Rodgers seeks fuel in latest Pitt stop
A 41-year-old quarterback and a fading franchise hope to make a match.
They’re on a five-game losing streak. In 2024 they ranked 25th in yards per play, 17th in yards allowed per play. For the third consecutive year they will have a new Week 1 quarterback. They have not won a playoff game since 2017 and have missed the postseason in four of the past seven years.
So if you want to watch the eyes of your favorite Steeler fan glaze over, repeat that (A) Pittsburgh has had three head coaches since the AFL-NFL merger, or since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s NBA rookie season and (B) Coach Mike Tomlin, who took over in 2007, never has had a losing season. The surest warning sign about a franchise, or any other business, is how tightly it grips its yesterdays.
Other than the uniforms and the Super Bowl trophies and the presence of a Rooney in the corner office, the Steelers are no longer identifiable by facial recognition technology. On Thursday they signed Aaron Rodgers, 41. They did it long after mini-camps and Off-Season Team Activities had ceased, not that Rodgers is any respecter of existing systems. He acted as if he was running the Jets from the moment he signed thee, and his arrival means that Pittsburgh continues to kick its quarterbacking can down the road. Good thing they have Chris Boswell, perhaps the best kicker in the league.
Terry Bradshaw awoke from his nap and said Rodgers’ signing was a “joke” and that the four-time MVP should stay in California and “eat bark.” But Rodgers did throw 28 touchdowns, with 11 interceptions, for the Jets, and he started all 17 games although he was sacked 40 times, the year after he had Achilles tendon surgery. No doubt there are worse quarterbacks, but it highlights Pittsburgh’s habit of navigating while it studies the rear-view mirror.
The Steelers never felt they needed a QB succession plan when Ben Roethlisberger was there, and they have paid dearly. They chose Kenny Pickett in the first round and then gave up on him, despite some game-winning flashes. Last year they brought in Russell Wilson and Justin Fields, and when Wilson was hurt in an exhibition, Fields went 4-2 as a starter and finished the season with five passing TDs, two running TDs and one interception. Tomlin installed Wilson anyway and the Steelers won their next four. Then they finished 10-7 and were drilled by the Eagles, Ravens and Chiefs down the stretch.
Now Wilson is with the Giants and Fields with the Jets. The Steelers didn’t draft a QB until Will Howard in the sixth round. Pickett, Wilson, Fields, Mason Rudolph (who is back, as Rodgers’ backup) and Mitch Trubisky have all started for Pittsburgh since Roethlisberger, the two-time Super Bowl winner, hung it up after the 2022 season.
Contrast that with the way the Packers backstopped their QB legends. When it was time for Brett Favre to leave, Rodgers was ready. When it was time for Rodgers to leave, Jordan Love was ready. It’s a tough balancing act and it can cause hard feelings. But, as the Eagles have shown, a franchise should decide if it has enough viable quarterbacks and, if the answer is yes, go get one more.
The Pittsburgh story goes beyond quarterbacks. Rodgers’ ability to destabilize a franchise from within is one problem, but the Steelers have dealt with a knucklehead factor that didn’t exist in the Steel Curtain/Blitzburgh years. George Pickens was a teaser at wide receiver, supremely talented but not always interested. He piled up $280,000 in fines in 2023 and 2024 and ignored little things like team plane departure times. The Steelers packed him off to Dallas, then traded for Seattle’s DK Metcalf. They also drafted Diontae Johnson and Chase Claypool at receiver until both of them complained too much or produced too little. Johnson has been on four teams since then and Claypool three, and the Steelers did use the first-round pick they got for Claypool (Bears) to draft promising cornerback Joey Porter Jr.
Cam Heyward, Alex Highsmith and DeShon Elliott called out anonymous slacking teammates after a no–show loss to Kansas City in December. Tomlin said the conflict “was because they care” and vowed the Steelers would move on “as a collective.” Instead they kept losing, by a margin of 66 points in the five-game streak..
One player who continues to hold the Steeler torch is edge rusher T.J. Watt, and he wants a new contract that the Steelers have not yet produced. But Watt didn’t have a sack in his last four games and didn’t hit a quarterback in his last two. “Tough conversations need to be had,” he said at season’s end.
No conversation on Tomlin’s tenure has led to a new coach, despite a gathering outcry. The Steelers are 21-25 after Thanksgiving since 2018, and they’ve won the AFC North only once since 2017. Obviously Tomlin has one of the best resumes in the league and a Super Bowl title to boot, but coaches are cleaning out their desks at a record pace these days, all over sports. If Tom Thibodeau and Peter deBoer can get canned after taking their teams to conference finals, you wonder if anybody’s safe.
The Rooneys’ patience with their coaches has been justified, from Chuck Noll to Bill Cowher to Tomlin. The question is whether continuity always equals stability. The Steelers always brought a fear factor, but Baltimore has been the bully of the North for a while.
Maybe Rodgers, whose 2010 Packers were the winners the last time the Steelers were in the Super Bowl, can reel back the years, or decades. Maybe his bark can restore the Steelers’ bite. Or maybe this is a weirdly epic confrontation, with a renowned coach-killer playing for the coach with the deepest roots in football. Call it the irascible force vs. the implanted object.
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