The Pittsburgh Steelers are all-in on 2025. You don’t sign QB Aaron Rodgers and trade for CB Jalen Ramsey, WR DK Metcalf, and TE Jonnu Smith otherwise. Lack of playoff success has been a constant theme in the team’s end-of-season press conferences in recent years. So, you add two and two together, and the Steelers are doing what they think is best to end their playoff futility this year.
But former NFL general manager Mike Tannenbaum thinks the Steelers’ prized quarterback addition is not going to help matters. He spoke Monday on Get Up, and he doesn’t like the combination of stats and age when it comes to Rodgers.
“The more I think about Aaron Rodgers and the data, it’s almost impossible, to me, that he will play well at 42 years old,” Tannenbaum said. “If we go back over the last three years, he was 26th in yards per attempt and 29th in QBR since 2022. The only players that were worse than him were Ryan Tannehill, Bryce Young, Mac Jones, and Will Levis.”
That is not the kind of company one wants to keep when it comes to quarterback play. Out of those four, only Bryce Young is slated to start in 2025. And Young did show some improvements in 2024, increasing his completion percentage, touchdown percentage, and yards per attempt over his rookie season in 2023.
But Aaron Rodgers turns 42 years old in December. He’s not entering his third year in the league and growing. He’s declining. The combination of age and statistical trend concerns Tannenbaum.
Then there’s history.
“Drew Brees and Tom Brady are the only two quarterbacks in the history of football to start a playoff game at that age,” Tannenbaum said. “All I’m saying is, when you think about it that way, it’s highly unlikely that he’s going to take three years’ worth of one trend and just switch it this season.”
Does any of this guarantee Aaron Rodgers will be a failure with the Steelers? Absolutely not. The Pittsburgh Steelers are much more stable than the New York Jets for whom Rodgers played the last two years. They won’t ask Rodgers to single-handedly win games very often. That’s why they invest in defense.
But in order for the Steelers to win this season, they’re going to have to overcome statistical trends and NFL history. That certainly can happen. But Tannenbaum doesn’t think so. Well, he does think one trend could end in Pittsburgh this year: head coach Mike Tomlin’s career.
“I think we’re on the precipice of this being Mike Tomlin’s last year,” Tannenbaum said. “This feels like Andy Reid in 2012 with the Philadelphia Eagles. A very amicable departing of a Hall of Fame coach.”
It’s hard to imagine the Steelers collapsing to a four-win season like the Eagles did in 2012. That would be breaking the trend of the Steelers not having losing seasons under Tomlin in a big way. It’s hard to imagine, but if the Steelers aren’t going to win a playoff game this year, Andrew Siciliano thinks a complete meltdown would be better than just the same old one-and-done pattern of the last decade. At least it would put them in a better spot to have a shot at a franchise quarterback.
