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LATROBE, Pa. — As Mike McCarthy stared at his television screen last January, watching what he believed would likely be the final few minutes of Aaron Rodgers’ storied career, the veteran coach was unnerved by the brutality of the plotline.
And when Rodgers threw the pick six that sealed the Pittsburgh Steelers’ dispiriting first-round playoff defeat to the Houston Texans at Acrisure Stadium, McCarthy’s stomach dropped.
“I thought that was it,” McCarthy recalled. “To be honest, I was watching, and I was sick — for him.”
Rodgers was sick, too. Though few people beyond the Steelers’ sideline knew it, the 42-year-old quarterback had been felled by flu-like symptoms in the hours leading up to the game, making the experience even more miserable.
“I wasn’t feeling good, and I actually came over to the team hotel, and they sent me home — probably because I was pale and looked like s—,” Rodgers revealed in an interview with The Athletic following Saturday’s training camp practice at St. Vincent College.
Rodgers, whose symptoms included fever and vomiting, made a point during the conversation of insisting that he’d recovered by kickoff, crediting the Texans’ ferocious defense for an epic effort.
Yes, he sucked it up. Clearly, however, the timing sucked. For all the legendary things the four-time MVP has done in his two-plus-decade career, the first 14 seasons of which were spent playing for McCarthy in Green Bay, the illness contributed to a nightmarish playoff exit.
“He’s definitely downplaying it,” said former Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, who now serves in a similar role at Ohio State. “There was never a question he was gonna play, and he’s never one to complain, but he looked terrible (before the game).”
Rodgers’ teammates and coaches had tried to stay positive, expressing hope that he could mimic Michael Jordan’s iconic “Flu Game.”
Though that obviously didn’t happen, many of them can at least take heart that the future first-ballot Hall of Famer will have a chance to craft a more palatable ending.
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Mike DeFabo
That group now includes McCarthy, a Pittsburgh native whose hiring by the Steelers — to replace Mike Tomlin, who resigned the day after the defeat to the Texans, ending a 19-year run as the team’s head coach — helped convince Rodgers to put off retirement for a final season.
“I’d gone into the offseason thinking it was probably going to be it, and I’d be totally fine with it — I feel good about my career,” Rodgers said. “But once he got hired, then my mindset changed a little bit.”
To those familiar with the tension that sometimes existed between the coach and quarterback during their shared time with the Packers — Rodgers and I once agreed that the farcical “two visionaries” argument scene in “This Is Spinal Tap” was an apt analogy — the mutual excitement behind this reunion is surprising.
“Absence makes the heart grow much fonder, in this case,” Rodgers conceded.
After McCarthy was abruptly fired during the 2018 season, he and Rodgers did not have a one-on-one conversation before the coach left the building. They stayed relatively distant for four years until McCarthy, as the Dallas Cowboys’ coach, returned to Lambeau Field for a mid-November game against the Packers.
That morning, long before the game, McCarthy visited the stadium to say hello to many of his former coworkers. Rodgers showed up early, too. The two men ended up alone in the office of longtime team seamstress Marge Switzer and had a long, productive, air-clearing session.
“We met for like an hour and a half and just really talked about everything,” Rodgers said. “So that really was huge for our relationship, and we (stayed in) touch.”
Rodgers’ appreciation for McCarthy, and all things Packers, grew immeasurably after his two-year run with the New York Jets, whose organizational dysfunction unnerved the quarterback. Seeking a better experience, he signed with the Steelers before the 2025 campaign, swayed by the connection he’d developed with Tomlin.
When Tomlin told his players he was leaving the morning after the Texans game, conventional wisdom was that Rodgers’ stay in Steeltown would end.
However, he was clearly in a nostalgic mood. Following the defeat to the Texans, Rodgers had gone out of his way to stick up for another of his former Packers coaches, Matt LaFleur, leaving the embattled Green Bay boss “speechless.”
Two days later, in an exit meeting with Pittsburgh general manager Omar Khan, Rodgers brought up McCarthy, who spent the 2025 season out of football after his five-year stint with the Cowboys ended in a mutual parting of the ways.
Toward the end of his conversation with Khan, Rodgers recalled, “I just left him with one thing that I thought was kind of a throwaway. I said, ‘I don’t think it would hurt anything to just interview Mike McCarthy. I think you need to get the perspective of an older coach. Everybody hires these young (upstarts), mostly from the Shanahan/McVay tree, and obviously they’ve done some nice things. But just (consider) the other side of an older coach who’s experienced.’”
McCarthy, 62, had also been confronting the possibility of retirement, but when he got the chance to interview with his hometown team, he was moved by the opportunity. Rodgers, who had feared it might just be a token interview, was pleasantly surprised when McCarthy got the job.
They’ve had plenty of laughs since then, including one in Saturday’s practice when McCarthy sent in a call — “Snag Bo” — that stumped Rodgers.
“It’s one of my favorite plays going back to my rookie year — basically a ‘sit’ route and a corner route — that we always called ‘Arrow,’” Rodgers explained. “I guess he calls it ‘Snag’ now. I’ve had to adjust a bit and be uncomfortable with some uncomfortable words.”
The foundational tenets, however, remain the same. Rodgers described it as “the only offense in the league — maybe I’m missing somebody running something somewhere — that still has West Coast principles in it. I’ve seen it all and can run this offense really well. At my age, I beat teams with my mind.”
Aaron Rodgers and Mike McCarthy have rekindled a relationship that lasted 14 years in Green Bay. (Gene J. Puskar / AP)
He’ll get no argument from Smith, the Steelers’ offensive coordinator in 2025, who was blown away by Rodgers’ skills — “His arm is as good as anyone his age, ever” — and savvy.
“Watching him throw the football,” Smith said, “was like watching Jimmy Page play the guitar.”
It’s been a long time since Rodgers rocked and rolled in the preseason, but this summer will likely be different. McCarthy has asked him to play in Pittsburgh’s first two preseason games — against the Packers and Jets, as fate would have it — and the quarterback, who last saw significant exhibition-game action eight seasons ago (he played two series in the Jets’ 2023 preseason finale), is prepared to do so.
“He (wants me out there for) 30 or 40 plays,” Rodgers said, expressing surprise. “I said, ‘Mike, if you want me to play, I’ll play.’ I’m not saying I want to do it. But if he wants me to, I will.”
Rodgers credits much of his new-found “openness” to his wife, Brittani, who more than a year into their marriage has managed to remain completely out of the public eye. Privately, she helped facilitate a reconciliation between Rodgers and his parents (and other close family members) after a long estrangement.
He was even open to discussing that toward the end of our interview.
“I’ve been really staunch, going back to when there was a schism, that I feel like that stuff should be off limits,” he said. “Now, not everybody in the family adhered to the same thing, but there are different things, situations, experiences, and people that actually change your life. So, when I say that my wife has completely changed my life, for the better, there’s no comparison to any time I’ve ever said those words before.
“She is the big impetus behind that (reconciliation). Not that she was pushing it, but just the way that she loves me and supports me, it’s allowed me to open up to that possibility. And it’s been a couple-year process of communication and spending time together, but that is a real blessing in my life to have those relationships back and to close that circle that was cut for so many years. With her by my side, we reopened that door, and it’s been really beautiful.”
While not as dramatic, his reunion with McCarthy has also been steeped in emotion, and neither man takes it lightly.
“Just to be able to take this final lap with him, it’s awesome,” McCarthy said. “You always want to do a great job, but now to do it with him in his last chapter, it’s special.”
Though Rodgers’ first year in Pittsburgh ended in an especially sickening manner, it came after a late-season run that featured perhaps his best stretch of football since his fourth MVP season in 2021. The chance to build on that — with a familiar collaborator sending in play calls — compelled him to get back in the ring and do some slinging.
“The fun thing, for me, is that this is a real full-circle moment for me and Mike — the closing of my career and the end of his career being back home in Pittsburgh,” Rodgers said. “The surreal aspect of it has kind of drifted a little bit, but it’s still really special to hear that voice in my head that I’ve heard for so many years.”
