GREEN BAY, Wis. -- It's been nearly 10 years since Aaron Rodgers won his first -- and only -- Super Bowl.
After missing the playoffs the past two seasons, experiencing a coaching change for the first time since he's been an NFL starter and turning 36 years old last month, it's worth wondering how often Rodgers thinks about a second Super Bowl.
The answer came Wednesday as he prepared for Sunday's NFC divisional playoff game against the Seattle Seahawks.
"It's on my mind every day," Rodgers said. "That's why we play the game. That's why you put in the time in the offseason, that's why you do the little things. It's to put yourself in this position, where we're two games away from being able to compete for that. I'm 36, I know what this is all about. This is an important opportunity for us. I feel like I've got a lot of really good years left, but you never know. A lot of things happen year to year. We've had some great teams that have been an injury away or a play away from being special, so I want to make the most of this opportunity."
And that might be slightly different than what Rodgers thought, say, five years ago, which was the last time the Packers played the Seahawks in a playoff game, an overtime loss at Seattle in which they blew a 12-point lead in the fourth quarter.
"When I was 31, I thought I was going to play into my 40s and that was still a decade away," Rodgers said. "Now, I'm 36, so now we're a half a decade away."
Although the Packers reached the NFC Championship game in their last playoff appearance following the 2016 season, that team was battered with injuries on defense and was blown out, 44-21, by the Falcons. This might be the Packers' best opportunity since 2014 given that they're the No. 2 seed, had a bye to prepare, and have been as healthy this season as they've been in recent years.
Perhaps the biggest issue is playoff experience. There are only four players left from the 2010 Super Bowl team and seven from the 2014 team that lost to Seattle.
"It'll be new for, I think, more than half of our team, which will be a good test for those guys to settle down early on," Rodgers said. "We wanted one of these for a while, a divisional game at home, good opponent, with the weather in our favor."
Receiver Davante Adams was a rookie on the 2014 team, but remembers it vividly. "I definitely wasn't quite aware of how intense it was going to be. So that's one of the main things I've made sure I pointed out to the young guys this week, letting them know it's going to be a little more intense than what they've seen in the past in these past games. I kind of compared [it] to the preseason-to-regular season jump, but this time it's really, really [big].
"But at the same time, kind of letting them know it's the same game you've been playing. It's not going to change for you as long as you've been having that type of urgency and attention to detail, you'll be fine."
Veteran right tackle Bryan Bulaga, who was a rookie on the Super Bowl team, wouldn't go as far as Rodgers, but at age 30 -- and in the final year of his contract -- he could be in a similar situation.
"I don't know if I think about it every day," Bulaga said. "I am a one-day-at-a-time guy. I don't really look down the road, but I mean, yeah, this is exciting right now. This is what all the work is put in for, for these types of games, and I think the guys are excited about it."