PITTSBURGH — Twelve minutes before midnight in a near-silent locker room, Aaron Rodgers rose from a folding chair and grabbed two items.
The Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback walked with his game-worn jersey and a Sharpie around the corner to the team’s equipment staging grounds. There Rodgers grabbed a second Sharpie and spread his jersey out on the equipment staff’s counter.
Rodgers paused for a couple seconds before signing a jersey for Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love. Disappointment lined his face after the Steelers’ 35-25 loss to the Packers, but it would not delay the predecessor-successor jersey swap.
Nor would it prompt Rodgers to stray from the perspectives he’d shared all week: that he was grateful for his 18 years playing the Packers, appreciated many friends and former colleagues still there, and did not begrudge the franchise that drafted Love in the first round just before Rodgers’ third and fourth MVP seasons, and then traded him when it believed Love was ready to take the mantle.
“It’s good to see a lot of people that I grew up with in the league,” Rodgers said. “This game is about relationships, so some of my dearest friends [are] still over there.
“Those friendships are special. And it was good to see those guys.”
It’s impossible to say how Rodgers would have reacted if the Steelers had beat the Packers, or if Rodgers himself had turned in a full-court vintage game at 41 years old to join the rare club of quarterbacks who have beaten all 32 NFL teams.
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But in the wake of a loss and a second-half performance dip, Rodgers did not stray from his script with any snide remarks or jabs at the front office that stopped believing in him before the quarterback stopped believing himself.
He did not echo the message he sent after a Week 1 win over the New York Jets team that decided in February to release him. Rodgers said after that game that he “was happy to beat everybody associated with the Jets” and that he was “hearing some of the catcalls and boobirds” so he cupped his hand to his ear as he walked off the field, reminding the Jets he could still play.
Rodgers levied none of those zingers toward the Packers, not even salty about the “Go Pack Go” chants that grew in volume through the fourth quarter as the game slipped further out Rodgers’ hands.
The chant instead evoked nostalgia.
“I heard that chant for 18 years,” Rodgers said. “Packers fans travel really well. First time in a while I’ve used silent count [cadence] for a home game.
“That’s a credit to those Packers fans.”
From banter to bursts of offense, Rodgers flashed but didn’t finish
Through three quarters, the Steelers had a chance.
Rodgers made enough plays to get within kicker Chris Boswell’s field-goal range, Boswell connecting on four-of-four attempts to complement the offense’s two scores.
But stalled drives, and just one successful third-down conversion on 10 tries, were too much to overcome once the Packers found their rhythm.
The magic Rodgers found on a 45-yard bomb in the first quarter would elude him for most of the rest of the night, especially in the second half. It was Rodgers, on that play, who escaped the pocket to his right and fired downfield with the mobility, off-platform antics and arm strength that defined much of his decorated Packers tenure. And it was Rodgers who found DK Metcalf on back-to-back plays including a slant for a touchdown to take the lead with 34 seconds before halftime.
But it was Love, rather than Rodgers, who took a page out of his predecessor’s book and staged a resounding fourth-quarter comeback. Despite the 24 times Rodgers has rebounded from a fourth-quarter deficit, including 21 times with the Packers, Pittsburgh would not answer after the Packers took the lead five seconds into the fourth quarter.
Instead, Green Bay would score 21 fourth-quarter points while the Steelers failed to sustain drives. On a punishing drive, Rodgers hit tight end Pat Freiermuth only for Freiermuth to drop the pass. Running back Kenneth Gainwell fumbled the next snap.
Drops and penalties assailed the Steelers for much of the evening. The Packers’ pass rush also began to overwhelm the Steelers’ offensive line as the night wore on, fatigue and a game-ending pectoral injury to left guard Isaac Seumalo fissuring Rodgers’ protection.
On the Steelers’ first drive of the fourth quarter, right after the Packers took their first lead of the half, the pressure wasn’t limited to the third-down obvious passing situation. Packers edge rusher Micah Parsons beat multiple blockers to sack Rodgers 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage on first down, coming back on second down to sneak up from behind.
Rodgers managed to throw that away before Parsons could down him, but the resulting third-and-20 was hardly a recipe for success. How did Rodgers decide to get rid of his second-down pass without seeing Parsons?
“He was just like, ‘The crowd showed me that you was behind me,’” Parsons told Yahoo Sports. “‘I heard you coming because of the crowd.’ The crowd started getting loud so he knew somebody was coming.”
Rodgers similarly bantered with Packers edge rusher and former teammate Rashan Gary, who sacked Rodgers in the first quarter after Gary and Parsons closed in on the pocket.
Gary said he had told Rodgers: “I’m going to get you. I’m going to see you.” Rodgers didn’t let the jest go unanswered.
“He was saying, ‘I’m still moving good. I’m 41. You got to come get me, RG,’” Gary said in the postgame locker room. “I said, ‘You right.’ Got back to work and I think they ran it the next play.”
As Rodgers praises Love, Steelers empathize: ‘Definitely stings’
All week, the Packers emphasized that they were playing the Steelers rather than Rodgers alone; Love similarly emphasized that the two quarterbacks were not facing off directly.
But in football where quarterback performances influence games so thoroughly, their performances will nonetheless be compared.
Rodgers completed 66.7% of passes (24 of 36) for 219 yards, two touchdowns and a 101.5 passer rating.
Love completed 78.4% of passes (29 of 37) for 360 yards, three touchdowns and a 134.2 passer rating. Love spread the ball around to 10 different targets but thrived most often with tight end Tucker Kraft, who caught seven passes for 143 yards and two touchdowns on a day ripe with yards after the catch. Christian Watson, in his first return back from a torn ACL, caught passes on all four targets for 85 yards.
Rodgers was proud of Love.
“He played great, played fantastic,” Rodgers said. “He’s had a really nice season. He’s been really efficient with the football. He’s opportunistic, though. I felt like he was very patient tonight. They took the run solutions. He took the checkdowns, moved in the pocket well.
“He played outstanding.”
There was no postscript or subplot Rodgers chose to share. Rodgers did not address the locker room after a game they all knew was personal, Steelers linebacker Patrick Queen said. But teammates understood what their quarterback had on the line and lamented their inability to deliver for him.
“We all knew what it meant,” Queen said. “That’s the stuff that kind of stings the most. You want to go get that for him … so that definitely stings.
“Definitely stings.”
Rodgers echoed that he was disappointed in his own play, the team’s play and particularly the second-half shortcomings. He expressed his need to improve his accuracy and create more space, to reinvest in play-action and bite more yards off on first and second downs to increase the offense’s chance to stay on the field after thirds.
But on the Packers, there was much Rodgers didn’t say.
His head coach took a similar approach as the Steelers fell to 4-3, setting the tone for the near-silent locker room in which Rodgers autographed his jersey for Love.
“It’s not a lot to talk about,” Mike Tomlin said. “We got to get better. We got to get better in a hurry. So, we say very little when we win. We say less when we lose.
“It’s all about getting back in the lab and getting better.”