Aaron Rodgers is officially returning to Pittsburgh for another season with the Steelers, it was reported on Saturday night.
This season figures to look a bit different for Rodgers wearing the black and gold, however, as he reunites with his old Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy, who steps in for Mike Tomlin after 19 years at the helm. On the field, Pittsburgh hopes that the Rodgers-McCarthy reunion will inspire some more explosion on offense. Off the field, though, there’s a question as to whether or not Rodgers will return to his old media habits under a new regime.
Prior to last season, Rodgers made weekly appearances on The Pat McAfee Show that were often must-watch content. The lengthy and wide-ranging interviews, which began in 2020, were a huge factor in McAfee’s meteoric rise from YouTube podcast host to a pillar of ESPN’s weekday programming. But the regular appearances came to a halt last season, Rodgers’ first in Pittsburgh under a no-nonsense, no-distractions head coach in Tomlin.
Tomlin has long been viewed as something of a wizard when it comes to managing a locker room. Look at any number of former Steelers who were impactful while in Pittsburgh, but flamed out quickly after leaving Tomlin’s orbit. (Antonio Brown and Chase Claypool come to mind.) Part of Tomlin’s ability came from maintaining a unified and consistent message, which means keeping a lid on players who might want to be a little too honest in the media.
Rodgers, without a doubt, falls into the category of an oversharer at times, which could have potentially jeopardized Tomlin’s ability to keep his locker room in check. It’s been well-documented that Rodgers’ respect for Tomlin played a huge role in getting the future Hall-of-Fame quarterback to Pittsburgh in the first place, and it wouldn’t be surprising if Rodgers halting his weekly McAfee appearances were a precondition to his deal with the Steelers last season. Rodgers may have been willing to make a sacrifice for the good of the team out of reverence for Tomlin’s management ability.
It’s not clear whether that will continue under McCarthy. Rodgers clearly has a great deal of respect for his former Packers coach as well, even if their relationship became fraught at times in Green Bay, but McCarthy’s management style is different from Tomlin’s. Perhaps McCarthy is more laissez faire when it comes to media relations and won’t have a problem if Rodgers chooses to resume his weekly appearances on McAfee.
It’s important to note, however, that while the coaching staff in Pittsburgh has changed, the front office and management personnel has not. Last year, Rodgers alluded to Steelers communications director Burt Lauten as the person who manages media availability for players. Lauten remains with the team as the Steelers’ head of communications. Whether Rodgers’ media appearances are solely at Lauten’s discretion or the quarterback was simply trying to be coy and deflect blame from Tomlin putting the kibosh on the McAfee appearances is unclear.
Rodgers was no stranger to controversy during his interviews with McAfee, and it’s fair to say they created some distractions throughout the years. McAfee is where Rodgers chose to defend his comments about being “immunized” from COVID-19 during the 2021 season and where he made disparaging comments about late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.
But beyond those controversies, which one could argue had little impact inside the locker room, Rodgers’ 2024-25 season with the New York Jets became a borderline soap opera based on what he said on McAfee each week. Most notably, Rodgers used McAfee to air his grievances over what he claimed to be a hit piece seeded by linebacker Haason Reddick’s agent in The Athletic about the Jets’ locker room culture. There was never any clear-cut evidence that it was Reddick’s agent who leaked to The Athletic, but the incident is certainly one the Jets would’ve liked to keep in-house regardless of where the leak came from, and the team especially would’ve preferred its star quarterback not go on national TV and breathe oxygen into the report.
No doubt, that type of scenario is something the Steelers were eager to avoid entering last season. What remains to be seen is whether Rodgers will want to hop back into the McAfee orbit in 2026-27. Would McCarthy allow for it? Would the Steelers organization allow for it?
If the desire is there from Rodgers, there could already be a power struggle brewing under the new regime in Pittsburgh.
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