LATROBE, Pa. (AP) — This is not Aaron Rodgers' first training camp.
Or his 10th.
Or his 20th, for that matter.
Yet the NFL's oldest player seems to be rejuvenated by camp life with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
It's not just the age of his new teammates, some of whom — such as 21-year-old first-round pick Derrick Harmon — were toddlers when Rodgers was selected by the Green Bay Packers in the first round of the 2005 draft. It's not just the chance to work closely with Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, whom he's admired from afar for years.
It's all of it. From living in a college dormitory at Saint Vincent College — something he hadn't done since the Green Bay Packers stopped going to St. Norbert College during the COVID-19 pandemic — to being part of a practice with live hitting for the first time in at least a decade.
No, the NFL's oldest player wasn't putting his 41-year-old body on the line during the initial full-contact session of the season on Wednesday — quarterbacks are still off limits — but he did get an up-close look at the kind of physical practice that Tomlin believes is vital if increasingly uncommon this time of year.
“I haven’t been a part of a true tackling period in a long time,” Rodgers said about an hour before trotting down to sweltering Chuck Noll Field in his white No. 8 jersey.
And while Rodgers kept his No. 8 clean, he did find himself leaning into the competitive nature of things. During the “seven shots” drill — essentially a series of 2-point conversion attempts by the offense — Rodgers found himself in the thick of things while taking a handful of live snaps with the starters.
His first pass was swatted down by blitzing safety DeShon Elliott. Rodgers laughed in the aftermath and even exchanged high-fives with Elliott before both players made their way back to the huddle. During the four-time MVP's second attempt, he deftly maneuvered around the pocket before finding newly acquired tight end Jonnu Smith for a conversion.
The best-of-seven ended with perhaps Rodgers' finest moment on the field so far during camp. Needing a score to record a “win” for the offense, Rodgers floated a pass to the back corner of the end zone, where DK Metcalf made a twisting grab before tapping both feet down inbounds.
While it hasn't been the crispest start to camp for the offense in general, Rodgers is hardly panicking.
“It’s not a bad thing to get beat up a little bit,” he said, later adding, “sometimes you can learn more from the failures in training camp than getting after it every single day.”
Rodgers, who signed with the Steelers in early June after spending months weighing whether to play in 2025, would like to have the offense down pat by the end of the week but cautioned, “We’ll see.”
Progress on the field isn't the only thing Rodgers is working on. His somewhat late arrival, combined with the likelihood that this is his final season, means there isn't a lot of time to build the kind of chemistry required to thrive once the games start to count.
In that way, being away for camp — a once common practice now only done by a half-dozen teams — has helped.
“I love that we’re out here in Latrobe. I love the opportunity for true camaraderie,” he said. “At nighttime, after meetings are done, guys hang out, you know, guys come to my room. Last night, I was in (linebacker Alex) Highsmith’s room. So that’s it’s pretty cool to see everybody hanging out the way they are. It’s a lot of fun.”
And it is still fun for Rodgers. There will be plenty of time in the future when his career will be in his rearview mirror. He's not quite there yet.
“For me, once it stops being fun, you should probably hang it up,” he said.
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
The Associated Press
