Aaron Rodgers’ reputation took a bit of a hit during his two-year stint with the New York Jets. He’s still viewed as a legendary quarterback by anyone who’s seen his career, but his time in New York was the first instance in which he started to look mere human.
After his first handful of games with the Pittsburgh Steelers, it looked like that version of him was left in the past. He was throwing the ball all over the field, carrying the Steelers to some early wins with his arm. However, over the last month, the offense has started to regress a bit. According to FOX Sports’ Jason McIntyre, this version of Rodgers is starting to look similar to the one in New York.
“He’s a Hall of Famer; he’s supposed to solve the problems. I’ve seen this movie before. It was with the Jets. And that’s what we [Jets] wanted Rodgers to do, bail us out. And he couldn’t do it. That’s why we got off him. So he’s now your problem, Pittsburgh,” McIntyre said Thursday on The Herd.
McIntyre has been a heavy critic of Rodgers, and really anything that has to do with the Steelers. But it’s not like his time in New York was all that bad. Rodgers tore his Achilles in his Jets debut and spent a good portion of his final year there still trying to recover. Once he did, he looked significantly better over the home stretch of the 2024 season. That was part of the reason the Steelers were so comfortable to wait multiple months for him to sign this offseason.
Yet the warning signs have started to creep into view on this Steelers offense. It was humming through the first handful of games and had arguably its best outing in a Week 7 loss to Cincinnati. But the unit fell apart in the second half against Green Bay. The Steelers did enough to come away with a win against Indianapolis, but the offense was still a bit lackluster in that game. And then Aaron Rodgers played one of his worst games ever last Sunday.
There are a couple of factors at play. For one, the run game isn’t reliable enough. And that’s not even the fault of the line or the backs; the Steelers just keep abandoning it. They just haven’t been able to get Jaylen Warren into a rhythm. Even though he’s looking great with the ball in his hands.
Rodgers is also going to have to stand taller in the pocket. The line isn’t playing great, but Rodgers will do anything to avoid contact at this point in his career. That results in a lot of checkdowns, screen passes, or just throwaways. To be fair to him, his receivers aren’t getting open much to help out. But it sure didn’t look like Rodgers settled into the pocket at all last Sunday.
The good news is, the Bengals’ defense provides a perfect get-right opportunity. It’s historically bad, and the last complete offensive performance the Steelers put together was against this very unit. If Rodgers can’t rebound this week against easily the worst defense in the league, some difficult conversations could be on the horizon.
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