Aaron Rodgers and the Packers were fried last weekend by a San Francisco 49ers offense led by Colin Kaepernick, who killed Green Bay by land and by air.
The 49ers quarterback is part of a group of versatile young passers who have become breakout stars playing in offenses that lean liberally on read-option concepts.
Rodgers and the Packers have a high-flying passing game of their own, and the former Super Bowl MVP isn't interested in seeing Green Bay move toward the option in 2013.
"I think the league is cyclical," Rodgers said on his weekly radio visit with ESPN Wisconsin, via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "Things have come back around that have been used 20, 30 years ago. But this, too, I think, will pass. Some of the pistol, read-option stuff will eventually pass. Now it might not be for 10 more years. The athletic quarterback, I don't think, is going to pass at all. ...
"But I think, as we saw five years ago with the Wildcat stuff, it had its success and less and less people are doing it," Rodgers added. "Now it's more of the zone-read stuff, reading the end and keeping it or pulling it with a quarterback who has some athleticism. At some point, on some level, they are going to figure out a way to consistently stop that."
Rodgers isn't alone in that school of thought. We've seen fads on offense arrive, vanish and cycle back again.
With added game tape to reference, defenses will learn to scheme against the option with more success, but the relevence of the attack likely reflects to the type of quarterbacks entering the league. The idea of the NFL returning to 32 drop-back, pass-first quarterbacks is unrealistic, which Rodgers realizes.
Teams' approach to athletic quarterbacks, however, likely will change -- and then change again.
Follow Marc Sessler on Twitter @MarcSesslerNFL.
