The Packers will enter FedEx Field on Sunday night reeling, and not only in the scope of their three-game losing streak. Since the Packers started last season 6-0, they have gone 9-12, playoffs included, and lost five times at Lambeau Field. Their last two losses came at home to the Indianapolis Colts and on the road at the Tennessee Titans, two teams who appeared to reside near the NFL’s bottom rungs.

The talent around Rodgers has aged, been injured or regressed. Green Bay’s defense has crumbled this month. It has raised the question of whether Rodgers’s performance, too, has diminished, or if he has been undone by problems around him. Not one factor rises above all others to explain the Packers’ slide. They are interconnected, a series of minor problems exacerbating other minor problems. The result is an exalted quarterback playing average football in the center of a roster not as good as it once was.

The most glaring difference, of course, is Rodgers’s performance. Every season from 2009 through 2014, Rodgers averaged between 8.2 and 9.2 yards per attempt. Last year, the number shrank to 6.7, and this season Rodgers has gained a career-worst 6.5 yards per attempt, which ranks 29th in the NFL, smack between Tyrod Taylor and Blake Bortles. Still, some who closely examined Rodgers’s season believe the Packers’ issues lay anywhere but under center.

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“I don’t see any drop-off in Rodgers’s game,” said one NFL assistant coach who recently reviewed Rodgers. “He’s still doing the same stuff that’s made him great for years. I’d look at the surrounding cast, the loss of [Eddie] Lacy in the run game, dropped balls. But Rodgers is still creating with his feet, getting the ball out quick, can put the ball on the money from just about anywhere. Their struggles can be attributed to about 50 other things until Rodgers would even come up.”

Rodgers’s drop began last season, as injuries struck the Packers’ offensive line and he started taking punishment. In the view of some evaluators, Rodgers began anticipating pressure that never came, throwing off his back foot even when unnecessary. Bad habits became ingrained, and inaccurate passes became more frequent. They have carried over into this season as linemen J.C. Tretter, David Bakhtiari and T.J. Lang have dealt with injuries, leading to more hits.

“I don’t care who the quarterback is,” NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock said. “When he gets hit as often as Aaron Rodgers has the last couple years, it can change your mechanics a little bit. It can change your timing a little bit. I don’t care how great he is. You got to help him out with some consistency in the run game and a healthy offensive line.”

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Next to the battering of the Packers’ offensive line, no factor has hurt Rodgers more than the decline of Eddie Lacy, which has left Green Bay without a consistent running game. In his first two seasons, Lacy averaged 96.8 total yards on 19.5 touches per game, carries and catches combined. In the last two seasons, those averages have dropped to 66.7 yards on 14.1 touches, and Lacy is now on injured reserve, having last played Week 5.

Without a running game to rely upon, Rodgers has been forced into throwing constantly. He has attempted 41 passes per game, fourth-most in the NFL. In a Week 7 victory over the Bears, Rodgers threw 56 passes. Last Sunday, as the Packers abandoned their gameplan and ran a no-huddle offense through the entire second half in an attempt to overcome a huge deficit, he dropped back 51 times.

On defense, the Packers have been in shambles since losing Clay Matthews, a pass-rushing menace, in Week 6. In their last three games, the Packers have allowed 33, 31 and 47 points. “It’s not about one player,” Coach Mike McCarthy said. “It never will be.”

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The Packers have taken solace in the rest of the NFC North sinking with them. The Minnesota Vikings have lost four straight after starting the season 5-0, the Detroit Lions have climbed out of a 1-3 hole but still stand at 5-4 and the Chicago Bears may or may not be using a CFL roster. Despite their struggles, the Packers stand just one game out of first place, in decent shape with potential tiebreakers.

But they are also unaccustomed to such failure. Rodgers acknowledged after the Packers’ loss to the Titans that the Packers would be playing for their jobs.

“That’s the nature of the league,” Rodgers said Sunday. “It’s a young man’s league. We got to make sure we’re playing well every week. There has to be a healthy fear as a player that if you don’t do your job, they’re gonna get rid of you. We have to go back, the focus has to pick up, the urgency has to pick up and we got to play better.”

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The sentiment may apply to McCarthy as well. He has won a Super Bowl in Green Bay, but many have wondered whether his play-calling has grown stale, or if after 11 years in charge players need to hear a new voice.

“Let’s just state the facts: I’m a highly successful NFL head coach,” McCarthy said. “With that, I’ve never looked at the ride as smooth. To me, it’s always bumpy. To me, that’s the joy of it. That’s this game. That’s how hard it is in the NFL. What you did last year or in 2010, it doesn’t matter. To me, you have to stay in tune with the now. Obviously, people outside of our room don’t really appreciate the now. Personally, I enjoy these type of moments.”