Are the Steelers lost? Pittsburgh is banking on Aaron Rodgers to save franchise from drama, mediocrity

The Pittsburgh Steelers pride themselves on tradition. Six Super Bowl wins. The NFL’s longest-tenured head coach. Black and gold uniforms that have rarely been tweaked. They are what you might call one of the dignitaries of football history, established in the earliest days of the NFL and still graced with some of the league’s premier matchups, like the NFL’s first foray into Ireland this fall.

Unfortunately, legacy doesn’t always equate to contemporary impact. “Star Wars” was a cultural phenomenon at the tail end of the 1970s, right around the same time the Steelers were the NFL’s dynastic powerhouse. Today, “Star Wars” is an oversaturated made-for-streaming brand, and the Steelers are the NFL equivalent, living off residuals and banking on nostalgia without lasting results.

Is this an unreasonable critique of a franchise that last suffered a losing record in 2003, the year 50 Cent dropped “In Da Club” and George W. Bush was halfway through his first term? Does consistency warrant no respect anymore? Surely fans of downtrodden, dysfunctional teams like the Cleveland Browns and New York Jets would kill to have even half the Steelers’ annual success.

The problem is, the Steelers tout their higher bar — “The standard is the standard,” coach Mike Tomlin often quips — like it still applies to their operation. What is the standard? Winning titles? That hasn’t occurred since 2008, when Ben Roethlisberger was 26 years old. Winning conference championships? That hasn’t happened since 2010, when Aaron Rodgers was the trophy-wielding face of the Green Bay Packers, not the 41-year-old “missing piece” of the very Steelers team he conquered in Super Bowl XLV. Winning just a single playoff game? Nope. Not since 2016.

The Steelers deserve credit for staying relevant. But only in the sense that “relevant” means annually eligible for an ugly one-and-done postseason appearance. In the time since “the standard” last translated to a Pittsburgh playoff victory, the Kansas City Chiefs have drafted Patrick Mahomes and made five Super Bowls, the nearby Philadelphia Eagles have made three Super Bowls and won two (with two different sets of coaches and quarterbacks), and the rival Cincinnati Bengals have made two AFC title games. Only seven NFL teams have longer active playoff-win droughts.

Longest playoff-win droughts

But don’t worry, Tomlin has never had a losing record! We should all fear that Steelers defense!

Perhaps this is too harsh. Perhaps the Steelers really do deserve the benefit of the doubt. If you hang around long enough, after all, you’re bound to get over the hump eventually. It’s what defined Andy Reid’s career, in a way, going from longtime would-be champion with the Eagles to repeat trophy-winner in Kansas City.

The difference is that Reid and his Chiefs, and even the Eagles that followed his Philly tenure, always adapted offensively (and had some elite quarterbacking to help). The Steelers, meanwhile, have been stumbling all over themselves in search of a dance partner since the final sluggish seasons of Roethlisberger’s reign.

They closed their eyes and smashed the red button in 2022, spending a first-round draft pick on Kenny Pickett, only to saddle the young signal-caller with iffy staffing and support, then ship him out of town entirely once he soured on his hometown team a couple years later. They proactively pillaged the bargain bin with Russell Wilson and Justin Fields, only to let both veterans walk after another aggressively mediocre January finish. And now they’re entering summer 2025 — Year 19 of the Tomlin regime — with every chip pushed onto Rodgers, who waited until June to make a firm commitment to the organization.

It’s not easy to go from one long-term quarterback answer to the next, a la the Packers with Brett Favre to Rodgers to Jordan Love. Sometimes — oftentimes — taking lumps is required. In this way, however, the Steelers’ “standard” of perpetual wild-card contention has actually worked against them. 

Like, say, the New Orleans Saints, who until this offseason refused for years to embrace a full rebuild, forever gazing at the past peaks of the Drew Brees-Sean Payton reign, the Steelers have avoided the potential fruits of a total teardown — at quarterback, atop the staff, etc. — by always prioritizing quick fixes. Is that smart, given Tomlin’s ability to coax a winner out of any roster? Or is it delusional, given his inability to top true contenders down the stretch?

Steelers’ QB investments since Ben Roethlisberger

As we stand here in 2025, it’s probably true that Rodgers was the Steelers’ best remaining bet at quarterback. He’s aging, but he can still sling the rock. He certainly offers a higher ceiling than Mason Rudolph, whose recent internal endorsements should ring a bit hollow considering Pittsburgh literally let the career backup leave town immediately following his brief 2023 takeover.

Just because Rodgers was the best arm available doesn’t mean Pittsburgh is off the hook for reaching this point. The guy who left the Jets in ruin and barely stayed upright while doing so is your grand plan? That’s at least a little concerning.

We could’ve said the same thing about the Jets of two years ago. When Rodgers was approaching 40, coming off a so-so finale with the Packers, was he an upgrade for New York? An understandable win-now gamble? Sure. But the primary reason Rodgers chose the Jets wasn’t because New York was a shining beacon of potential Super Bowl glory, but because he knew his time was up in Green Bay and his market around the NFL was no longer incredibly robust. And the primary reason the Jets bet on Rodgers’ impact — not so much his upside, but his past results — was because they were absolutely desperate for help.

Is anyone surprised, in retrospect, that the entire marriage proved both short-lived and akin to a reality-TV circus? No. Not really. That’s what makes the Jets the Jets. But the real question is, are the present-day Steelers that far off? That’s not to say the two are comparable in the NFL standings; Steelers fans can at least bank on sniffing the playoffs every fall, which is a lot more than can be said for Gang Green faithful. Failure to meet internal standards, however, is just part of what makes Pittsburgh such a curious franchise right now. There’s also the team’s evident appetite for — or at least tolerance of — sideshow drama.

Love or hate Rodgers, he is an outsized presence and increasingly public personality. He acts and sounds off as he pleases. Now, he’s earned that platform as a future Hall of Famer. And he may well face too much scrutiny for it. But the fact he dominated the Steelers’ news cycle for months, even before putting pen to paper to play for the team, is just par for the course in Pittsburgh these days. Far from the buttoned-up outfit they’re often portrayed as, the Steelers might be one of the NFL’s most riotous assemblies — darn near attracted to tabloid fodder — during their near-decade of playoff stagnation.

When Roethlisberger retired in 2022, the franchise great indicated certain factions of the front office wanted him back, arguing the alleged divide all but forced him to hang up the cleats. Before the ill-tempered George Pickens was traded out of the wide receiver room this offseason, there was Le’Veon Bell, Antonio Brown, Martavis Bryant, Chase Claypool, Diontae Johnson — a whole cast of talented playmakers whose locker-room volatility bought them unceremonious exits.

These weren’t bottom-of-the-roster malcontents. They were front-facing standouts who simply couldn’t stick under the Steelers’ standards. Or were they just products of that standard? Tomlin is a revered leader who often gets heralded for running a tight ship despite employing plenty of colorful characters. Are we sure his Steelers aren’t just a wellspring of players destined to disrupt? Is Pittsburgh really good at maximizing troubled talents before cutting them loose, or does the team just have an unhealthy attachment to such projects? What about finding elite players stable enough to retain for the long term?

There are exceptions, of course: T.J. Watt, Cameron Heyward, Minkah Fitzpatrick. It just so happens most of those gems fall on the defensive side of the ball. It’s the spots critical to modern-day success — you know, quarterback, receiver, etc. — that have either been fumbled or filled with short fuses in Western Pennsylvania.

Maybe, just maybe, the Steelers will finally right the ship with Rodgers at the helm. Maybe they have a longer-term solution up their sleeves. And maybe that something is an unspoken commitment to mining the 2026 quarterback class for a true savior. But even that should be considered something of a pipe dream. We’re old enough to remember scouts suggesting teams desperate for quarterbacks wait for the 2023 class just for the mere possibility of landing … Bryce Young. Literally every single quarterback class is barely even a 50-50 proposition in terms of who pans out and who doesn’t. Are we to believe the Steelers front office that handpicked and quickly dumped Pickett is equipped to right that wrong next time around?

Terry Bradshaw, the most accomplished Steelers quarterback of all-time, might’ve been letting his emotions fly when he described the current club this offseason as a “joke” and “failure” for its pursuit of Rodgers. Yet it’s hard not to consider his perspective when Pittsburgh’s abundance of high-profile drama rarely supersedes its big-game production. Or when a pattern of actions that lends itself to being “just good enough” takes precedent over the necessary pains of an overhaul. Winning cures everything, they say, and the issue in Steel City hasn’t necessarily been winning; it’s been winning games that matter. Tomlin has done that before. The Steelers have done that before. No one can take that away from them.

Now it’s time — beyond time — for them to make “the standard” mean something again. They’d better hope Rodgers can be a better savior now, in Pittsburgh, than he was for a fellow AFC hopeful farther east.

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Author: Cody Benjamin
June 5, 2025 | 4:10 pm