With Aaron Rodgers in the fold, the Pittsburgh Steelers are in line to get their best quarterback play since Ben Roethlisberger. Not that it’s exactly a high bar to clear. Rodgers looked both good and bad in 2024, and there’s no telling how that might translate to 2025, with him turning 42 late in the season.
Rodgers’ career arc has been eerily similar to that of Brett Favre, the player Rodgers took over for in Green Bay where his career began. Favre’s final stop was with the Minnesota Vikings, and in his first year he had a tremendous season, leading them all the way to the NFC Championship Game. Former NFL scout John Middlekauff thinks that if Rodgers can play even just 80 percent as well as Favre did that year, he’ll be well worth it for the Steelers.
“If he were to get this team to double-digit wins, and win a playoff game, it’d be a nice little way to go off,” Middlekauff said Tuesday on FS1’s The Herd. “If you could give me 80 percent of that Minnesota Favre season, sign me up. That was so entertaining.”
Keeping that in mind, it wasn’t all excellence for Favre in Minnesota. After his first year, things did not go as well the following season. In 2010, Favre won just five of his 13 starts and looked like a shell of himself. To be fair, he turned 41 that season, which is far older than most even get to play.
However, there lies the potential issue with Aaron Rodgers. Favre is an example of a 41-year-old quarterback who won just five games in his final year. Rodgers turned 41 late last season and could only bring the Jets to a 5-12 record. However, there is a big difference between the two, and that would be the Achilles injury Rodgers suffered at the beginning of the 2023 season.
Coming back just a year removed from that to start the 2024 season, Rodgers just did not look comfortable. As the year progressed, things got better. In his final five games, Rodgers finally started to look like the same player we used to know, although those games didn’t really mean anything. Still, the Steelers seem to be happy with the shape he’s in. And they likely view that final stretch of the season as the Rodgers they’ll get in 2025.
Regardless, Middlekauff doesn’t think this Steelers team is capable of making any real noise.
“We didn’t see that coming with Favre,” Middlekauff said. “Most people thought he was shot, and he was incredible that year. They got to sneak up on some people. This Steelers team, I don’t think is going to be sneaking up on anybody.”
At the end of the day, the Steelers don’t need Aaron Rodgers to light the league up. They have the defense to keep them in games regardless. If Kaleb Johnson and Jaylen Warren can help the Steelers establish a consistent running game, that would be a massive help for Rodgers as well. Favre was an example of an older quarterback on a new team finding some success. If Rodgers could come close to that, the Steelers could end up making some noise come January.
Even if Middlekauff doesn’t think so.
