The New York Jets didn’t have an established core of players or winning culture when they traded a significant draft haul for Aaron Rodgers. They brought him in to save the franchise and very clearly built around him with some of his previous teammates and coaches. Things will be different in Pittsburgh and that should lead to much higher chances of success than the five wins he managed last season.
Joey Porter Sr. explained what the Pittsburgh Steelers need from Rodgers this season.
“I feel like he got a lot of juice left in the arm,” Porter said via Not Just Football with Cam Heyward. “The way our team is built, the way our defense is built, and I love Mason [Rudolph] and all the young guys, but the resumes ain’t gonna compare to what Aaron Rodgers really got and what he can do. If we show up like we did last year with our defense, I just trust him. He ain’t gonna put us in bad situations. We ain’t asking him to save us. We asking him not to lose the four games that we lose every year that we’re not supposed to lose.”
Anybody who has watched the Steelers for the last 15 years or so knows they have a bad habit of dropping games they are heavily favored to win. Just last year they lost to the Dallas Cowboys in a down year for them, the Indianapolis Colts led by Joe Flacco, and the Cleveland Browns led by Jameis Winston. Had they won those games, they would have finished 13-4 with the AFC North crown and a home playoff game for the first time since 2020.
“He ain’t gotta be special. He can just go out there and be him,” Porter said of Rodgers. “If he’s healthy, if we keep him upright, I like our chances with him.”
Many are understandably down on the team after another embarrassing playoff loss last season, and the quarterback of a five-win team last season doesn’t move the needle for them. That’s fair, but the Steelers are averaging 10 wins per season since 2020 with playoff appearances in four out of five of those years with worse quarterbacks than Rodgers. Assuming Rodgers stays healthy, he can give them the best quarterback play they’ve had since 2018 before Roethlisberger’s elbow injury.
Could that improved QB play be worth an extra win or two in the regular season to possibly win the division? And could Rodgers plus a home playoff game finally get them over the hump to secure the postseason win that has eluded them since the 2016 season? Nothing about that seems unattainable with an improved roster and a future first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterback.
The Steelers don’t need Rodgers to play hero ball; he just needs to raise their floor and elevate the offense beyond the bottom-10 group it was last season. If he can do that, there’s no reason this can’t be a dangerous team in 2025.
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