The relationship between incoming Steelers coach Mike McCarthy and current (for now) Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers didn’t begin with McCarthy’s arrival as Green Bay’s head coach in 2006. It started a year earlier, when McCarthy was the 49ers’ offensive coordinator — and when the 49ers spurned Rodgers for Alex Smith with the first overall pick in the draft.

As explained in Ian O’Connor’s book, Out Of The Darkness: The Mystery Of Aaron Rodgers, McCarthy downplays his role in the selection of Smith. Former 49ers head coach Mike Nolan, however, made it clear to O’Connor that McCarthy preferred Smith to Rodgers.

Despite Rodgers’s legendary ability to hold a grudge, they generally worked well together in Green Bay. Until they didn’t. In 2019, Tyler Dunne (then of BleacherReport.com) took a very deep dive into the relationship between Rodgers and McCarthy, who was fired late in the 2018 season.

“Mike has a low football IQ, and that used to always bother Aaron,” an unnamed source told Dunne at the time. “He’d say Mike has one of the lowest IQs, if not the lowest IQ, of any coach he’s ever had.”

Could a second act work, for a year? Rodgers would have to want it. McCarthy would have to want it. The chances of both wanting it seem, given the full history, slim.

Still, the Steelers need to be smart with this one. Don’t bring Rodgers in and tell him it’s over; that’s where the Jets erred last year. Let Rodgers make up his own mind, with the understanding that they need to know what he wants to do by the start of free agency.

Even if Rodgers doesn’t want to stay (he likely didn’t want to stay with the Jets in 2025), he’ll seize any opportunity to air grievances and/or paint himself with the broad brush of victimhood. McCarthy needs to take the high road, biding his time until Rodgers decides to move on. Either by giving them a clear answer before March 11, or by giving them no answer and forcing them to make other arrangements.

Still, it won’t be a surprise if Rodgers tries to play a game of P.R. chess with McCarthy and the Steelers. Either because Rodgers can, or because Rodgers hopes to stick it one last time to the guy who didn’t draft him, 21 years ago.