Everybody seemed to have an opinion about Aaron Rodgers and his potential lack of preparation for the 2025 season when he chose to wait until after voluntary OTAs to sign his contract and report to the team. The 20-year veteran of the league has faced just about every situation there is to see in the NFL, but Arthur Smith’s system has different lingo and, therefore, a new learning curve for Rodgers to overcome.
He was asked during his introductory press conference today how long it will take to get acclimated to the offense and his new teammates.
“Those are two different things. The offense, it’s a lot of the similar terms from the Shanahan offense, so I got a lot of that stuff already booked,” Rodgers said via the Steelers’ YouTube. “There’s a couple new words and different things formationally, but I’ll have it figured out in a couple weeks probably.”
Matt LaFleur, who coached Rodgers for a few seasons in Green Bay, is part of the Kyle (and Mike) Shanahan coaching trees and naturally uses a lot of the same terminology as them. LaFleur was the offensive coordinator for one season in Tennessee while Arthur Smith was the TE coach. That allows Rodgers to at least speak the language of the offense, albeit with some tweaks along the way.
As far as getting acclimated to his teammates, he already plans on having some of them out to Malibu for workouts ahead of training camp.
It was Rodgers’ first day of practice with the team today. He didn’t participate in every session because he doesn’t fully know the offense yet, but they were intentional about getting him mental reps and teaching him on the go.
“I’m just going through the script like Tom [Arth] is giving me a script so I can follow along, trying to listen to the plays in my helmet and then saying back and then read it,” Rodgers said. “The more times that I write it or read it or hear it, the more it kind of sticks. Again, a lot of stuff is stuff I’ve done before…I think he said he just wants me to stick to the individual [session] until I got the offense down.”
Even for Rodgers, there is no time to slow down the moving train to get him up to speed. Putting him into the offense on Day 1 would risk wasting some practice reps due to miscommunication or something he hadn’t yet learned. For now, he will be on a crash course to get ready.
Fortunately, Arthur Smith had reportedly been building an offense with Rodgers in mind all offseason, and the two had been sharing ideas and communicating for weeks leading up to his official signing.
