It was just the 49ers Rodgers was mad at, or so we thought.
Over the week you may have been fortunate enough to catch Tyler Dunne’s Bleacher Report article going over the rocky relationship between Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and head coach Mike McCarthy. It’s a long, but insightful read, and recommended if you have a few minutes given the 49ers had a hand in that relationship going bad from the start.
Given the pedigree and slow spiral the Packers have been on since winning the Super Bowl in 2011, it’s no wonder the entire dynamic of the team has been something making headlines. After the San Francisco 49ers beat the Packers at home to open 2012, more reports were coming on Rodgers’ behavior as a teammate.
In 2012, it was an anomaly. Fast forward to 2018 where it was all but certain he didn’t care much for McCarthy and his coach was on the way out. More players were speaking up to on playing with Rodgers and a lot of it wasn’t good.
So how did all this happen? Well look no further than the 2005 draft. That draft left a big decision for the San Francisco 49ers: Alex Smith or Aaron Rodgers with the No. 1 pick. As everyone knows, the 49ers selected Smith and he was labeled as a bust for years until Jim Harbaugh arrived to turn his career around. Rodgers, on the other hand, went to Green Bay. Who had a hand in the decision? The then-offensive coordinator of the 49ers: Mike McCarthy.
And from Dunne’s article, it looks like Rodgers resented McCarthy the moment he set foot in Green Bay for the decisions made in San Francisco:
Nobody holds a grudge in any sport like Rodgers. When it comes to Rodgers, grudges do not merrily float away. They stick. They grow. They refuel.
No, Rodgers would not forget that McCarthy had helped perpetuate his four-and-a-half-hour wait in the NFL draft green room the year prior. His nationally televised embarrassment. McCarthy, then the 49ers offensive coordinator, chose Alex Smith No. 1 overall. Not Rodgers.
No, Rodgers would not take it as a funny accident.
”Aaron’s always had a chip on his shoulder with Mike,” says Ryan Grant, the Packers’ starting running back from 2007 to 2012. “The guy who ended up becoming your coach passed on you when he had a chance.Aaron was upset that Mike passed on him—that Mike actually verbally said that Alex Smith was a better quarterback.”
Another longtime teammate agrees: “That was a large cancer in the locker room. It wasn’t a secret.”
It sounds a bit bitter that Rodgers would hold that decision against McCarthy, but it’s also something where one can see where he’s coming from. There’s been interesting stories about being turned down for a job at a specific company, only to find the person you interviewed with turn up at the place you eventually accepted an offer at. It can be weird: the person who turned you down and went with someone else is now your boss. While we may say to Rodgers “get over it,” it’s hard to not at least sympathize with the situation. Here’s the guy who said someone was better than you.
For the longest time, we’ve looked at and blamed Mike Nolan for the decision to take Smith over Rodgers. It’s obvious McCarthy had a hand in the situation, being the offensive coordinator, but it’s always been the 49ers as the focus of Rodgers’ rage for not drafting him.
The decision was one that may or may not have changed the fortunes of the 49ers. If Rodgers was the No. 1 pick that year, he may have struggled just as much as Smith had, maybe worse, we don’t know. The decision makers of that blunder are out of the building and all that’s left is us to laugh at the insanity of it all.
It’s just interesting that it had even more consequences. It set McCarthy up to fail at his new destination.
Before this article came out, there were reports that McCarthy worked extensively with Rodgers in developing him as a quarterback while Brett Favre was starting. For the longest time several (myself included) laid the praise of Rodgers’ immediate impact as a starter on the shoulders of McCarthy. For all intents and purposes, it was safe to assume the two had a fine relationship. I’ve even argued the reason it took the Packers so long to dump McCarthy was not because of the Super Bowl win, but putting Rodgers into an unfamiliar system. Dunne indicates that’s not the case. A lot of Rodgers’ success was just because he was that darn good.
The branches of that one decision went further than just the 49ers, it impacted a lot of people and Rodgers seems set on making sure no one forgets.
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