PITTSBURGH — Aaron Rodgers sits in the corner of a largely empty Pittsburgh Steelers locker room on a random afternoon late in training camp.
The day might be over, but the NFL’s oldest active player is in no rush to leave.
The four-time MVP stands up and walks over to a nearby trash can, which just so happens to be in front of rookie defensive tackle Yahya Black’s stall.
Rodgers turns toward Black — who turned 3 two days before Rodgers was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in the first round 20 years ago — and starts to chat.
Their brief exchange is inaudible. Black’s laughter is not.
Rodgers makes his way back to his seat and plops down. He spots Mason Rudolph — who once dreamed of sitting atop the depth chart as Rodgers has for years but now is leaning into the not exactly unpleasant purgatory of career backup — out of the corner of his eye.
Another brief chat. Another burst of laughter.
It’s been like this from Rodgers’ first day with the club in early June. Not long after signing a one-year deal with the Steelers following months of “will he or won’t he?” speculation, Rodgers asked his new teammates to cast aside whatever they might have heard about him, whatever they might have read about him, and in the case of some, whatever they might have said ( or posted ) about him.
Get to know the real me and not the noise, Rodgers said, an unusual appeal from one of the league’s most recognizable if polarizing stars — just this week a betting website spammed media with the results of a poll in which it claimed Steelers fans voted Rodgers as the NFL’s most annoying player.
Rodgers learned long ago how to tune it all out, but he didn’t want to assume everyone else did, too.
“He went through some stuff a couple years ago, and people had judgments and opinions on him,” wide receiver Scotty Miller said. “He wanted to come in with a clean slate.”
Yes, there is Aaron Rodgers, the willing provocateur unafraid to speak his mind on any subject, no matter who it might chafe, and openly dabbles in ayahuasca and darkness retreats. There is also Aaron Rodgers, the football player, who alighted in Pittsburgh after two turbulent seasons with the New York Jets because he felt it was “ best for my soul. ”
The man who tries to live by the credo of “be curious, not judgmental” appealed to his teammates — none of whom were even in the league when he and the Packers beat the Steelers in the Super Bowl in the 2010 season — to afford him that same respect.
The early returns have been eye-opening and, for some, refreshing.
Rather than stand at the front of the line during warmups, Rodgers will bounce around, well aware that sometimes the players who linger at the back are there for a reason.
Rather than gravitate toward the same group every day in the cafeteria, he will sit down with whomever to talk about whatever. Rather than dominate every meeting in the quarterback room, he absorbs information from offensive coordinator Arthur Smith and backups Rudolph, Skylar Thompson and rookie Will Howard just as generously as he delves it out.
“It’s not phony,” Rudolph said. “It’s not fake. It’s a great example of how to do it the right way. You have $400 million and you have all the fame in the world, but you’re not a (jerk).”
“To sit through all the meetings, not to leave early, to truly care about asking guys (about their lives),” Rudolph said. “You can tell that he truly loves the game and he loves putting in the work.”
Rodgers isn’t just an offensive mentor.
After a team-wide film session earlier this month, Rodgers pulled inside linebacker Patrick Queen aside to offer suggestions on how to attack certain looks from the offense.
“He’s like, ‘Hey, on some of these calls, I think you should change this and this and that,’” Queen said. “He’s working on everything around the building. You couldn’t ask for more in a quarterback, especially a guy that’s coming in his first year, a guy who’s a Hall of Famer, a guy that we all grew up watching and love watching.”
Those who were initially dubious have quickly become believers. Safety DeShon Elliott infamously posted that Rodgers should stay in a “retirement home” rather than sign with the Steelers, then quickly backtracked after meeting the man Elliott now calls “funny as hell.”
Such is the power of Rodgers’ personality, one that appears to have found a kindred spirit in the longest-tenured head coach in North American sports.
The bromance between Rodgers and Mike Tomlin simmered from afar for years. It’s now in full bloom in Pittsburgh, where two men very secure in who they have become turned to each other in hopes of shaking the franchise out of the doldrums of frequently being good but rarely great.
Rodgers called watching Tomlin go about his business in person “pretty special.” It’s much the same for Tomlin when talking about his fifth different Week 1 starting quarterback in as many years.
This is Tomlin’s 19th autumn in Pittsburgh. It’s also the first in which the quarterback atop the depth chart didn’t take a single live snap during the preseason. Rodgers’ resume and the respect Tomlin has for him, as well as the inherent risk in putting Rodgers out there when the games don’t count, made the decision easy.
It also, however, leads to an air of mystery about what to expect when Rodgers trots onto the field at MetLife Stadium on Sunday to face the same Jets team with whom he spent two exasperating seasons but left an indelible impression even among the chaos.
For now, Rodgers is intent on writing a more satisfying coda than what threatened to follow him out of New York. And while he hasn’t used the word “legacy” when talking about why he came back, the reality is he doesn’t have to.
Everyone knows what’s at stake over the next five months.
“He really doesn’t have anything to prove,” Queen said. “And yet he has something to prove at the same time. He could hang it up right now and still be one of the greatest who ever played. Seeing somebody that cares that much, makes you care that much more and you want to go all out and play for him.”
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