Over lunch, Lucas Patrick learned Aaron Rodgers had his back

[Cheesehead]

“Any guy in this locker room, if you feel like ‘12’ has your back, it’s like the whole state of Wisconsin has your back,” Patrick said. “Everyone knows he’s special. Everyone knows what he can do on the field. But I don’t think many people truly know what he does off the field to help guys like me.


“I think if you went around to a bunch of guys in the locker room who are just fighting to stick in this league, he’s probably talked to 99 percent of them and has expressed words of encouragement, keep sticking it out, or this is what you need to work on.”


All of that is the backdrop to Patrick’s performance Sunday in Dallas, when he was thrown into the fire for his first career regular-season action at center following veteran Corey Linsley’s concussion. Linsley had played more than 2,700 consecutive snaps dating back to December 2016, and for the first time since then, someone else had to snap the ball to Rodgers, communicate the line calls, and anchor the middle.


While Patrick was by no means perfect and he called it “a great game to learn from,” the offense didn’t skip a beat, and the Packers notched a big road win.


“I want to tell him he did a phenomenal job, but I think it might go to his big head,” said left tackle David Bakhtiari with his usual playful sarcasm. “He was able to settle in, get some good movement, do some good things for the offense and let us operate at full efficiency, which is exactly what you want.”


The effort prompted Rodgers to tell the summer lunch story to the media after the game, the sharing of which was quickly relayed to Patrick. He got a text from his fiancée about Rodgers’ comments, and his public support meant even more given two of his shotgun snaps in the game were significantly off-target. Both were fortunately caught alertly by running back Aaron Jones and turned into positive runs when they could have been huge plays the wrong way.


Those elicited Rodgers’ more pointed and abrupt in-game form of leadership – “Get the snap to me. It’s that simple,” Patrick recalled of their sideline briefing – that isn’t entirely understood when it’s seen by outside observers without the full context.


“That’s the kind of guy who, when he says something to me on the field with those bad snaps and he’s very firm, I respond better because of the relationship he’s cultivated,” Patrick said. “He brings the best out of everyone.”


That relationship began building in earnest in the 2017 preseason, when Patrick’s mom was visiting and the two were leaving the facility together in his mom’s early 2000s Ford Escape, not the typical vehicle seen in the players’ parking lot. Rodgers walked up, tapped on the window for her to roll it down, and introduced himself to Patrick’s mom, who had raised Patrick and his sister by herself.