When the Pittsburgh Steelers host the Green Bay Packers on Sunday Night Football in late October, new Steelers QB Aaron Rodgers will have a chance to do something rarely done in NFL history: beat all 32 NFL teams. If he starts and wins against the Packers, he’ll be the fifth quarterback all-time to accomplish the feat. And his former head coach, Packers coach Matt LaFleur, is all too aware of what it will look like facing his old quarterback.
Even the NFL’s head of scheduling, Mike North, admitted that the NFL considered Rodgers signing with the Steelers when the league scheduled the face-off between the two flagship franchises.
During a press conference on Wednesday, a reporter asked LaFleur if he had talked with Rodgers about signing with the Steelers. LaFleur said no and then talked about facing him, per video from the Packers’ YouTube channel.
“I’ve been saying it for a while now, I totally anticipated this,” LaFleur said. “Probably took a little longer than I even anticipated, but it doesn’t shock me. It’ll be a great challenge for us. We all know what type of player he is and how good he is. And I’m sure he’ll be telling everybody all our signals, so we’ll have to maybe play that mind game with him a little bit.”
That’s the fun part when a quarterback changes teams, then gets a chance to face his previous team. For Aaron Rodgers, he actually gets to do it twice in 2025. In Week 1, he’ll face the New York Jets, his team from the last two seasons. Then, in Week 8, he’ll face the team that drafted him and where he played the first 18 years of his career.
Now, Matt LaFleur wasn’t Aaron Rodgers’ head coach for the majority of Rodgers’ time in Green Bay. But LaFleur became the head coach in 2019, and he coached Rodgers for his final four seasons with the Packers. That’s enough time for Rodgers to develop an understanding of LaFleur’s offense, calls and all.
Does that mean Aaron Rodgers can give Steelers defensive coordinator Teryl Austin game-breaking information? Probably not. But he could pass on some helpful tips that could benefit the Steelers’ defense. And Matt LaFleur is aware of that. It will be very interesting to see if LaFleur makes any adjustments ahead of the matchup to throw some monkey wrenches into the Steelers’ planning.
But LaFleur isn’t only wary about how much Aaron Rodgers can benefit the Steelers’ defense. He’s also concerned about how much Aaron Rodgers can execute the Steelers’ offense at a high level. For Steelers fans, that’s more important than deciphering what checks Packers QB Jordan Love is calling at the line of scrimmage.
And for Aaron Rodgers, this is an opportunity that NFL quarterbacks seldom get. The chance to beat every single NFL team during a career. Sure, he’d love to help out his new defense. But I’m willing to bet he’ll be much more focused on how well he plays. Even if his old Packers head coach will be doing everything he can to mess with Rodgers’ mind.
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