The clip did not need a lip reader. Prime Video’s cameras caught Aaron Rodgers yelling an expletive from the huddle, and head coach Mike McCarthy firing back into his headset, during Pittsburgh’s 27-24 loss to the Cleveland Browns on Thursday night.
McCarthy addressed it after the game.
“Any negative communication said on my part, I wish I wouldn’t have used those words,” he told reporters.
Rodgers had grown frustrated with the pace of play-calls reaching the huddle. Lip-readers on social media parsed his outburst as “What the f***? Call it.” McCarthy responded in kind over his headset.
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“What’s said on the field, the way I grew up in this game, usually stays on the field,” McCarthy added, per Steeler Nation. “That’s not the case today.”
Together since 2008
McCarthy and Rodgers have been doing this a long time, just not usually in front of a Thursday-night national audience. McCarthy coached Rodgers in Green Bay from 2008 to 2018, an 11-season partnership that produced a Super Bowl XLV victory over the Steelers following the 2010 season.
They are now reunited in Pittsburgh in McCarthy’s first season as the Steelers’ 17th head coach.
2-2 after a late Cleveland field goal
Pittsburgh trailed by three in the final seconds at Huntington Bank Field when Andre Szmyt pushed through a 56-yard field goal to seal the 27-24 Cleveland win. Rodgers had drawn the Steelers level with a 3-yard touchdown pass to Pat Freiermuth and a two-point conversion run of his own.
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Pittsburgh dropped to 2-2 in the AFC North. Cleveland moved to 3-1. Rodgers has not addressed the exchange publicly.
