Steelers' Aaron Rodgers: Playing Packers 'not a revenge game' - ESPN

PITTSBURGH — Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers doesn't view Sunday night's meeting against the Green Bay Packers, the team that drafted him No. 24 in 2005 and with whom he spent the first 18 years of his career, as a «revenge game,» he said Wednesday.

«I don't have any animosity toward the organization,» he said. «Obviously, I wish that things had been better in our last year there, but I have a great relationship with a lot of people still in that organization, and this is not a revenge game for me. I'm just excited to see some of those guys and be on 'Sunday Night Football' again.»

Rodgers, of course, took over for Brett Favre as the team's full-time starter in 2008 and spent 15 seasons in that role before orchestrating a trade to the New York Jets in April 2023. Rogers' exit installed 2020 first-round pick Jordan Love as the Packers' new starting quarterback.

Rodgers, though, said that while there are similarities between his and Love's situation and the one that unfolded with Favre, this meeting of new and old isn't as charged — for the quarterbacks or the fan bases — as the one that happened in 2009. That season, Favre, as a member of the Minnesota Vikings, played against the Packers at the Metrodome in Week 4 on «Monday Night Football.»

«Brett got traded, and then he went to one of the hated rivals,» Rodgers said, explaining the difference. «I was in New Jersey for a couple years.»

After beating the Jets, with whom he spent two dismal and injury-marred seasons, in Week 1, Rodgers said it was «nice» to beat one of his former teams, but it didn't «come close to feeling how it's going to feel playing Green Bay because that's 18 years of my career.»

On Wednesday, Rodgers clarified that those feelings would differ if