MINNEAPOLIS — Walking gingerly to the sideline with his throwing shoulder throbbing in pain, Aaron Rodgers turned back toward the field and barked at Minnesota linebacker Anthony Barr.

Rodgers likely already knew that his season was in jeopardy after Barr’s hit broke his collarbone, and the fiery quarterback’s frustration boiled over.

Now the Green Bay Packers have to try to make sure their season as a whole doesn’t go down the drain with it.

Rodgers was knocked out of the 23-10 loss in the first quarter Sunday with an injury that could cause him to miss the remainder of the season .

It’s a crushing blow to a team that entered the season with Super Bowl aspirations, based primarily on the right arm of one of the game’s best quarterbacks.

“It’s devastating,” receiver Randall Cobb said. “No question about it. First and foremost, that is one of my closest friends, so to see him go down with that is tough. We still have to play football. We have a long season ahead of us to figure out what we are going to do.”

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Brett Hundley, the only other quarterback on the roster outside of practice squad player Joe Callahan, was rushed into duty. He finished 18 of 33 for 157 yards with one touchdown and three interceptions.

“Losing Aaron Rodgers speaks for itself,” Packers Coach Mike McCarthy said. “In my opinion, he’s the best player in football. This is the ultimate team game. We need to be better with the 11 people on the field that we have, regardless of the phase that we’re in. Ultimately, that’s my responsibility.”

Colin Kaepernick, who has had difficulty finding a job since becoming the face of league-wide demonstrations during the national anthem that protest social injustice, and Tony Romo, who joined CBS as an analyst after retiring from the Dallas Cowboys, could be outside options to fill in for Rodgers. But McCarthy said after the game he was not considering anything like that yet.

“Brett Hundley and Joe Callahan, that’s what we’re going with,” he said.

Despite several key injuries to the secondary, the Packers entered the game at 4-1 after Rodgers engineered a game-winning touchdown drive to beat the Dallas Cowboys last week.

Rodgers was injured when he was driven into the turf after he threw a roll-out pass. He rode a cart to the locker room for tests and the team announced after halftime that he would not return to the game.


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