Aaron Rodgers rose to prominence and made magic with head coach Mike McCarthy for 14 years with the Green Bay Packers. The two combined for a win-loss record of 113-60-1, including a Super Bowl win, two league MVPs, and eight Pro Bowl selections. So what did McCarthy see from Rodgers in his first game with the Pittsburgh Steelers?
“I think it went just like his whole career has gone,” McCarthy said Thursday via The Pat McAfee Show. “Touchdowns versus interceptions. I mean, it’s just amazing, his discipline and decision making. I thought he looked very comfortable. I thought he just played to the tempo of the offense. The only negative was the sacks, but he just has to get a feel for those guys because, as I touched on earlier, the A and B gap release in the pass game, that’s a huge strength of his.
“I thought those guys, they definitely looked on the same page and he looked really comfortable in the offense.”
Rodgers has, by far, the best TD:INT ratio in NFL history. He’s thrown 4.37 touchdown passes for every interception in his career. Second place is Lamar Jackson all the way down at 3.43. Rodgers helped extend that average in his Steelers debut with a four-TD, zero-INT performance.
To McCarthy’s point, Rodgers has been pretty good at avoiding sacks throughout his career with a quick release and a great sense of pressure and how to avoid it. He is on pace to take 68 sacks this year, which would be 17 more than his next-highest season.
The offensive line is at fault for some of that, but Rodgers also made sure to take his share of the blame during his Wednesday media availability. He revealed a tight back prevented him from moving how he would like to. Fortunately, he wasn’t listed on the injury report this week, so that may have just been an acute age-related issue with unfortunate timing on game day.
Very few, if any, people have watched more Aaron Rodgers tape on the planet than McCarthy. So the fact that he’s seeing a familiar product on the field is an encouraging sign for Pittsburgh.
