 2015, arguably Rodgers second-worst season as a starter to date.

While the loss of yardage is computed identically no matter the down, the situational difference is unaccounted for.

Furthermore, Rodgers isn’t being dinged for his many, many throwaways, an angle Paul Noonan of Acme Packing Company thoroughly, and correctly, articulates by comparing Rodgers’ perversion of the importance of interceptions as a stat with Zach Greinke’s own approach in baseball to test out the value of the Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) metric.

“In the NFL, throwing an interception is seen as just about the worst thing you can do, and no one throws fewer picks than Aaron Rodgers,” Noonan writes. “However, there is such a thing as being too careful with the ball, and I suspect that Aaron is falling victim to the same kind of thinking as did Zack Greinke. It’s easy enough for a QB go an entire season without a pick by simply throwing the ball directly into the ground on every snap. Your offense won’t be very effective, but it will be ‘safe.'”

In essence, Rodgers’ approach conforms to the usual metrics that dictate successful quarterbacking, but the extremes to which he has taken it – numerous sacks and throwaways instead of interceptions – seem to be having an entirely different and altogether negative consequence.

Peter King picked up on this last week in his column for NBC Sports. He wrote, “(Rodgers’) 47 throwaways means he’s dumping it once every 10 throws, which no quarterback has done in the 13 years (Pro Football Focus) has mined the passing numbers. The NFL average is once every 28 passes.”

As Noonan stated in his column and I’ll reiterate here, Rodgers’ 28th-ranked completion rate (61.8 percent) feels like a stronger indicator of his struggles than anything else.

The usual retort redirects to scheme and supporting squad. Let’s begin with scheme. Yes, the Packers’ scheme – the architecture of the offense on which timing, throwing lanes and execution are built – is not as prolific as the Rams, Patriots and Saints of the world. But the NFL, particularly the Packers, have the resources to borrow, adopt and integrate plenty of concepts from around the league. While the Packers certainly aren’t the most creative team offensively, it would be dishonest to say receivers aren’t getting open.

Rodgers’ supporting cast may not be ideal, but Davante Adams is a true No. 1 wideout and his complementary pieces aren’t incompetent rubes. It’s well documented to this point that Rodgers has bypassed easy completions only to hold onto the ball and throw it away or take a sack.

When Rodgers was asked Sunday why the offense just never seemed to click, he responded with “details,” calling it a “recurring issue.”

“Details” is a vague response, intimating the actual answer is quite esoteric, but if we’re guessing, it likely means receivers aren’t getting to where they’re supposed to be. On each and every play, receivers have landmarks and options on their routes. In theory (and on paper), the Packers might have a logical, sound scheme. The offense’s passing attack can react, on the fly, to the defense’s mid-play scheme and technique adjustments. I’m merely guessing here, but it seems like Rodgers seems to be alluding to his receivers and tight end being unable to stay on the same page. The only problem is that scheme is not played on paper.

Insofar as this is a criticism of the scheme – coach the offense you have, not the one you want – it’s not as if Rodgers is placing the ball on schedule with pinpoint accuracy. Enough with the “trust” excuse, as Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel discussed on the “Packers Podcast.” Rodgers needs to find the open receiver and get him the ball accurately.

He’s still tucking and scrambling in search for the big play; he’s still passing up the easy completion for the big play. He’s taken conservative quarterbacking to the puritan extreme. To compound it, he’s thrown some head-scratchers, too.

Plenty of blame to go around for GB offense. Rodgers has to get rid of this ball. Take the 5 yards in the flat. pic.twitter.com/RtA1hlos6s — Daniel Jeremiah (@MoveTheSticks) December 17, 2018

Accuracy was so poor you almost have to assume the groin injury was really bothering him. pic.twitter.com/bNMPlMqFhG — Zach Kruse (@zachkruse2) December 17, 2018

This is far from a layup – the throw traveled like 60 yards in the air – but MVS is open and it wasn't all that close pic.twitter.com/cJlh2zxzUj — Zach Kruse (@zachkruse2) December 17, 2018

Was this just a throwaway? pic.twitter.com/fpZ2X4QkOd — Zach Kruse (@zachkruse2) December 17, 2018

I'm not really sure what this is pic.twitter.com/RvMDCSCQDU — Zach Kruse (@zachkruse2) December 17, 2018

Simply put, he’s missed too many throws. His completion percentage is bad not just because he throws the ball away to avoid the turnover. It’s bad, too, because he’s not placing the ball where it should be even during a few completions.

The Bears have an excellent defense and it just might catapult them into the Super Bowl if things fall their way, so Rodgers’ misfires make some sense – except that his performance Sunday was the rule, not the exception. Explaining away each and every poor performance is just another free pass for a quarterback who must play better if this team wants to return to the playoffs in 2019 as, again, it’s how they are constructed financially.

It’s a tall ask to expect such high levels of perfection for a quarterback, but we’ve seen it before and we can see it again. It just might take a dose of humility, a dash of scheme and a retooling of personal philosophy.

The next coach, whoever that is, will need to properly diagnose whatever is infecting Rodgers’ game so another season isn’t short-circuited.