Aaron Rodgers joined the Pittsburgh Steelers this offseason. However, after he retires, he will surely be remembered best for his time with the Green Bay Packers. In 2020, the Packers put a clock on Rodgers’ remaining time in Green Bay by drafting Jordan Love with their first-round pick. While some might assume that Love and Rodgers didn’t have a good relationship, the opposite is true. Love even named Rodgers as the biggest badass that he’s ever played with.
“That speaks for itself,” Love said Wednesday on the This Is Football podcast. “I think the playstyle, the way he plays the game, the intensity that he brings to everything, practices, walkthroughs, in the meeting rooms. He’s a badass man. He goes out there on the field and does what he needs to do out there, has made a pretty good career for himself.”
Love and Rodgers were teammates from 2020-22. When the Packers drafted Love, the situation immediately drew comparisons to when the team drafted Rodgers in 2005. Back then, the Packers had Brett Favre at quarterback but chose to draft Rodgers. There were reports that Favre wasn’t pleased about that, and that he and Rodgers didn’t have the best relationship.
It doesn’t seem like that was the case for Love and Rodgers, though. This isn’t the first time that Love has praised his former teammate. When he’s talked about Rodgers, it’s normally nothing but good things.
Even with the two of them scheduled to play against each other this year, Love still expressed nothing but excitement. It’s easy to see why, too. Love learned a lot from Rodgers, as he explained during that same interview.
“There’s so much. I think all the subtle things [Rodgers] does at the line of scrimmage, pre-snap, seeing what the defense is in, all the different ways he tries to mess with the defense and play games and use his cadence trying to get free plays,” Love said.
“The way he watches the sideline to see guys subbing on and off, being able to get free plays off of that,” he added. “There’s so many little things that I learned from [Rodgers], who’s a savvy vet, been doing it a long time, that I was able to see coming in as a rookie.”
With so much experience under his belt, Rodgers is a wealth of knowledge for young quarterbacks. His hard count in particular is one of the best ever. Drawing defenders offsides is an underrated skill that Rodgers mastered. Love is correct that those little things can help a quarterback more than most people would think.
Some Steelers are already well-aware of Rodgers’ abilities as a mentor, though. While he hasn’t been with the Steelers for very long, he’s been trying to step up as a leader. That includes providing some guidance for rookie quarterback Will Howard.
Howard was drafted in the sixth round this past year, which means his odds at eventually being a franchise quarterback are slim. However, Rodgers’ help could give Howard a better chance at finding some success in the NFL. The two have a good relationship, with Rodgers assisting Howard in the same way that he did with Love.
In Week 8, for the first time in his career, Love will battle against his former mentor. He’ll get a chance to see how much badass that Rodgers has left in him. Likewise, Rodgers can see firsthand how much Love has grown. It should make for a fun game.
