In September 2008, Mike McCarthy gave Aaron Rodgers his first career start with the Green Bay Packers. McCarthy’s coaching molded Rodgers into an MVP-caliber player who still lights up the gridiron at 42. Even Rodgers’ decision to run it back in 2026 with the Pittsburgh Steelers was tied to McCarthy coming to coach the team. Everybody knew the impact his head coach had on him, and now, Rodgers has put that impact into words.

“I obviously molded a lot of my philosophies based on playing under him, so to just have that common idea about how the offense should run and what it needs to look like is really fun,” Rodgers said in a recent Zoom interview with Wisconsin media, per Steelers Depot. “I couldn’t do it with a new coach. He could just let me go sometimes, and then sometimes he’d have to call me in on a Monday and say, ‘Listen, you changed 10 plays. Can we just go through why you changed these 10 plays?’

“We’d talk it out, and he’d see my side, and we always kind of met back in the middle on that. That was the beauty in the success that we had. It was a lot of push and pull. He gave me a lot of latitude, and I proved that I deserved latitude and could make it work, and when I went too far, he’d rein me back in.”

Entering his second season in Green Bay (2006), Rodgers looked nothing like the quarterback who’d go on to win 4 MVP titles. The QB would “hold the ball up near his ear while taking robotic-like dropbacks,” per The Athletic’s Mike DeFabo. That was the year McCarthy brought his trademark ‘QB School’ to Green Bay as the new head coach. The work began in February, with QBs filing in at 7 in the morning. Weightlifting – meetings – field work – meetings – this was the sequence under McCarthy.

The QB school ran all day, for months. While the new rules limit practice days, McCarthy is putting rookie draft pick Drew Allar through similar paces that legends like Joe Montana, Brett Favre, Rich Gannon, and, of course, Rodgers once went through. Cameras on all sides of a quarterback add to McCarthy’s “profile tape,” which he then uses to break down his quarterbacks’ developmental steps.

“It was a crazy workout back then,” Rodgers said about McCarthy’s QB School, per DeFabo. “You’re doing stuff you don’t normally do, like jump rope, which I think is a really important footwork thing. There’s quick feet (drills). Then, the drill work, we’re throwing on the run from different angles and different targets.”

This schooling was directly responsible for Aaron Rodgers’ Super Bowl XLV win, four MVP titles, and 10 Pro Bowls. When Rodgers became a senior in this ‘QB School’, McCarthy gave him more freedom to do what’s needed to win games. That dynamic goes both ways, and speaking to reporters earlier this month, McCarthy shared a similar sentiment for Rodgers.

“It’s been fun,” McCarthy said. “Personally, it’s been awesome. The big [thing] is really, for him and I, it’s how we’re connected and engaged with everybody else. I’m not as concerned about being on the same age with Aaron. It’s making sure the whole group is connected. Conversations that him and I have are on a level of a coach. Leadership-level coach.”

Even as McCarthy left the Packers after 2018, the lessons he ingrained in Aaron Rodgers never left him. After all this time, that culture has now been installed once again in McCarthy’s hometown, and he has the perfect quarterback to lead the room.