GREEN BAY — If this was yet another hard lesson in the continuing education of Aaron Rodgers, the Green Bay Packers first-year starting quarterback is hoping it's the last one taught to him in defeat.

"To be honest with you, I'm getting kind of tired of learning from experiences like this," Rodgers said after his interception with 1:09 to play sealed the Packers' 35-31 loss to the Carolina Panthers Sunday at Lambeau Field. "It's pretty frustrating when you lose games like that.

"You've got to be critical of yourself. I feel like I competed today, but I didn't throw the ball as well as I wanted to at times. As a quarterback, you want the ball in your hands under 2 minutes with a chance to lead your team to victory."

And Rodgers couldn't do it. So in spite of an otherwise stellar second half, the end result was unacceptable. After completing 12 of 20 passes for 88 yards and a touchdown in the first half, Rodgers hit on 17 of his first 23 throws for 210 yards and two more TDs after halftime.

But when the Panthers erased the Packers' 31-28 lead after the Rodgers-led offense had to settle for Mason Crosby's 19-yard field goal with 1:57 to play, it didn't matter that Rodgers had reeled off 18 unanswered points to turn a 21-10 deficit into a 28-21 lead. What mattered was what he'd do in the final 90 seconds.

His first throw sailed wide of Greg Jennings, as a few of his early throws had. On the second, he was flushed out of the pocket, scrambled to his right and threw on the run for Donald Driver down the right sideline. Driver appeared open enough that a longer throw would've resulted in a completion, but Panthers linebacker Jon Beason was there instead for the interception.

"(I was) thinking I might run it, but Donald flashed his hand up," Rodgers said. "I felt like I threw a good ball. I just needed to put a little big more on it into the wind."

Offensive coordinator Joe Philbin said while Rodgers would get the blame for not rallying the team to victory, the fault rested with the entire offense.

"He was part of the reason why we played well in the second half, and part of the reason why we didn't win the game. As were the other 10 guys," Philbin said.

Were there positive things we did in the second half? Sure. But we had a couple times we didn't cash it in, and we had the ball with 1:30 left and weren't able to get anything done. All the good isn't Aaron Rodgers, and all the bad isn't Aaron Rodgers. He's one man on an 11-man unit."

And his colleagues on that 11-man unit felt the same way.

"Aaron loves this team so much that he feels it's always on him — and it's not," guard/center Jason Spitz said.

"Obviously you don't want to turn the ball over, but I don't think anyone can sit here and say Aaron didn't play a good football game," right tackle Mark Tauscher added. "We just didn't do enough to win."