GREEN BAY \u2014 Matt LaFleur heard an opening, and the Green Bay Packers head coach burst through it like running back Josh Jacobs when he sees his offensive linemen create a crease that leads directly to the end zone.<\/p>\n
Early in LaFleur\u2019s usual day-after-the-game Q&A session with reporters on Monday, following a 27-23 victory at Arizona, one of the local television reporters asked a largely innocuous question about how the coach was going to make sure he limited any distractions that could be caused by \u201cplaying Aaron Rodgers\u201d on Sunday Night Football.<\/p>\n
And LaFleur pounced.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re playing the Pittsburgh Steelers, who happen to have Aaron Rodgers,\u201d LaFleur interjected. \u201cIt\u2019s as simple as that.\u201d<\/p>\n
To be clear, the Packers will indeed face the Steelers at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh on Sunday night. And the Steelers\u2019 starting quarterback is indeed the 41-year-old Rodgers, who spent his first 18 NFL seasons in Green Bay, where he led the 2010 team to the Super Bowl XLV championship and earned four NFL MVP awards.<\/p>\n
And while the matchup between the Packers (4-1-1) and the Steelers (4-2) might not be as acrimonious and emotionally supercharged as the last time an iconic Green Bay signal-caller faced the green and gold wearing a different uniform \u2014 in 2009, when Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings beat the Packers twice, and did so quite handily \u2014 that doesn\u2019t mean the storyline of Rodgers facing the Packers after being the face of their franchise is some sort of nothingburger.<\/p>\n
It’s just LaFleur\u2019s job to keep the potential distractions of the matchup to a minimum.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is for you guys to talk about,\u201d LaFleur continued. \u201cGranted, I mean, we\u2019ve got a lot of love and respect for Aaron. What he\u2019s done here, I mean, he\u2019s a Hall of Famer. And I know [in] our past together, we had a lot of great moments.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut this game is not about that. It\u2019s about going to Pittsburgh. \u2018Sunday Night Football.\u2019 Our guys will be jacked up. Their guys will be jacked up. It\u2019s about the Green Bay Packers versus the Pittsburgh Steelers, and that\u2019s for you guys to talk about all those other storylines.\u201d<\/p>\n
After riding the bench behind Favre in 2005 as a rookie first-round draft pick with Mike Sherman as his coach, Rodgers had Mike McCarthy for the next 12-plus seasons, until now-retired team president\/CEO Mark Murphy fired McCarthy with four games left in the 2018 regular season. Offensive coordinator Joe Philbin served as the interim head coach to finish out the year.<\/p>\n
The Packers then hired LaFleur in January 2019, and in their four seasons together, Rodgers and LaFleur led the Packers to a 47-18 regular-season record, two NFC Championship Game berths and the 2021 No. 1 seed for the NFC playoffs.<\/p>\n
But despite Rodgers winning his third and fourth NFL MVP awards in 2020 and 2021, he never reached another Super Bowl before being traded to the New York Jets on April 23, 2023.<\/p>\n
After his first season with the Jets ended with a ruptured Achilles\u2019 tendon suffered on his fourth play from scrimmage, Rodgers started all 17 games last year for the Jets and threw for 3,897 yards with 28 touchdowns and 11 interceptions (90.5 passer rating) during a 5-12 season.<\/p>\n
With a new head coach and general manager, the Jets released Rodgers after the season and he landed in Pittsburgh, where he has completed 68.6% of his passes this season for 1,270 yards with 14 TDs and five INTs (105.0 rating) entering Sunday.<\/p>\n
The Steelers are coming off a mini-bye following a 33-31 loss at Cincinnati last Thursday, a game in which Rodgers went 23 for 34 for 249 yards with four touchdowns and two interceptions (103.7 rating) \u2014 and impressed some of his former teammates who watched the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe looked real good,\u201d said Packers center Elgton Jenkins, who played four seasons with Rodgers (2019-\u201922). \u201cGetting the ball out, making plays, getting the ball out, scrambling. He\u2019s playing well.<\/p>\n
\u201cOld teammates, you obviously want them to do well \u2014 just not against us. So hopefully he\u2019ll throw a couple up and our guys will get picks on Sunday night. He\u2019s playing well, though.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added cornerback Keisean Nixon, who played only one season with Rodgers (2022) but became good friends with him: \u201cHe\u2019s still got it.\u201d<\/p>\n