What should we expect from Aaron Rodgers and the Packers’ new tight ends?

Aaron Rodgers became the latest Highest-Paid Quarterback In NFL History™ with a monster contract extension from the Packers right before the season started. The 34-year-old is now locked in for the next six years of his career. To help Rodgers continue to be the efficient quarterback machine he is, the Packers supplied him with some new weapons to play with in the red zone.

Since Jermichael Finley’s career-ending spinal injury in 2013, the Packers haven’t had a lot of star power at tight end. That’s going to change this year after the team signed Jimmy Graham and Marcedes Lewis in free agency. Graham and Lewis are fundamentally different players, but both of them saw success in the red zone last season, an area where Rodgers is arguably the best quarterback in the NFL.

The average adjusted yards per attempt (AY/A) in the red zone (among all quarterbacks with at least 10 red zone attempts) last year was 7.2 AY/A. Aaron Rodgers had an obscene mark of 11.12 AY/A in the red zone. Only Deshaun Watson (12.82 AY/A) and Carson Wentz (12.71 AY/A) had higher marks than Rodgers.

As a whole, Rodgers threw 12 touchdowns on 34 attempts in the red zone in the seven games he played in. But his top red zone target, Jordy Nelson, is now with the Raiders. Nelson caught six of his seven red zone targets in 2017, with five of those receptions resulting in touchdowns. For those of you keeping score at home, Nelson converted 71.4 percent of those targets into touchdowns.

With Rodgers losing five of his 12 red zone touchdowns, Green Bay had to figure out how to replace Nelson’s production during the offseason. The Packers smartly signed Graham and Lewis.

When healthy, Graham has always been a touchdown beast. Lewis will likely spend most of his time blocking, but when he’s able to run routes in the red zone he can make defenses pay.

Here are their stats from last year with the Seahawks and Jaguars, respectively:

Graham (6’7, 265 pounds) and Lewis (6’6, 264 pounds) are both big bodies who have the ability to win contested catches with their size and frame. Whether it’s coming down with jump balls or sealing off defenders from the catch point, physical size is a huge part of why Graham and Lewis are able to win in the red zone.

Here’s Graham showing off that size for touchdown against the Rams:

Lewis got up to grab this lob from Blake Bortles against the Colts:

Don’t expect much from the Rodgers, Graham, Lewis trio when the Packers are between the 20s. As Bleacher Report and Setting the Edge’s Justis Mosqueda pointed out, Rodgers is statistically an average quarterback in between the 20s. Graham and Lewis didn’t perform very well outside of the red zone, either.

Here’s how the three measured in that area of the field.

According to Bill Connelly’s statistics in the SBNation NFL Preview, last season the Packers were first in success rate between the opponent’s 11- and 20-yard line, and first in success rate on first-and-goal — even though Aaron Rodgers missed nine games with a broken collarbone.

Once the Packers get to the red zone this year, they’ll be incredibly hard to keep out of the end zone again. The loss of Nelson will hurt, but they should be able to offset his production with the additions of Graham and Lewis. They still have Davante Adams, who was able to reel in four touchdowns on 11 red zone targets from Aaron Rodgers last season. Breakout candidate Geronimo Allison could become a factor near the goal line, too.

In fact, we’ve already seen a bit of production from Rodgers and Graham in the red zone. The two connected on a touchdown pass against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the duo’s only appearance in the preseason.

If the Packers can manage to reach the red zone on a fairly consistent basis, there’s no reason they can’t return to being one of the deadliest offenses in the NFL. Rodgers by himself is enough to lead an efficient offense and now he has two of the better red zone targets in the league at his disposal. Barring injury, this should be an extremely productive trio where it counts.