Over the last half-decade, the Pittsburgh Steelers have established a modus operandi that is, for better or worse, at least consistent. The idea is to rely on a great defense, a power running game, and just enough out of the quarterback(s) to get into the playoffs, when they're eliminated in the wild-card round.
That's happened in four of the last five seasons, and the M.O. has run through the end times of Ben Roethlisberger's career, to the Kenny Pickett first-round pick that didn't work out, to last season's combination of Justin Fields and Russell Wilson. This particular constraint puts a lot of pressure on that defense and run game, and you have to be a bit of a historical outlier for it to work year after year.
The Steelers have been exactly that. From 2021 through 2023, they became (at least to my knowledge) the first team in pro football history to assemble three straight winning seasons in which they had a negative point differential. Pretty neat if you're a history nerd, but with a 28-22-1 regular season mark in that span, and nothing but postseason elimination to show for it, that's not exactly what gets you remembered.
2024 was more of the same, as Pittsburgh's 10-7 record and wild-card loss (the second straight season for both) indicated once again that while Mike Tomlin's team always has a high floor, they're getting pretty tired of bumping their heads on the low ceiling.
Which is why they waited Aaron Rodgers out through free agency, and the draft, and non-mandatory minicamps, until Rodgers agreed to sign a one-year deal and report to work in time for mandatory minicamp next week.
It's not as if Tomlin's team had a lot of weight at the game's most important position. Outside of Rodgers, the depth chart is no bueno:
Sixth-year man Mason Rudolph, who has done very little of import in his NFL career, and is best known for a helmet-swinging fracas with Myles Garrett back in 2019;
Sixth-round rookie Will Howard, who used intelligence and guile to help the Ohio State Buckeyes win the national championship last season, but doesn't really overwhelm from a traits perspective; and
Skylar Thompson, who came into the NFL as a seventh-round pick of the Miami Dolphins in 2022, and has thrown a grand total of one touchdown and three interceptions on 138 passing attempts since then.
This is a quarterback room in desperate need of an alpha, and at least now there's an alpha in the building.
Of course, the question is what version of Rodgers the Steelers will get. Based on his work in 2024 with the New York Jets, and one year off the torn Achilles tendon that cost him all but four plays in 2023, the future is unknown.
Rodgers completed 368 of 584 passes (63.0%) for 3,897 yards (6.7 yards per attempt) for 28 touchdowns, 11 interceptions, and a passer rating of 90.5. Among full seasons in his NFL career, the completion rate is the fourth-lowest of his career, the yards per attempt is tied for the lowest of his career (2015), and the passer rating is the lowest.
Rodgers did all this with a sub-par offensive line, but he still availed himself fairly well when under pressure -- 59 completions in 130 attempts for 811 yards, eight touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 86.4. When blitzed, Rodgers completed 113 of 182 passes for 1,004 yards, 10 touchdowns, three interceptions, and a passer rating of 88.3. It's interesting that Rodgers threw eight of his 11 interceptions last season when he wasn't blitzed, and all 11 with a clean pocket. If you imagine that the modern Rodgers can get himself into trouble when he has too much time to think, you're on to something there.
Rodgers was just fine as a deep passer last season — he completed 25 of 63 passes of 20 or more air yards for 740 yards, nine touchdowns, three interceptions, and a passer rating of 103.8. Interestingly, it was on passes of 10-19 air yards where Rodgers got into by far the most trouble. On those throws, Rodgers completed 46 of 107 passes for 815 yards, three touchdowns, four interceptions, and a passer rating of 63.4. In 2022, Rodgers' previous full season, he was at his best on throws of 10-19 air yards. But it was short stuff, deep stuff, or bust in 2024.
One of the primary reasons Rodgers has wanted receivers with which he is familiar — from Davante Adams to Randall Cobb to Allen Lazard — is that when everything is either a two-minute or a scramble drill, you want receivers who have already timed up with it all. When that familiarity is not present, quarterbacks will tend to hesitate when they should let the ball fly.
This was a fairly major issue for Rodgers in 2024, and it happened with his guys as much as it didn't. When you go through Rodgers' 11 interceptions last season, there's a common extra hitch in the progression which allowed defenses to converge on the arriving football. Basically, Rodgers wasn't throwing his targets open anymore.
In addition, Rodgers' arm talent isn't what it used to be, which makes sense, considering that he turned 41 last December.
And because the arm talent wasn't what it used to be, there was an element of predictability that is creeping death for any quarterback.
"Yeah, you know, A-Rod, he likes to — whenever he sees the middle of the field open, he likes to throw the ball in there," Beanie Bishop said of the first of the two passes he picked off in the Steelers' 37-15 Week 7 win over the Jets. "I can't remember if it was last week or a couple weeks ago, he threw the ball right at buddy's helmet and kind of gave him a back-shoulder pass. So just being able to see that stuff on film and just being able to react, know that it's coming, that's just how I played it."
When your opponent knows what's coming... well, that's not altogether uncommon in the NFL. But when you no longer have the arm and the timing to defeat the insight? That's a real problem. Especially when the timing with the receivers you've known for years is no longer a positive asset.
To maximize what he does have left in the tank, Rodgers will need to undergo a fairly major transformation in which he would finally drop the schematic stubbornness he's always had, and work within the quarterback helpers, like pre-snap motion and condensed formations, that he's eschewed throughout his career. Rodgers prefers to have things static pre-snap so that he can take the ball and decide from there, and while any first-ballot Hall of Famer has certainly earned that right, there is also the need to adjust to impending reality.
Last season with Justin Fields and Russell Wilson as their quarterbacks, the Steelers under offensive coordinator Arthur Smith put at least one player in pre-snap motion on 56% of the team's snaps, which tied for the NFL's eighth-highest rate. And those quarterbacks completed 156 of 244 passes for 1,615 yards, 12 touchdowns, three interceptions, and a passer rating of 96.6.
The Jets under offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett Aaron Rodgers put at least one player in motion on 44% of their snaps, which tied for the NFL's fourth-lowest rate. And when he had guys in motion, Rodgers completed 175 of 249 passes for 1,806 yards, 15 touchdowns, four interceptions, and a passer rating of 104.3.
Rodgers took the second-most dropbacks (370) without pre-snap motion behind only Bo Nix of the Denver Broncos. And in those 370 static dropbacks, Rodgers completed 193 of 335 passes for 2,091 yards, 996 yards after the catch, 13 touchdowns, seven interceptions, and a passer rating of 80.3 — 31st in the NFL.
With pre-snap motion? Rodgers completed 175 of 249 passes on 270 dropbacks for 1,806 yards, 714 air yards, 15 touchdowns, four interceptions, and a passer rating of 107.3 — eighth-best in the NFL.
Motion has helped Rodgers throughout his career, whether he likes it or not, because when you can read the field at a post-graduate level like he can, why not benefit from all that pre-snap frosting?
"It's a conversation in progress," Rodgers told veteran journalist Mike Silver in June of 2019. "I don't think you want to ask me to turn off 11 years [of recognizing defenses]. We have a number of check with mes and line-of-scrimmage stuff. It's just the other stuff that really not many people in this league can do.
"That's not like a humblebrag or anything; that's just a fact. There aren't many people that can do at the line of scrimmage what I've done over the years. I mean, obviously, Tommy (Brady) can do it, no doubt. Peyton (Manning) could do it. Drew (Brees) can do it. (Patrick) Mahomes will be able to do it. Ben (Roethlisberger) has called the two-minute for years. There are a few of us who've just done it; it's kind of second nature. And that's just the icing on the cake for what I can do in this offense."
But when the cake is a bit older, and perhaps not as flavorful, why not improve the frosting? Another interesting note about motion is that Davante Adams, his best buddy from their Green Bay days, did not have a single target in 2024 in which he was the target in motion. Not one. Adams will get a lot more of that with the Los Angeles Rams, his new team.
The 2024 Steelers were in condensed formations 38% of the time, and both Fields and Wilson benefited from the confusion as to the outside/slot delineations when everyone is aligned in those tighter sets. The Jets were condensed on just 26% of their formations, but when they were, Rodgers completed 93 of 138 passes for 866 yards, eight touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 100.7.
So, maybe it's time for Rodgers to understand that at this point in his career, he needs a bit more schematic assistance to get things done.
If Rodgers is able to do that, and the Steelers got themselves even 70-80% of what he was at his peak, that might be enough to get over the middle-tier bog this franchise has found itself in for far too long. That might make Rodgers worth all of the attendant drama — the passive-aggressive shots at coaches and teammates, the belief that there are certain rules for him and separate rules for others, and that everything on the team flows through him.
It might take an extra ayahuasca gathering or two to get to that point, but if Rodgers is unable to accept what he can and can't do, no amount of hope, and no amount of talent around him, will allow him to transcend his predecessors to the extent that it would matter in the postseason — which is all anybody in the Steel City cares about these days.
(All advanced metrics courtesy ofPro Football Focus andSports Info Solutions).