Matt LaFleur has a plan for a depleted receiver room: build the plane out of Aaron Jones

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You know the old joke about if the black box survives the plane crash, why not just make the whole plane out of the black box? It works in football too. Or at least it has for the Green Bay Packers during the Matt LaFleur era only instead of a black box, it’s Aaron Jones.

When the Packers have been down key contributors or really needed a jolt offensively, they turn to their star running back. With Christian Watson and Romeo Doubs unsure to play in the season opener with hamstring injuries, it’s time to once again build the plane out of the team’s most reliable offensive weapon.

Trying to dig through any LaFleur trend previous to this season has its pitfalls, so it must be said any game plan he put together had the benefit of also having one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to walk the Earth, Aaron Rodgers. Even when Rodgers wasn’t playing like Aaron F’ing Rodgers, he was still Aaron F’ing Rodgers to defenses. They had to account for him.

Still, whenever Davante Adams didn’t play and even sometimes when he did, defenses would crowd the line of scrimmage, force the Packers to prove they could win vertically, and dare Rodgers to beat them with a slew of mediocre weapons. Here’s the thing: They did it consistently, going 7-0 in games without their All-Pro pass catcher before trading Adams to the Las Vegas Raiders.

And it’s not like Rodgers carried to the team in all of those games. In fact, quite the opposite. With the exception of a Raiders game that saw the four-time MVP (then a two-time MVP) put together the first perfect passer rating of his career, the burden fell on the other Aaron to deliver for the Packers offense.

“The one thing about this league is nobody cares,” LaFleur said Wednesday of injuries to his receivers. “You’ve got to find a way to get it done, and I think our guys have taken that mindset no matter who’s out there. The expectations remain the same and that is to go out there and play winning football. So, we’ll get our guys ready to go.”