GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Road games were not kind to the Green Bay Packers and quarterback Aaron Rodgers in 2014, whether it was the turf at Tampa Bay's stadium that he blames for his calf injury or the season finale at Seattle. That's why Rodgers said his No. 1 goal for the 2015 season is to secure the No. 1 seed.
The Packers went 4-4 on the road in the regular season and lost on the road in the NFC Championship Game at the Seattle Seahawks.
"We've got to find a way to get back some of the mojo we had earlier, a few years ago, when we were winning more than half of our games on the road," Rodgers said Thursday on his ESPN Milwaukee radio show. "When you look back at this year, [if] we go 5-3 on the road, then we have the No. 1 seed and we're playing everything at home in the playoffs, which teams realized this year is a tough place to play. That's going to be the goal.
"I think in years past, you talk a lot about winning your division. I think after this season, we can stack on as a goal being a No. 1 seed because we know how much it means to have that home-field advantage."
The Packers went 8-0 at Lambeau Field in the regular season and won their only home playoff game in the divisional round over the Dallas Cowboys. It was the first time since their 15-1 season of 2011 that they went unbeaten at home in the regular season.
"The home-field advantage that we established was incredible," Rodgers said. "The crowd, the way that the crowd contributed to our performances at home was amazing. We've got to keep that up and continue to improve on that."
At least the Packers won't have to go back to Tampa Bay, where Rodgers first strained his left calf in Week 16. The Packers don't have the Buccaneers on their 2015 schedule.
"The calf was, in my opinion, due to the poor surface in Tampa," Rodgers said. "Tampa is where I hurt my shoulder as well back in 2008, and I think that there needs to be looked at some more uniformity as far as the field conditions. I think there's a couple of surfaces that are more likely to create injury than prevent injury. There's some incredible surfaces in the NFL. There's some ones that I think need to be looked at. Tampa is one of them because of the amount of play, I think, that happens there.
"When you put down so much sod and it's very uneven and soft, I think it can lead to more injuries. I've played there three times and been hurt there, in my opinion directly related to the field, twice."
Rodgers reinjured his calf a week later at home against the Detroit Lions, and it was never 100 percent during the playoffs.