Breer: Aaron Rodgers, Arthur Smith ‘Off To A Good Begin’ Collectively

For an offense to operate well, there must be a good relationship between the offensive coordinator and the quarterback. They don’t need to be friends like Ben Roethlisberger and Randy Fichtner. But they definitely can’t have disagreements about the direction of the offense like Arthur Smith and Russell Wilson reportedly had by the end of last season for the Pittsburgh Steelers. It needs to be different this time around with Smith and Aaron Rodgers.

According to SI.com’s Albert Breer, things are off to a promising start.

“Rodgers has smoothly assimilated into the Steeler culture,” Breer wrote. “Different than with the Jets, he isn’t being asked to take a group of young players to another level. He’s jumping on a moving train, with the team’s veteran leadership very much already in place. He and Arthur Smith got off to a good start, too, getting him up to speed on the offense’s nomenclature.”

A lot of the concepts that make up Smith’s offense aren’t new to Rodgers. Smith coached under OC Matt LaFleur for one year in Tennessee and some of those concepts rubbed off on Smith as their TE coach at the time. ESPN’s Kevin Clark also reported that Rodgers studied Smith and QB Ryan Tannehill when he first started working with LaFleur ahead of one of his MVP seasons.

The verbiage and the formations that the different concepts are run out of are slightly different. And it sounds like the language is the biggest hurdle to clear.

“The language has changed enough to where that’s probably where the steepest learning curve lies for him,” Breer wrote. “Even that is relatively light lifting for the quarterback, given the number of coaching changes and shifts Rodgers has been through over the course of his career.”

As a 20-year NFL veteran, there isn’t much with which Rodgers is completely unfamiliar. But he needs to know the offense like the back of his hand. As the quarterback he needs to make sure he is on the same page as the offensive coordinator and that he communicates that to the other 10 players in the huddle.

Rodgers told reporters during minicamp that he’d probably need a couple more weeks to get the offense down. The other part of the learning curve will be to build chemistry with his teammates. There is no substitute for that other than time spent on the field. Fortunately, Rodgers seems intent on hosting teammates in California for some extra work ahead of training camp. DK Metcalf already said he would be among the players attending.

The relationship between Wilson and Smith seemed good for the first several months of them working together last year. It wasn’t until the losing streak at the end of the season that reports of a rocky relationship started to surface. Things might seem good between Rodgers and Smith now, but that will need to stand the test of time and the inevitable adversity that comes with every NFL season.