While the Pittsburgh Steelers finally have an answer at quarterback, there isn’t an answer as to how well Aaron Rodgers is going to play just yet. He finished the 2024 season on a positive note, but both he and the New York Jets were dreadful at times last year. However, that late-season run he had seems to have many excited.
That includes former NFL quarterback Phil Simms.
“I can say here, and I think I’m 100-percent right, [Rodgers] is in the best shape and changed his body a little bit to fit really who he is,” Simms said Thursday on his Simms Complete podcast. “You have an Achilles injury, like he had, it takes time for everything to come back 100 percent. At the end of the year, he was throwing the football. That arm, they need to cut it off and put it in some museum or whatever. If he’s given the opportunities, man, I think he’ll come through big time.”
After the Jets won two of their first three games last year, things quickly went downhill. But the version of Aaron Rodgers the Steelers saw last year, when they dominated the Jets at home in Week 7, isn’t the same version they’ll be getting this year.
The Jets’ offense showed some life early in that game, and that was around the time Rodgers was slowly looking better coming off his Achilles injury. However, he just wasn’t there yet. Rodgers did throw for more than 250 yards in four of his last five games, while throwing nine touchdown passes and six interceptions. Had he been able to play like that all season, the Jets might have been more successful. The Steelers are hoping they get a little luckier this year.
However, it might not matter if their defense plays poorly. That’s something Simms hopes the Steelers are able to avoid.
“Hey, Pittsburgh’s offense, what are you gonna do? I’m tired of hearing just about the quarterback. How about the defense play a little better also. That would always help,” Simms said.
There was no single issue that ruined the Steelers’ 2024 season. However, the defense’s lapses down the stretch really hurt them. They couldn’t stop anything on the ground, and miscommunications against the pass yielded chunk plays repeatedly. If the Steelers can’t fix both going into 2025, it might not matter how well Aaron Rodgers plays. They’ll need to play complementary football, which they didn’t do in 2024.
However, last year is last year. And communication seems to be something the defense is stressing this offseason. To be fair, the back half of the 2024 season is really the only time we’ve seen this unit consistently struggle. For much of the time in recent years it has carried a lackluster offense. Maybe this time the Steelers finally have the right quarterback to pair with that defense in Aaron Rodgers.
