With every passing day, Aaron Rodgers attracts stronger and stronger skepticism about his means to put money into the Pittsburgh Steelers. For a lot of weeks, he has saved them at arm’s size, no less than from an outdoor perspective. Brazenly stating he’s specializing in his private life, his timeline is reaching a key milestone.
This coming week, the Steelers open OTAs, and no person appears to anticipate that Aaron Rodgers will present up. He can’t with no signed contract, in fact, and he doesn’t have one. The Steelers have a suggestion on the desk for him, but it surely’s gathering mud at this level. Former NFL OL Ross Tucker simply doesn’t see how somebody who actually values soccer would behave on this method.
“I might simply argue it’s not essential sufficient to him. If it had been essential sufficient to him, he can be in Pittsburgh proper now,” Tucker stated of Aaron Rodgers on the Kaboly + Mack podcast. “He can be with these guys, making an attempt to get them to have a profitable 12 months.”
The Jets launched Rodgers earlier this offseason after a disappointing, injury-marred two years. Whereas a number of groups expressed curiosity, the Steelers all the time gave the impression to be the most probably choice. Particularly as different choices dwindled, it appeared to be Pittsburgh or retirement.
Whereas Tucker doesn’t essentially assume Rodgers will retire, he questions his willingness to decide to the Steelers or any staff. “He’d slightly be in California”, he stated, whereas including that he does imagine Rodgers desires to play and to win. “I believe he cares about all that stuff. To me, he simply doesn’t care sufficient”.
And in the end, what it comes right down to is worth. How a lot worth does Aaron Rodgers actually supply the Steelers, not even relative to what their different choices are for this season, however for what potential he represents? Tucker doesn’t assume the possible payoff deserves the sport of riddles it takes to get there.
“What’s best-case state of affairs? Best possible-case state of affairs is that they perhaps win a playoff sport — which, by the way in which, I extremely doubt,” Tucker stated. If Rodgers had been to steer the Steelers to a playoff win, it could be their first since 2016. However that’s a tall order, particularly being within the AFC North with the Ravens and Bengals. That just about ensures that, in the event that they do make the playoffs, it’s on the highway as a Wild Card staff.
“They’re not beating the Payments in Buffalo; they’re not beating Lamar [Jackson] and the Ravens; they’re not beating the Chiefs,” he stated of an Aaron Rodgers-led Steelers staff. “So, who’re they enjoying within the playoffs, the place they’re even profitable that sport? It simply looks as if quite a bit to perform, actually not a lot. It looks as if a variety of bending and yielding to be in the identical place they’ve been for some time now.”
Whereas the Steelers perceive Aaron Rodgers isn’t a long-term answer, their pursuit of him does seem like aimed toward merely checking off that “win a playoff sport” field. For as a lot as Steelers followers are uninterested in “by no means had a dropping season,” they need folks to lastly be unable to say “haven’t received a playoff sport since 2016.”
