LATROBE, Pa. — On Tuesday, it happened during practice.
The Pittsburgh Steelers were running a red-zone team drill with Aaron Rodgers quarterbacking the starters. Rodgers finished a drive but hadn’t included a certain call. So backup quarterback Will Howard heard head coach Mike McCarthy ask: “You didn’t call that Red Fork? We didn’t call it Fork Indy?”
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Rodgers shoved a playful elbow McCarthy’s way.
Earlier in camp, the inside jokes had streamed into quarterback meetings. Picture Rodgers and McCarthy debating the best nuances for the Steelers’ offense this season, considering their past experiences and the evolution of the league. Suddenly, an idea pops up.
Should we install our old “24” protection from 2006?
The quarterbacks behind Rodgers on the depth chart just wait.
“They’re the only two in the room that have any idea what that is,” Howard told Yahoo Sports. “But no, it’s funny just to see that dynamic.”
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Such is life in the NFL when your quarterback is 42 years old, your head coach 62, and — most relevantly — their shared football lineage dates back a full 20 years.
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The Green Bay Packers selected Rodgers with the 24th overall pick of the NFL Draft in 2005. The Packers hired McCarthy as head coach in 2006. Their partnership produced eight straight playoff berths, three conference championship appearances, the first two of Rodgers’ four MVP honors and a Super Bowl victory.
Green Bay moved on from McCarthy in 2018 and Rodgers after the 2022 season as each relationship ran its course.
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Now McCarthy and Rodgers are teaming up for what Rodgers has said will “100%” be his final NFL season. The reunion of a duo that reached the highest peak of the sport, had their conflicts and then reconciled before a Nov. 2022 Cowboys at Packers game is one of the more intriguing dynamics of this NFL season.
What do the Steelers make of this reunion after eight years apart?
“They’re like an old couple that got divorced and then they realized maybe they’re right for each other all along,” receiver Ben Skowronek told Yahoo Sports. “So it’s been fun kind of seeing that connection, that rekindled love for each other.”
Does McCarthy agree?
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“I guess if we were a married couple in Green Bay, now we’re an old married couple,” he told Yahoo Sports. “He talks a lot more. I always thought I was a good listener, but I think I do more listening now.”
For Steelers head coach Mike McCarthy and QB Aaron Rodgers, it’s just like old times. (AP Foto/Gene J. Puskar)
(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
After ‘walking on eggshells,’ Rodgers and Metcalf found communication rhythm
The art of talking and listening, also known as communication, is where Steelers players see the biggest difference between their first year of The Aaron Rodgers Experience and their — and the NFL’s, it seems — last.
Take the chemistry between Rodgers and top receiver DK Metcalf on the field. The Steelers acquired Metcalf in a trade with the Seattle Seahawks months before Rodgers joined the club in 2025. The stars arrived at the same time, but each was also navigating an environment with overwhelmingly new teammates and coaches. They had found success in their own styles. Now they needed to blend those styles and that of the Steelers. The pressure to perform for Rodgers felt heavy.
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“You’re trying to be perfect … [and] I didn’t know how to necessarily cope with that,” Metcalf told Yahoo Sports in a sit-down interview Wednesday. “So I’m walking on eggshells with how I speak to people or making sure I’m not stepping on anybody’s toes because like I said, I’m new here.”
Enter Rodgers, who has long held his receivers to high and specific standards. Metcalf sees now how he internalized them.
“Yesterday, we had a conversation about a route that he’s thinking about putting in and he said, ‘Hey, next time you go up, just try this route or try this release or just try this,'” Metcalf said. “I think last year, we weren’t at this point yet to where I would receive that.
“I’d be like, ‘Damn, why are you telling me to try some s*** in practice?'”
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Metcalf still caught 59 passes for 850 yards and six touchdowns. Rodgers still completed 65.7% of his pass attempts for 3,322 yards, 24 touchdowns and seven interceptions as the Steelers won 10 games and the AFC North. But Pittsburgh’s offense ranked 25th in yardage and 15th in scoring. Neither that, nor their 26th-ranked defense, met the high hopes the franchise had after signing Rodgers with hopes he’d lead them out of the quarterback wilderness for at least a short period.
Steelers QB Aaron Rodgers (8) and wide receiver D.K. Metcalf (4) have formed a stronger connection in their second year together. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
In a 30-13 home playoff loss to the Houston Texans, Rodgers completed just 51.5% of his passes for 146 yards while Metcalf caught two of five targets for 42 yards.
Rodgers, Metcalf and their teammates have a chance to finish stronger this season. The Steelers believe this act will be stronger.
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Part of that stems from how much stronger Metcalf and Rodgers’ communication and understanding is, on and off the field. The quarterbacks signals are no longer new, and Rodgers’ corrections no longer leave Metcalf bristling.
Rodgers found Metcalf early and often during Tuesday’s padded practice, including on a shallow left concept against cornerback Jamel Dean on a red-zone period and wide open down the left sideline during another two-minute drill series.
“We’ve got the communication down pat,” Metcalf said. “We can have side conversations about what we need to fix, and neither one of us is going to take it personal.
“The way we communicate, I think, is the biggest jump that we’ve had with each other.”
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West Coast offense, western trip the stage for Rodgers’ last rodeo
Skowronek describes some of his teammates as “a little more timid and hesitant” around Rodgers during the quarterback’s first year in Pittsburgh.
Returning to the West Coast offense in which Rodgers has a de facto PhD, and an offseason trip at an undisclosed location out west (perhaps fittingly) for seven Steelers, eroded walls, players say.
They ditched helmets and shoulder pads to instead ride horses and stand-up paddleboards. They ate breakfast, lunch and dinner together, then sat around the campfire and talked more. This trip wasn’t about, nor did it include, football. For Metcalf, that was key to opening up.
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“When I’m at work, I’m at work and I’m here to get better and I’m not here to sit down and mingle,” Metcalf said. “So it was just me hanging out with my homeboys. And yeah, we got personal.”
Rodgers said he intentionally shared vulnerable perspective to create that environment on the trip with quarterback Mason Rudolph; receivers Metcalf, Skowronek, Michael Pittman Jr. and Roman Wilson; and tight end Pat Freiermuth. The more Rodgers opened up, the more his teammates say they did.
“He’s had a lot more life experience than us,” Skowronek said of Rodgers. “I don’t want to get too in depth. But when Unc opens up like that, it kind of allows us to be ourselves as well.
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“There’s a group of us that I feel like, outside of football, we’re going to be friends for life.”
Next for that friend group: mastering the McCarthy-Rodgers offense as Rodgers offers cues on footwork and reads, and plays in quarterback meetings that trumpet his longtime NFL system.
The Steelers hope that the 42-year-old can finish his decorated career on a high note. Rodgers wants a successful next (and perhaps last) act for McCarthy in the coach’s hometown, too. McCarthy didn’t return to Pittsburgh to continue the culture Mike Tomlin ran for 18 years. There is not one correct way to lead a team, and while he recognizes and respects Tomlin’s tenure, “at the end of the day I was brought here to coach the team,” McCarthy told Yahoo Sports. “A Mike McCarthy team. And that’s what I’m doing.”
So training camp is featuring less contact and time on the ground in practices and more time ensuring players’ recovery and health, like their Wednesday soft-tissue activation and rehabilitation day. The McCarthy Steelers will run an offensive system in which McCarthy listens to Rodgers for input and Rodgers listens to Metcalf and all of a sudden, sure Green Bay offenses are inspiring them, but this is the 2026 Steelers offense aimed to accentuate the 2026 Steelers playmakers.
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That old divorced couple that got remarried? The NFL will see what they have left in the tank.
“To see them both kind of dig deep into that memory they’ve had and all those experiences together in the fire and those games, it’s a special connection,” Skowronek said. “I’m excited to be with them this year on that last rodeo.”
