NFL Sunday Primer: Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady face a pair of must-wins

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It’s not exactly last-stand time for Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady. Not yet. But if the two legendary quarterbacks and their teams are going to get things headed back in the proper direction this season, now might be a good time to begin.

Rodgers’s Green Bay Packers play an early-afternoon game Sunday in Detroit against the one-win Lions. Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers host the struggling Super Bowl champion-Los Angeles Rams in a late-afternoon game matchup. The Packers and Buccaneers have matching 3-5 records, and neither has won a game in about a month. The Bucs’ last victory came Oct. 9; for the Packers, it was Oct. 2.

The Packers are on a four-game losing skid. They’re coming off a 27-17 defeat to Buffalo last Sunday night in Orchard Park, N.Y., after Rodgers had said that going on the road to face the imposing Bills actually might be the best thing for the Packers. It wasn’t. That was followed by the Packers allowing last week’s NFL trade deadline to pass — amid frenzied activity by other teams — without adding any pass-catching help for Rodgers.

The Packers are 3½ games behind the front-running Minnesota Vikings, who beat them in the season opener, in the NFC North. They face the Dallas Cowboys, Tennessee Titans and Philadelphia Eagles in their following three games. Sunday’s game in Detroit does have a bit of a must-win feel to it.

The Buccaneers are in better shape in the standings, with the good fortune of playing in the NFC South. They’re only a game out of first place, with the Atlanta Falcons being the division’s only team at .500.

The Bucs have the potential to be a dangerous team to face in the NFC playoffs, given Brady’s long history of postseason excellence. But first, they need to find a way to get there. They face a Rams team Sunday with a likewise unimpressive record of 3-4.

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Brady has endured a tempestuous post-retirement season that has included on-field struggles, sideline temper tantrums and intense off-field scrutiny of his private life. He too rarely has resembled the all-time-great quarterback who has won seven Super Bowls and even last season led the NFL in passing attempts, completions, passing yards and touchdown passes. Perhaps time finally has caught up to him, at age 45. Maybe he should — and will — head back into retirement this offseason, without a reversal this time, and begin his lucrative post-playing-career life as an analyst for Fox.

But it never has been wise, to this point, to count out Brady. Maybe, just maybe he has one more football miracle left in him.

First, he just needs to win a game. Same as Rodgers.