NFL Training Camp

Aaron Rodgers is no longer a superstar. 

The 36-year-old Green Bay Packers quarterback is a future Hall of Famer, but he hasn't surpassed the league average in yards per attempt since 2016. He hasn't been a first- or second-team All-Pro since 2014, and his 62.6 completion percentage since the start of 2017 ranks 25th among 31 qualified passers over that span.

It hasn't helped that Rodgers has often been hampered by injuries and/or a lack of support in the Green Bay offense. If he's suddenly going to turn his career around and again become the game-changing quarterback he once was, he'll need more than one top-notch pass-catcher in his supporting cast. 

Following a quiet offseason on that front from the Packers, there's no guarantee that will be the case. Aside from Davante Adams, no receiver or tight end currently on the Green Bay roster caught more than 35 passes, hit the 500-yard plateau or scored more than three touchdowns in 2019. 

Rodgers desperately needs somebody to reach another level in his pass-catching corps, especially following the departure of veteran tight end Jimmy Graham and a 2020 opt-out from free-agent signee Devin Funchess.

And the first guy most of us will look to is a third-year undrafted Iowa State product who has started three games over his first two NFL seasons. 

Good luck, Allen Lazard. The Packers are counting on you. 

Rodgers has been robbed of a true one-two pass-catching punch since the end of the Jordy Nelson era, but Lazard showed signs in 2019 that he could become a strong starting wideout. 

The Packers must believe he has it in him. Why else would the front office largely ignore the wide receiver position in free agency and then consistently pass on receivers in a draft that contained one of the deepest wideout classes in NFL history? 

Lazard, who spent most of his rookie season on the Jacksonville Jaguars' practice squad, didn't even make the initial 53-man Green Bay roster last season. But Rodgers appeared to see something in him. He "put in a good word" on his behalf in order to get him some reps late in a Week 6 matchup with the Detroit Lions, and Lazard came through with four receptions for 65 yards and a touchdown on five targets.

All of that came with the game on the line, and the 24-year-old was a fixture in the Green Bay offense for the rest of the season. 

Lazard recently spoke about his on-field relationship with Rodgers, per Bill Huber of Sports Illustrated:

"I think that (chemistry), that connection that we had throughout the season, especially towards the latter half of the season going on to the playoffs came from, one, just hard work every single day in practice, and I think he saw that. And then he knew that I cared. I think that was the biggest thing it is with Aaron, he needs to know that you care and he can trust you. I think I did all the right things to show him that. I think that's the biggest reason why we had success together."

Lazard dropped only two of the 52 passes thrown his way, and Rodgers posted a 115.6 passer rating when targeting him (compared to 99.1 when throwing to Adams). He was one of only nine qualified NFL players to average at least 13 yards per catch while pulling in at least 67 percent of the passes thrown his way, he was at his best in crunch time, and he was clutch on third downs.

"Lazard is one of the guys that's shown that he's a really talented player on the field, and he's coming into his own confidence-wise," Adams said, per Huber, who believes Lazard is the "overwhelming favorite" to start opposite Adams following Funchess' decision to opt out. 

It's possible that somebody other than Lazard will emerge throughout training camp. Fellow young wideouts Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Jake Kumerow and Equanimeous St. Brown have all had their moments, but Valdes-Scantling has a sub-50 percent career catch rate, Kumerow is even less established than Lazard, and St. Brown hasn't played since 2018.

There's also Marcedes Lewis, Robert Tonyan Jr. and Jace Sternberger at tight end, but Lewis is 36, Tonyan has caught 14 passes in two seasons, and Sternberger went catchless in his rookie campaign. 

Rodgers was at his best when he had Nelson working with Adams, and James Jones and Greg Jennings before that. Age and injuries have probably played a role in his decline, but it's no coincidence that his downfall has coincided with a lack of depth at receiver. 

Lazard has a better chance to change that than anyone on the Green Bay roster. The Packers' season might hinge on how much progress he can make in Year 3.

Brad Gagnon has covered the NFL for Bleacher Report since 2012. Follow him on Twitter: @Brad_Gagnon.

If Alex Smith plays a single down for the Washington Football Team this season, he deserves the Comeback Player of the Year Award.

Even if he takes the field in Week 17 late in the fourth quarter with Washington losing by 24 to the Eagles and does nothing but kneel to kill the clock to end a 4-12 regular season, they should hand Smith the award right then and there and be done with it. League brass could fly the trophy into the stadium via drone if we are still worried about social distancing by then.

Smith's return from a severe leg injury and nearly two years of surgeries, infections and complications promises to be the feel-good story of an NFL season that will need as many of those as it can get, even if his comeback amounts to little more than some token snaps. But Smith could emerge this year as much more than a glorified quarterback coach with a helmet.

"If Alex is healthy and continues to get healthy and we do activate him, he's going to be in the throes of this competition," head coach Ron Rivera told reporters Sunday (quotes via Nicki Jhabvala of the Washington Post).

The 36-year-old Smith as a starter again? Why not? Washington's other quarterbacks are Dwayne Haskins Jr., coming off a bad rookie year; Kyle Allen, coming off an even worse year as Cam Newton's replacement in Carolina; and undrafted rookie Steven Montez from Colorado. It's an undistinguished, relatively inexperienced group. The Washington offense appears unlikely to score many points in Rivera's first season as a coach.

But here comes Smith, riding to the rescue of a team with no name on a horse with no name while looking a little like Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name: grizzled, battered and scarred, with a way of getting the job done that isn't often pretty. But Smith has always overcome the odds, defied the skeptics and found a way to simply survive.

Smith should be a distant memory for NFL fans by now. The first overall pick in the 2005 draft, he spent three seasons struggling for a terrible 49ers team, going 11-19 as a starter and throwing more interceptions (31) than touchdown passes (19). He then missed all of 2008 with a broken bone in his shoulder, a likely exacerbation of an injury he suffered and tried to play through in 2007.

That should have been the end: after three bad years and a major injury, it's time for a top prospect to bounce around the league as a backup for a few years and then vanish. Smith had already lost his starting job to journeyman J.T. O'Sullivan, and he appeared to have exhausted all of head coach Mike Nolan's patience. But Mike Singletary replaced Nolan in 2008, and Smith got another chance. Unfortunately, he responded with two more unimpressive seasons in which he battled Shaun Hill and Troy Smith for the 49ers' starting job.

That really should have been the end: two coaches, one major injury, a half-decade of inability to wrest a starting job away from a who's who of rookies and randos. But Jim Harbaugh replaced Singletary, introduced creativity to the offense and competence to the organization, and by the end of Harbaugh's first season Smith was leading a thrilling playoff comeback against the Saints. 

But Harbaugh and Greg Roman's scheme made such great use of both Smith's arm and his legs that the 49ers proved even harder to stop when the faster, stronger-armed Colin Kaepernick was in the huddle. Kaepernick quickly earned a promotion from Wildcat wrinkle to starter, Smith slid to the bench, and the 49ers came within a fourth-quarter goal-line stand of winning Super Bowl XLVII.

Getting benched and upstaged during a Super Bowl run really, really should have been the end. But new Chiefs head coach Andy Reid needed a quarterback, so he traded two second-round picks for Smith. The smart, mobile, experienced Smith was a great fit for Reid's evolving West-Coast-meets-spread-option offense. Smith led the Chiefs to the playoffs four times and earned three Pro Bowl berths. But along came Patrick Mahomes.

Smith was shipped to Washington, went 6-3 as its starter in the first half of the 2018 season and then suffered compound and spiral fractures to his tibia and fibula in a collision with J.J. Watt and Kareem Jackson. That injury was followed by sepsis, necrotizing fasciitis ("flesh-eating disease"), skin grafts, the transfer of muscles and serious talk of amputation. Smith spent months undergoing surgeries and wearing what looked like steampunk contraptions on his leg.

That really, really, really should have been the end. Yet here we are: A healthy Smith really could be the best quarterback on the Football Team's roster. 

Smith's latest comeback puts his entire career into perspective. At his best with the Chiefs and 49ers, he was underappreciated and labeled as a system quarterback with a pea-shooter arm, someone just good enough to lose wild-card games. At his worst during the long early phase of his career, he was written off as a first-round bust when he was really being held back by gruff, defensive-minded coaches while trying to push himself through injuries. For 18 months, he's been little more than a background presence seen hobbling around team facilities on crutches, spoken of in glad to see him walking terms, not can't wait until he's back on the field terms.

Smith is the ultimate survivor. He's persevered through just about everything the NFL could throw at a player for 15 years. He's thrown for 34,068 yards, gone 94-66-1 as a starter and led six playoff runs. He's no all-time great, but there have been few quarterbacks in history quite like him. That makes it a bad idea to underestimate him or cast his latest comeback as just an inspirational tale.

Forget Comeback Player of the Year: Alex Smith should be eligible for a Comeback Player of All Time award. But he could do much more this season: win a starting job, win some games, lead by example (who better than Smith to teach Haskins that as a top prospect he may have to battle both competition and organizational turmoil for years?), help Rivera set the tone for a young roster and give fans a reason to watch a team that can't even be bothered coming up with a name.

Smith still faces an uphill battle to become anything more than a veteran benchwarmer for a rebuilding team. But he's been climbing uphill since the moment he entered the NFL. Don't think for a moment that he's going to give up now.