Eight years later, Aaron Rodgers and Mike McCarthy are back together with the Pittsburgh Steelers. With what could be his final season approaching, the four-time MVP shared his thoughts on McCarthy's revamped offensive system.

“I spent 13 years in [McCarthy’s offense],” Rodgers said. “He’s changed some stuff when he was in Dallas… It’s stuff that we used to run, but he’s just called it something different now.”

Rodgers said McCarthy has updated parts of his offensive terminology since their 2018 Packers stint, but the scheme remains largely unchanged.

With retirement looming after this season, Rodgers believes McCarthy is well-positioned to develop Pittsburgh's next generation of quarterbacks.

“It’s just the next generations of the West Coast offense,” Rodgers said to Chris Adamski of TribLive on July 2. “It went kind of Bill Walsh to kind of what Mike was doing with Paul Hackett, and then it’s kind of grown from there. From a real fundamental level, it’s all about the quarterback’s timing.”

From 2006 to 2018, the Rodgers-McCarthy duo was one of the most dominant coach-quarterback pairings in NFL history. Together, they won 107 games for Green Bay, the ninth-most victories by any coach-QB duo in league history.

They also captured one Super Bowl title (XLV, following the 2010 season), while Rodgers won two NFL MVP awards. Ironically, they joined the very same team that they defeated back in 2010 for the Super Bowl title.

Now reunited, Rodgers and McCarthy are aiming not only to lead the Steelers back to the playoffs but also to ensure the next generation of the offense is ready after Rodgers' retirement.

In fact, former NFL MVP Rich Gannon also believes McCarthy will be able to help the Steelers unlock their next QB.

Mike McCarthy's system may be exactly what the Steelers' young QBs need

Mike McCarthy has coached some of the NFL's elite quarterbacks, including Joe Montana, Brett Favre, Rich Gannon, Dak Prescott, and Aaron Rodgers.

Back when he joined the Green Bay Packers in 2006, the very first thing McCarthy did was to revamp Rodgers’ throwing motion, lowering his release point for a quicker, smoother delivery.

“I really feel, looking back, like I wasted my first seven years in the league,” Gannon said in his conversation with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on July 6. “I’m not going to criticize other coaches, but if I had someone like Mike in the first half of my career, it would have been a lot different. He just made me a better player.”

McCarthy understands what a quarterback needs and wants, which is why Gannon believes he is one of the best when it comes to developing quarterbacks.

The Steelers' new HC could be the key to unlocking Will Howard and Drew Allar. Although Howard leads the race for QB1, the coach intends to ensure both develop equally.

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Written by

Suryakant Das

Edited by

Arundhoti Palit