Aaron Rodgers signed with the Steelers after a long wait in 2025. The quarterback was very much in the twilight of his career, and many doubted if he’d choose to continue playing. In such a situation, with rumors about him coming to Pittsburgh, Cam Heyward said at the time: “You either wanna be here, or you don’t.”

That pushed former Steelers head coach to reprimand his veteran defensive lineman, as it could make or break the Steelers’ pursuit of Rodgers.

“We had an unpleasant phone conversation,” Tomlin said on Heyward’s Not Just Football podcast, looking back at the exchange on a humorous note. “It was up there. I was like, ‘Hey bro, shut your mouth. Like what are you doing? Shut your mouth, I’m working over here.’ You know what I mean?”

In March 2025, Rodgers was weighing his options in free agency, with the Steelers, Vikings, and Giants all in the mix. Tomlin made it clear he was playing a sensitive game with Rodgers, and then Heyward, who is also a veteran and team captain, goes on to threaten all the progress made.

He asked Heyward to look at it through Rodgers’ eyes.

“That dude has walked in his shoes a long time. He’s had a lot of fast friends and people attempting to be fast friends and microwave relationships,” Tomlin said. “I wasn’t interested in pressing him. I was legitimately interested in getting to know him.”

Tomlin also said guys like Rodgers are “not pressed by outside influences” when it comes to making decisions. A loud public pitch, he suggested, was never going to sway him.

Heyward said he later tried to clear the air with a text to Rodgers. It did not go far.

“I texted him. He ain’t text me back,” Heyward said.

The two did talk it out eventually. When Rodgers appeared on the podcast in August 2025, he said the comments had stung.

“I was hurt, yeah. You didn’t reach out, you just wanted to make a statement in the media,” Rodgers told Heyward on his podcast later that year. The two seemed to have buried the hatchet, as they joked on about their age.

Rodgers did sign with Pittsburgh in June 2025. He threw for 3,322 yards and 24 touchdowns, and the Steelers won the AFC North that season. The run ended with a 30-6 playoff loss to the Houston Texans, and Tomlin stepped down as head coach after the season.

In the short time that Rodgers and Tomlin worked together, the two seemed to have developed a close bond. What Tomlin aimed at building with the veteran QB through those initial conversations had finally happened.

In Tomlin’s final meeting with the Steelers team, the coach went around the room interacting with every single player as they left. When it was Aaron Rodgers’ turn, he was reportedly “sobbing,” per Pro Football Talk. He also apologized to the coach a few times.

Rodgers reportedly thought about retiring after Tomlin stepped down as head coach. Then Pittsburgh hired Mike McCarthy, who coached him in Green Bay.

“When the decision was made to hire Mike, I started opening my mind back up to coming back,” Rodgers said. In May, he announced that the 2026 season would be his last.

Now the pitch Tomlin protected has an expiration date. The Steelers are 6-2 after a 27-6 win over the Cleveland Browns, and they play the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday night. NBC will broadcast that matchup.

“I still talk to him, I love Mike T,” Rodgers said this Wednesday. “I have so much appreciation for him bringing me here last year and the amount of fun that we had together, the closeness of the bond that we formed. So it’ll be good to see him. I’m not surprised in the least. He is absolutely killing it on TV.”

Luckily, Rodgers let Heyward’s comments slide.

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