The Pittsburgh Steelers are 1-3 in their last four games, and Aaron Rodgers’ face certainly shows it during their games. His is a face that betrays his emotions, and as you’d imagine, he hasn’t escaped criticism for it. But while some might take umbrage to the faces he makes when teammates err, Mike Florio sees another emotion there.
“The Bengals game, he looked irritated the whole time. On Sunday night against the Chargers, he had more of an overall attitude of resignation”, he said of Aaron Rodgers on 93.7 The Fan this week. “And was it, ‘It’s not our night’, or is it, ‘It’s not our year’, or is it, ‘I’m just done and I’m not gonna get what I thought I was gonna get here in Pittsburgh’”?
The Steelers got off to a 4-1 start this season, and Rodgers was doing what they needed to win. In fact, he was rather proficient where it mattered the most, particularly in the red zone. In recent weeks, that hasn’t been nearly consistently true. Even against the Colts, they managed to take advantage of short drives created by takeaways, but the offense was lacking.
Aaron Rodgers signed with the Steelers this offseason believing he would have a chance to compete here. Were it not for the awful start the AFC North got off to, however, they would be approaching afterthought territory already. Despite holding a division lead, they are not even favorites anymore. And if they lose to the Bengals on Sunday, their odds will fall precipitously, I’m sure.
“I just feel like he’s accepting something”, Florio said of Rodgers. “And whether it was just that night or the rest of the season and ‘This is how my career’s gonna end’, I don’t know. But he definitely had just kind of an acceptance that seemed like he was recognizing, ‘That’s all, folks’”.
The Steelers tried the veteran quarterback route last year with Russell Wilson, and it worked until it didn’t. At one point, they were 10-3 and people were pointing fingers at Sean Payton. Now Payton is taking every shot he can and later denying them. Are the Steelers heading down the same path now with Aaron Rodgers?
And it’s not even because of Rodgers, at least not primarily, even after his bad game. So much of what the Steelers expected of themselves at the start of this season has not developed. In reality, they got what they thought they would need from Rodgers. It’s just that the rest of the team hasn’t held up its end of the bargain.
This was supposed to be a heavy power-running offense with a bludgeoning, shutdown defense. The Steelers don’t have close to either one. They don’t even run often enough to establish such a presence, despite Aaron Rodgers’ calls to do so.
Still, Florio is merely reading facial cues, and doing so at moments of heightened emotion. In the past few days, both Cam Heyward and DK Metcalf have basically said that you can’t ask them questions after a game because they’ll answer with emotion. Just because Aaron Rodgers looks annoyed or resigned during a game when things aren’t going well doesn’t mean that’s constant. Give anybody an hour or two, a day, to cool off, and things can look very different.
But that doesn’t really change the reality that this Steelers team doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere. Whether Rodgers is resigned or not, a lot of others have already been for a while.
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