Aaron Rodgers Is Back at the Steelers Already, and That Tells You Everything About Year One With Mike McCarthy
Aaron Rodgers showed up at the start of Steelers OTAs. That’s news.
The 42-year-old quarterback has spent most of his late career making his offseason attendance a story. He skipped OTAs in Green Bay. He skipped them in New York. The narrative around him has always been about how much he prefers to do his own work, on his own time, away from the team.
Not this year. He’s in Pittsburgh. From day one. Working with new head coach Mike McCarthy.
That has to mean something.
The McCarthy Reunion
Rodgers and McCarthy spent more than a decade together in Green Bay. They won a Super Bowl. They built and ran one of the most productive offenses in NFL history. They also, by the end, did not exactly love each other.
Reuniting them in Pittsburgh was the gamble the Steelers made when they hired McCarthy this offseason. They needed a coach who could maximize what’s likely to be Rodgers’ final NFL season. They had a quarterback in his early forties who had bounced from contender to almost-contender and now wanted one last legitimate shot.
The fit makes sense. McCarthy knows Rodgers’ tendencies as well as anyone alive. He knows what plays Rodgers likes, what protections he prefers, what he wants to see from his receivers in red zone situations. The chemistry is built in. The trust takes time to rebuild but the foundation is there.
What Rodgers Wants
The Steelers signed him because they thought he had at least one more great season in him. He signed with them because he thought Pittsburgh was the cleanest path back to the playoffs available to him. The AFC North is brutal. The Ravens are the favorite. The Bengals have Joe Burrow. The Browns are figuring out a quarterback situation that has been a mess for years.
The Steelers will not be the favorite. They might not even be picked second. But they have a defense that’s still capable of high-end play, a coaching staff that has Super Bowl pedigree at multiple positions, and now a quarterback who has been to a Super Bowl and won one.
Rodgers’ decision to show up for OTAs is a signal. He cares about this year. He wants to be available. He wants to know the playbook. He wants to be in the building.
The Quarterback Optics
Rodgers being present at OTAs while Lamar Jackson is reportedly absent from the Ravens’ first voluntary workout is the kind of contrast that will get framed all summer. Jackson does not need OTAs to be Lamar Jackson. He’s been an MVP twice without making OTAs a central part of his preparation.
Rodgers, at 42, is in a different career phase. The reps matter more. The chemistry-building matters more. The film study with new teammates is a bigger lift than it was when he was 28 and Mike McCarthy was telling him to back off the deep ball in practice.
It is also a reminder that Rodgers has been working on his image for the back half of his career. The image management is real. So is the football. Both can be true.
What This Tells Us About 2026
The Steelers are going to be more competitive than the national perception suggests. Anytime you have a quarterback with Rodgers’ resume, a coach with McCarthy’s resume, and a defense that has been a top-10 unit for most of the last decade, you’re a problem in January.
The questions are about durability. Rodgers’ body has been through a lot, including the Achilles injury he never quite seemed the same after. McCarthy is going to have to manage workload aggressively. The offensive line is going to have to hold up.
But Rodgers being in the building on day one means he wants this. That’s the most important variable in any team’s outlook, and it’s been the missing piece in his last two stops.
If the Steelers can keep him upright, they have a shot to be one of the most interesting playoff teams in the league. Tuesday in Pittsburgh was the start of finding out.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
