In the NFL, the head coach is supposed to be the boss. But when Aaron Rodgers got in Mike McCarthy’s face during the Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Cleveland Browns game, the pecking order looked a little different. However, according to former Steelers nose tackle Breiden Fehoko, Rodgers had every right to express his displeasure with certain calls in a game.
Watch What’s Trending Now!
“With a player like Aaron Rodgers, who we saw last night, him and McCarthy went at it, right? Get the play calls in quicker. You saw the expletive language passed back and forth,” Fehoko said on his YouTube channel. “Here’s the problem with that. Okay, one is Aaron Rogers, four-time MVP. He is entitled to do that.
“And it’s crazy for people to think otherwise, that no player should be saying this to a coach, but when you win MVP four times in this league, which is hard to even make this league, you are entitled to, you know what, if I want to call shots, I can call shots. And on top of him being a four-time MVP, he’s a Super Bowl winner. So, you have to live with these situations of all right, there’s going to be a little pride and it’s going to be checked at the door.”
The moment unfolded late in the first quarter during the Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Cleveland Browns Week 4 game. With the Steelers deep in Cleveland territory after a penalty, the play clock began running down while Rodgers waited outside the huddle for the play call.
Visibly frustrated by the delay, the 42-year-old quarterback spread his arms toward the sideline and was caught on a hot mic screaming, “What the f**k! Call it!”
The Prime Video broadcast instantly cut to the 62-year-old head coach, who appeared to fire straight back through his headset, muttering, “F**king a**hole.”
During his post-game press conference, Mike McCarthy expressed regret for his choice of words. He noted that the opening drive was “hectic” and that he was talking faster than normal.
“Communication sometimes is not the best choice of words, but everybody’s competing on the field. Any negative communication on my part, I wish I wouldn’t use those words,” McCarthy said.
Despite that, Rodgers was swarmed with a lot of flak.
“He is the cranky old man,” former NFL QB Chris Simms said. “Usually, the cranky old man in the locker room is the guy that’s like, ‘We gotta do this, we gotta be clean here, we gotta do that’… I think you have to be careful about not crossing that line to where it just gives negative energy all the time.”
However, Breiden Fehoko believes Aaron Rodgers has every right to express his frustration in the first place. After all, he ranks second all-time in regular-season MVPs (with four under his belt in 2011, 2014, 2020, 2021), trailing only Peyton Manning (5).
On top of that, Rodgers, alongside Mike McCarthy as head coach, also led the Green Bay Packers to a 31-25 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers to cap off the 2010 season.
While Rodgers and McCarthy shared a standout partnership at Green Bay, their reunion at the Steelers came eight years after their Green Bay partnership ended. Hence, under a new regime and staff, they are still gelling as time goes by.
As a result, Rodgers also downplayed the friction, attributing part of the communication difficulty to the loud environment created by the Cleveland crowd.