GREEN BAY — Keisean Nixon grabbed his iPhone from his stall inside the luxe home locker room at Lambeau Field and quickly scanned his messages. One stood out immediately. 

The Green Bay Packers veteran cornerback had just broken up five passes during the team’s Week 2 win over the visiting Washington Commanders on “Thursday Night Football” — a Sept. 11 game that had been nationally streamed on Amazon Prime — and found a familiar name among the well-wishers.

Aaron Rodgers.

A few Thursday nights later, Nixon was at home streaming Rodgers and his new team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, in a back-and-forth tussle with the Cincinnati Bengals. While the Bengals escaped with the victory, the 41-year-old Rodgers had delivered a turn-back-the-clock performance, completing 23 of 34 passes for 249 yards with four touchdowns (103.7 rating) on the night.

Nixon’s first thought? “He’s still got it,” Nixon replied with a smirk.

Although Packers head coach Matt LaFleur started the week by downplaying the Rodgers-against-his-old-team storyline for Sunday night’s matchup between the Packers (4-1-1) and the Steelers (4-2) at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh — “We’re playing the Pittsburgh Steelers, who happen to have Aaron Rodgers,” LaFleur had said on Monday — the players who’ll be tasked with defending against Rodgers know it’s not just another game.

“I think it’s a blessing to be able to share the field with a guy of that caliber — one of the GOATs, if not the GOAT, a future Hall of Famer,” said Packers All-Pro safety Xavier McKinney, who faced Rodgers once before, as a member of the New York Giants when the Giants beat the Packers in London during the 2022 season.

“Just to be able to share the field with him and be able to compete against him, it gives me that same feel as when I played Tom Brady [in 2021]. You go into the game, you know who you’re facing, you know the type of player that he is and the career he’s established, so it just gives you chills being able to go out there and compete against him. And obviously it’s probably his last hurrah, so it’ll be fun for sure.”

For Nixon, the vibe is slightly different. He and Rodgers were teammates for that 2022 season, with Nixon having come over from the Las Vegas Raiders in free agency.

After growing up in Compton, Calif., and playing in Vegas, Nixon didn’t exactly embrace the idea of playing in small-town Green Bay upon his arrival.

Rodgers noticed — and took action, in an unorthodox way.

“He gave me a hug,” Nixon said. “He wanted me to give him a hug. He always said I was angry. And I was. He opened me up.

“I was angry. Because I didn’t want to be here — for real. But it really was him that calmed me down about being here, so I’ve got a lot of love for him. We still talk.”

The talk between the two will be different, though, on Sunday night.

“Oh, he knows what’s up with me. I’m going to talk a lot of [expletive] to him, I am,” Nixon said. “I’m going to make him angry, get him to throw the ball my way a lot and try to pick his ass off.” 

He won’t be the only one trying to do that against a quarterback who, in his 21st NFL season, has thrown 8,417 passes and been intercepted only 121 times — a 1.4% interception rate, the lowest in NFL history.

“It is hard to get interceptions off him. He knows the game, studies the game, has seen every coverage there is, so it’s going to be challenging to get one,” McKinney said. “But [the ball], I’m going to have to frame that one some type of way, if I’m able to get one off of him.”

Second-year safety Evan Williams would love to pick Rodgers off, too — but for a slightly different reason. Like Rodgers, who spent two college seasons at Cal-Berkeley before the Packers took him with the 24th overall pick in the first round of the 2005 NFL Draft, Williams’ father, Garey, played for the Golden Bears.

Garey, in fact, was on the field for the Bears on their iconic game-winning, five-lateral kickoff return for a touchdown in the 1982 Cal-Stanford game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-JD4o-Y5Aw), although he didn’t touch the ball.

But decades later, Garey would take his young sons, Evan and Bennett, to Cal games. Little Evan was a precocious 3-year-old during the 2004 season, when Rodgers led the Bears to a 10-2 record and finished ninth in the Heisman Trophy balloting.

And by the time Evan played high-school ball at St. Francis High School in Campbell, Calif., and played in college at Fresno State and Oregon, he was a full-fledged Rodgers fan — even when his buddies were more enamored with Brady, Ben Roethlisberger or others.

“Growing up, I was always a Rodgers guy. Like, everybody was Brady, Big Ben, whoever else, and Rodgers always [the guy] to me,” Williams explained. “Just the way he approached the game, he just commanded the offense. It seemed like he had completely command and understanding of what was going on on the defensive side of the ball and could get to whatever he needed to. That was always impressive. And then obviously his arm talent was just different.

“And, he went to Cal. I first went to a game in probably 2004. [So] I was a baby boy, so I wouldn’t have any real memories of him. But that was just more reason to root for the guy, because he was a Cal guy.

“So yeah, I’m excited to go against him. Anytime you get to go against people that have cemented their legacy in the game, it’s always an exciting thing. To be able to compete against that level of talent, with his résumé? As much as I respect him, I’m with X — I’ll be looking to snag one off of him, too.”

And then there’s edge rusher Micah Parsons, who will be aiming to take Rodgers down for a sack and has his own Rodgers story.

He didn’t get to Rodgers when the Packers played Parsons’ Dallas Cowboys in November 2022 at Lambeau Field, but Parsons didn’t wind up completely empty-handed.

“I’m excited to play him. He’s one of my favorite quarterbacks of all time,” Parsons said after his three-sack performance in last Sunday’s win at Arizona. “And what’s neat about Rodgers is, when I came down to Lambeau in my second year, after the game, he was like, ‘I want to trade jerseys with you.’

“And I’m like, ‘The GOAT, Rodgers, wants to trade jerseys with me? I’m coming off my rookie year.’ To me, it’s a great sign of respect, just the type of guy he is, that he could recognize such a young player in the league. So I have nothing but respect for him and he’s become one of my favorite players just because of that moment. He didn’t have to do that.

“And. he [actually] sent me that jersey. I thought he was just messing me. [But] he sent me that game-worn jersey when they came back and beat us, so the loss was bitter, but the jersey was sweet, and it’s in my man cave right now.

“So the football side, I’m ready to get my rematch, but the personal side, I appreciate Rodg for that because that gave me a boost of confidence. He just said ‘keep going’ and how much he believed in me. So that was big. He didn’t have to do that.”

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