Notes: Aaron Rodgers calls Aidan Hutchinson’s pick a ‘freebie’

Rookie edge defender Aidan Hutchinson registered his first career interception in the Detroit Lions’ upset win against the Green Bay Packers this Sunday.

It was enough to send Detroit fans to their feet and players to end zone to dance, but Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers may not have thought it was that big of a deal.

“He made some comment about me being a young pup or something,” Hutchinson said, per detroitlions.com’s Tim Twentyman. “And then he told me he gave me a freebie and I was like, ‘Freebie or not, I’ll take that interception.’ It was cool man. It was a cool moment and that’s my first-ever pick in football really. And I got it against one of the best.”

Who knows what type of tone Rodgers used, whether it was joking or serious, but either way, Hutchinson gave No. 12 his proper respect in that quote. The same type of respect not necessarily returned by Rodgers in his post-game presser.

“The play comes in, we’ve got to execute it. There’s a lot of things that go into that. We had a couple of chances for sure. We can’t lose a game like that against that team, no. So that’s going to hurt for a while,” the Green Bay quarterback told reporters.

“That team.” I guess it’s safe to say losing to a then 1-6 team stings. Former Lions quarterback turned analyst Dan Orlovsky went as far as to say that was the worst loss for No. 12 on ESPN’s Get Up on Monday morning.

“This is the worst loss of Aaron Rodgers’ career and candidly it’s one of the worst games I’ve seen him play and I’ve watched him take every single snap,” he said. “I don’t know the last time I saw a team and an orgnization fall this far, this fast, this sudden.”

And onto the rest of your notes.

• Undoubtedly one of the biggest story lines of Sunday’s win was the spectacular performance from safety Kerby Joseph. The Detroit Free Press’ Dave Birkett explains why Brad Holmes has a knack for finding talented safeties, and this might be his best pick yet. ($)

• A Baldy’s Breakdown giving props to the Lions rookies.

• Before Sunday’s win, the Lions held the No. 1 draft pick. So what did beating the Packers do to their position?

• Brothers doing big things.

• “This is a feisty Lions team that will probably win a few more games this season.” Detroit earns a not-failing grade from CBS Sports’ John Breech. Can’t say the same for the Packers.

• You love to see it.

• Things are rough for the Carolina Panthers. They just fired two more coaches, including former Lions defensive coordinator Paul Pasqualoni.