My younger brother, Dr. Dan Begel, was a star high school football player at Whitefish Bay and a four-year star at Yale before he founded the sports psychiatry section of the American Psychiatric Association.

He knows a lot about sports, but football is by far his best. He’s also a lifelong Green Bay Packers fan.

He was home over the weekend for his high school reunion and he joined a flock of family members as we gathered traditionally for our version of "Packers Sunday." He walked into the room and went through all the hugs and stuff and then he asked a surprising question.

"Is Aaron Rodgers on the downside?"

We assured him the answer was obviously no, but now, hours after the game and the lousy performance against the Detroit Lions, I wonder just how off base that question really was.

Certainly the performance against the Lions was not anything like what we expect of Rodgers. He was 16 of 27 for 162 yards with one touchdown. He missed a crucial pass to Jordy Nelson that might have turned the game around.

And with the Packers now 1-2 on the year it is at least logical to take a look at Rodgers. Not that the Packers are going to do anything like change quarterbacks or anything, but looking at his production might be instructive. You wonder if he is still among the elite quarterbacks in the league.

Last season, interrupted by a broken collarbone, Rodgers was in the top five in quarterback rating only twice out of 10 games. In five of those games he was out of the top eight. This year in three games he has ranked 24th, eighth and 21st. Hardly an elite performance.

In the 2011 season he had a passer rating of 122. In each of the following years it was 108, 104 and it’s 97 this year. Four years seems to be adequate to call it a trend.

Don’t get me wrong here. I think he’s a great quarterback. I think there have been other problems that have been enablers to some of his lackluster performances. I think there have been offensive line troubles, running back problems, receivers dropping balls and questionable play calling.

But there is also a growing feeling that I have that he is turning into a quarterback in the middle of the pack of the NFL. The magic that put him in the elite stratosphere may be gone.

After the Packers game Sunday, I watched the Seattle-Denver game. Peyton Manning took over, trailing by eight points and 80 yards away with no timeouts left. It took him just 41 of the 58 remaining seconds to get a touchdown and a two-point conversion to tie the game.

As I watched that drive I thought about the thousands and thousands of football fans who had confidence that Manning would get that score. And I found myself wondering if there was that same confidence that Rodgers could do the same thing in the same situation.

I’m not some kind of expert, but I’ve seen lots of pro football in my day and lots and lots of quarterbacks, from the stands, on television, in game film with coaches at my side and in practices and games both in the press box and on the sideline.

There is an atmosphere about elite quarterbacks that you can feel, no matter where you watch from. It’s an air that breeds confidence.

I’m not sure, but I do find myself wondering, with my brother, whether the air has gone out of the Aaron Rodgers balloon.