Aaron Rodgers directly refutes new head coach

The Pittsburgh Steelers have a new leader in Mike McCarthy following 19 seasons of the Mike Tomlin experience. Naturally, with the coaching change come changes to Pittsburgh’s approach. One thing McCarthy has been adamant about is letting his quarterbacks, even veterans, get a taste of game action in the preseason.

McCarthy has insisted that all of his quarterbacks, including four-time MVP Aaron Rodgers, have been eager for the preseason action themselves.

“He’d like to play,” McCarthy said of Rodgers, who is entering his second season with the Steelers. “I would like to see him play. But we won’t make a decision until we get all the way up to it because there’s more that goes into that than just having one player play. It’s the combination of the players.”

Rodgers, on the other hand, is singing a different tune entirely.

“It’s preseason, it’s not real football,” the quarterback said. “If I do, great. If not, great.”

“Preseason’s a lot different. Teams don’t run anything anymore,” he continued. “They just really don’t. Even joint practices. The first year we were doing them, it was fun because you got to play a team that wasn’t going to play how they played in the preseason.

“They were going to show you a lot of different things they were working on. It was like a real day at camp. As that got on, it just stopped being like that. It just turned into fights, and nobody showed anything because somebody’s brother is on the staff, and they might show him the film. I think those are a waste of a day. I think preseason football is good to see guys with the pads on, under the lights, how they react to the nerves. But it’s not real regular-season football.”

It’ll be interesting to see what decision McCarthy and Rodgers come to, considering it’s quite clear at this point that they have warring philosophies on the matter.