Aaron Rodgers' first job as Packers QB under Darrell Bevell: Find Favre

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Darrell Bevell trusted Aaron Rodgers with an important task when he coached the Green Bay Packers quarterbacks in 2005.

Find Brett Favre.

"A lot of my time was spent walking around looking for Favrey," Rodgers recalled Wednesday. "That was one of the my responsibilities as a rookie was trying to figure out where Favrey was at sometimes and head into the back to see where he was he was hanging out and say, ‘Hey, coach Bevell wants you.'"

Bevell served as Rodgers' first position coach in the NFL.

Their partnership lasted only one season. Bevell left Green Bay after a six-year stint as an offensive assistant (he was QB coach from 2003-05) when coach Mike Sherman was fired following a 4-12 year in 2005.

They will be reunited in different capacities on Sunday (4:25 p.m. ET, FOX) at Ford Field: Rodgers in the starring role for the Packers (9-3), and Bevell in his second game as interim head coach of the Lions (5-7). Bevell won in his head-coaching debut last Sunday with a dramatic 34-30 victory over the Chicago Bears in Detroit's first game since Matt Patricia was fired.

Rodgers did more than just serve as Bevell's lookout man for Favre.

In fact, Rodgers credited Bevell in part for helping him undergo a major fundamental change in the way he carried the football on his dropbacks.

In college at the University of California, Rodgers was taught to hold the ball high up near the earhole of his helmet at all times, but he needed to change that in the NFL. That process continued under Mike McCarthy, who was hired in 2006 to replace Sherman, and under McCarthy's first quarterback coach Tom Clements.

"At Cal we were very robotic in the way that we dropped [and] obviously the way I held the football," Rodgers said. "So being able to naturally on my own lower the ball to where I was throwing it at Butte College and in high school and to learn to tie my feet with the routes was my first important lesson in the league, and I do appreciate Darrell's help with that.

"That was quite an interesting year. Obviously we had a tough year on the field, but I do look back fondly at that first season in the NFL, being able to be in the room with both Darrell and Brett. And it is fun to think about how many coaches I've been around now that have been head coaches whether in college or in the NFL, obviously him being one of them."

Bevell, who led the Wisconsin Badgers to the 1994 Rose Bowl, broke into the NFL with the Packers in 2000 as a 30-year-old quality control assistant for the offense.

"I was a young coach getting to work with Brett Favre," Bevell said recently. "Obviously, it was amazing, and working from a (quality control) guy to becoming the quarterbacks coach there and coaching a guy that was actually older than you."

After Bevell's stint with the Packers, Brad Childress hired him as the Vikings offensive coordinator (2006-10). Following a seven-year run as the Seahawks offensive coordinator, he returned to the NFC North last season as the Lions offensive coordinator.

"I've kind of joked [that] I feel like it's my division," Bevell said. "I've been in it for the entirety of my career for the most part. Just great football -- all of the black and blue days, even when it was not the North, and it was different names. The rivalries that are here, I guess the history of football -- some of the greatest places and organizations that are in football, and with some of the greatest people."

ESPN Lions reporter Michael Rothstein contributed.