GREEN BAY, Wis. -- It started as a favor. Aaron Rodgers needed a ride to the airport to catch the Green Bay Packers' charter flight to Houston for a game in 2012. Jordy Nelson happily obliged.

A week later, Rodgers stopped Nelson again.

"'Are you picking me up?'" Nelson recalls Rodgers asking. "I was like, 'If you want.' [Rodgers] replied, 'Did you not have a good game last week?'"

Nelson did, indeed. He caught nine passes for 121 yards and a career-high three touchdowns in a win over the Texans.

"Aaron was like, 'OK then, be there,'" Nelson said.

The next week at St. Louis, Nelson caught eight passes for 122 yards and a touchdown, and a tradition was born. For the rest of that season, and until Rodgers moved recently, they carpooled from their homes on the outskirts of Green Bay to Austin Straubel International Airport.

While their friendship had been established before their ride-sharing program began, and neither Nelson nor Rodgers offered any specifics about their commute conversations, it's another sign of the connection that someday will make them the most productive quarterback-receiver duo in team history.

Rodgers' next touchdown pass to Nelson, whether it happens Sunday night against the New York Giants or in the future, will be their 50th together in regular-season play. They're already at No. 2 on the team's all-time combination list, behind only Brett Favre and Antonio Freeman, who connected 57 times for scores.

"Frankly, I think you have to put some credence in their off-the-field relationship," Packers coach Mike McCarthy said this week. "They're close. They're good friends, and they're both mentors, particularly on offense as far as, not only their connection with one another, but also helping the other guys all get on the same page."

A Hall of Fame connection

This past summer, the Packers Hall of Fame museum unveiled an exhibit commemorating Favre's career and his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The centerpiece is a display that shows the players who caught each of Favre's 442 touchdown passes with the Packers.

Freeman is at the center of it.

If anyone understands the connection Nelson and Rodgers have, it's Freeman. In some ways, he meshed with Favre for the very reasons Nelson does with Rodgers.

"I felt comfortable," Freeman said during an interview before Favre's Hall of Fame induction. "I didn’t know a lot about Brett. But when I got there, the fact that the guy calling the shots for the offense seemed like a normal guy, just laughing and joking and slapping butts and making jokes, it kind of made me relieved. You hear a lot of bad stories about the elite quarterbacks, but I was relieved to know that I had a down-to-earth quarterback.

"When I thought we were wasting time, we were really able to develop a rapport, and just after my first year, I was handed a starting role."

As a second-year pro, Freeman found himself on the receiving end of an 81-yard touchdown pass from Favre in Super Bowl XXXI.

The Rodgers-Nelson connection blossomed in a Super Bowl too.

"I'd say 2010 was a big year for both of us," Rodgers said this week. "That was a year that he got more opportunities. [Super Bowl XLV] was the biggest game of our lives, and he went out and has a bunch of catches and makes big plays for us. That was huge for our chemistry on the field.

"It grows every year. But I would say that year, our third year playing together, was an important turning point for us to really get on the same page."

One quarterback, one offense

It helps that Rodgers and Nelson have played in the same offense -- McCarthy's offense -- their entire careers. The Packers drafted Nelson in 2008, the year Rodgers became a starter.

"One quarterback, one offense; that's huge," Nelson said. "It's something I definitely don't take for granted. I hope it finishes that way."

McCarthy was part of the Favre-Freeman connection, too, serving as the Packers' quarterbacks coach in 1999, when Freeman had a 1,000-yard season and six touchdowns.

"They had that connection, particularly on double moves and pump routes," McCarthy said. "Free would go in there and catch the slant against anybody, and Brett had great confidence in throwing the slant in there in tight windows to Free."

Still, McCarthy said he thinks the Rodgers-Nelson connection is stronger.

"This is the best that I've ever been around; it's not even close," McCarthy said. "They've been together almost nine years. This is the longest connection that I've been a part of in my career, and it's definitely the most fluid and productive."

Anyone who thought the connection might suffer because Nelson missed all of last season with a torn ACL in his right knee needed only to hear Rodgers' comments during Nelson's first week of practice this past summer. After hitting Nelson with a deep pass, Rodgers said, "I could throw that ball with my eyes closed, because I know exactly where he's going to be."

Barring something disastrous, Rodgers and Nelson will blow away the Favre-Freeman numbers. At this point, however, they remain tied in one important area: Super Bowl titles. Each pair has one.

Said Nelson: "Hopefully we can get a few more years together, a few more wins, and more importantly, getting another Super Bowl would be better than all of that."