Ever since it first was reported quarterback Aaron Rodgers might join the Steelers for the 2025 NFL season, all the way back before the other March Madness had begun, I’ve spent a lot of time pondering the proper usage of the verb “debase”.
Like, is “debase” the ideal word to describe an organization disregarding a defined commitment to its community, to the ideals that led to the adoption of the “Rooney Rule”, to the stability that has seen only three head coaches run the team since 1969 and all of them win at least one Super Bowl?
Yeah, turns out, it is.
Definition No. 2, according to Dictionary.com: To lower in rank, dignity or significance.
The news that Rodgers soon would sign a contract with the team and report in advance of the June 10-12 mandatory mini-camp underscored a striking reality: the Steelers were clearly willing to lower the standard. And they were willing to do so in hopes a 41-year-old might reach a level of performance he has not approached in literally four years.
Rodgers has remained in the news throughout this decade more for disseminating ignorance and offering misleading responses to legitimate questions – “I’ve been immunized”, remember? – than for anything he’s done as a quarterback. Since the Packers made the playoffs and scored only 10 points in a first-round defeat in the 2021 season, his record as a starting QB is 14-21. His passer rating is 90.71, which would have ranked 18th among those who started at least six games, including both of the players who filled the position for the Steelers in 2024.
The team had legitimate opportunities to sign either Justin Fields or Russell Wilson to continue at quarterback in 2025.
Fields, who led the team to a 4-2 start last season, agreed to join the Jets for $40 million over two years, with 75 percent of that guaranteed. He made such an impression on his teammates that franchise icon Cam Heyward told the Rich Eisen Show, “Justin’s a class act. He’s a guy that works his tail off and wants to lead by example. I was kind of bummed it didn’t work out here. I thought we were going to have a chance to get him. But I know that dude is going to dominate in New York.”
MORE: Steelers’ timeline of QBs
Wilson, who took over the starting job after he recovered from an injury, chose the Giants and $10.5 million guaranteed for one year. CBS Sports analyst Bill Cowher, who reached the Pro Football Hall of Fame and won Super Bowl 40 as Steelers head coach, told Dan Patrick Wilson was the “best choice” for the team’s 2025 season.
Steelers legend Terry Bradshaw told an Arkansas radio station the pursuit of Rodgers was “a joke.”
This is far more than a baffling football decision. It’s a convenient evasion of an organizational culture that has led to the Steelers owning the most victories, the best winning percentage, the most league championships and most division titles of any team since the 1970 NFL/AFL merger. In the past 30 years, they’ve posted only three losing seasons.
Rodgers chose not to sign in time to participate in OTAs (offseason training activities), which are not required under the collective bargaining agreement. Every projected QB starter in the league participated – including Buffalo’s Josh Allen, who was days away from his wedding to movie star Hailee Steinfeld – except one. Rodgers has cited personal reasons for his reluctance to agree to a deal or show up in Pittsburgh prior to this, but those reasons did not interfere with him making another vapid appearance on ESPN’s Pat McAfee show in April.
In the Netflix documentary, “Aaron Rodgers: Enigma”, the opening of the first episode is devoted to him beating considerable odds – essentially not recruited, forced to play in junior college to prove his worth as a Division I prospect – to get the chance to start at California as a junior. A smidge more than a half-hour in, though, former Bears star Marshawn Lynch explains how quickly Rodgers began to ignore the instructions of his coaches.
MORE: Revisiting Aaron Rodgers’ win over Mike Tomlin, Steelers, in Super Bowl 45
“There were a couple times, he’d pull me to the sideline: ‘I want you to run that little bubble.’ I’m like, ‘You know I can’t do that.’ He’d be like, ‘I ain’t trippin’ off what the coaches say. This is what I’m telling you to do.’ ”
Make of it what you will, but in Rodgers’ time in Green Bay and New York, two different head coaches lost their jobs: Mike McCarthy after the Packers had won five division championships and reached two NFC championship games in the previous seven years, and Robert Saleh not long after he guided the Jets to a 7-10 record despite losing Rodgers to injury just minutes into his first game.
What about any of this sounds like the Steelers?
If this were the Aaron Rodgers of 2011, who led the Packers to 14 wins in 15 starts, passed for 45 touchdowns and led the league with a 122.5 passer rating, it would be logical for the team to risk that he would engage enough with his teammates and follow enough of his coaches’ instructions for the culture to remain intact while he conjured magical things with his legs and right arm. That Rodgers was gone well before he tore his achilles in his introduction to Jets fans.
The Steelers are disregarding their history, what has made them special and often extraordinary, to sign the quarterback they held to 15 points and 5.28 adjusted yards per attempted and picked off twice. One would have imagined the coaches and management had a pretty fair view of that Rodgers debacle, but it was a Sunday night game. Maybe they all dozed off.
MORE: The 70s Steelers own the history the modern Chiefs are chasing
