Welcome back to your weekly Pittsburgh Steelers mailbag. As always, we’re here for the next hour to answer whatever is on your mind.
To your questions!
mem359:
For me, it doesn’t matter how good Rodgers looks now. His peak will be the same as when he was younger. I have concerns how he will hold up to a 17 game season (plus playoff games). It doesn’t matter how strong his arm looks now; mid-season will be a better indicator.
Reaching age 40 does not mean getting weaker. We learned that from Dara Torres in the 2008 Olympics, when she was a hundredth of a second from getting a gold medal against athletes half her age. What it does do is: he can’t give maximum effort as often, the drop-off from his peak will be faster and steeper, and it will take a lot more time to recover between efforts. If he doesn’t focus almost exclusively on rest and recovery, he will look tired on a regular basis.
Alex: That’s fair and I agree. Everyone looks good and healthy now. Especially quarterbacks who haven’t been hit since January. How it looks late in the year is what matters. The good news is Rodgers has been a durable quarterback throughout his career, 2023 Achilles tear aside. He played beat up the first half of last year but didn’t miss time and was much healthier down the stretch. Good to see someone in his 40s who didn’t wither away.
I’m sure Rodgers will be given plenty of time off and managed well during the season. Tomlin’s had vet QBs like Ben before whose mission was more about preserving than winning the summer or practice. And Rodgers himself is a health nut who probably does all he can to stay in shape. It just comes down to how well the o-line can protect him. Not just in pass pro, which is obvious enough, but in the run game so Rodgers isn’t throwing the ball nearly 600 times like last season.
Brian Tollini: This roster has went through some massive changes from last year. With the Steelers needing to not only have better starts in games, they also need to start quickly in the season when the schedule (on paper) is more in their favor. With the amount of change, I almost expect there to be some growing pains early on, do you agree?
Alex: That’s reasonable. At least there’s a lot of vets that may accelerate that process instead of a new and young group. But they gotta be able to get past that or at the least, find ways to win while going through those pains. Not just from the “on paper” aspect, I always find that dubious knowing how much can change, but in a competitive AFC and AFC North, a strong start is always important. Even knowing it couldn’t save them last year. Start strong and don’t have a four-game historic collapse and that’s a recipe to hang around in January.
CoSteel: I have seen the reports that they may go 04 personnel sometimes. Can you explain the benefit to this, if any? Would it be 4TE with a WR or a RB? Seems a little iffy.
Alex: It could be both. 14 personnel with a back and four tight ends or 04 with a receiver, likely DK Metcalf. It won’t be used a lot but I like the stress it puts on defenses. Do they came out with their run-stopping personnel against such a heavy package? If so, the offense can spread the field and throw with its athletic receivers. If defenses bring out more sub-package people to stop the pass, condense the formation and pound the rock. Even in 04 with no true running back, Jonnu Smith has a handful of NFL carries and messed around with it during one practice. So there’s always a running threat.
I like the idea a lot. And 13 personnel, which will be used far more often, can still offer a similar advantage.
Scorpio: Do you think that there is a WR out there in the NFL world that AR may have a preference to adding to his stable?
Alex: Oh I’m sure if you asked him or gave him the front office keys. But I don’t think the team will do just what he says. This won’t be Jets 2.0. Rodgers is playing more by the Steelers rules than his previous stops.
SteelCurtin570:
With the depth and versatility in all three levels of the defense do you think we’ll see significant changes, experimentation with alignments and assignments, more rotation to keep starters fresh for the long haul this year?
And a twofer- over/under on Washington receiving yards and TDs this year? Will they actually let him play TE??
Alex: More rotation, I’m not sure. Not for the sake of it. More specialization is common in Pittsburgh and around the NFL which creates natural rotation. But it’s more about keeping ahead of the chess match rather than keeping guys fresh. I think you’ll see new wrinkles. More blitzes, more aggressiveness, more pre-snap chaos than last year. Which at times felt too static.
I’ll have a stat prediction post before the season opens up. Not sure on Washington. Numbers still won’t be overwhelming but I sure hope better than last season.
Aaron Baker:
I was too late last mailbag lol so I will copy the question back today!
Alex,
Back in February, on a mailbag I was an advocate for signing Rodgers stating that he would give us the best chance to win now, if that was the goal.
Your response was that bringing him in wasn’t accomplishing anything because in 26 you would be right back in the soup of not having an idea of who your QB will be.
At the time as an exercise you just threw out some numbers saying maybe you go from a 5% chance to a 10% at competing for a SB.
My question is, after getting a chance to see Rodgers in action at camp and to see his level of “buy in” for this team. Has your opinion changed at all?
Alex: Hey Aaron! Ha, I remember that. And still have some of those reservations. I think we’ll all feel that way if the Steelers can’t make any progress this year in terms of playoff wins. And even if they do, there’s still a back to the drawing board feeling as Pittsburgh gets ready for six quarterbacks in six years. There’s still a wheel-spinning feel, though that was before all the other radical changes of Metcalf, Ramsey, etc. And before Justin Fields was no longer an option in my mind.
A 5-10-percent chance for the Super Bowl still sounds about right. I don’t put Pittsburgh in Tier 1 of the AFC. They’re still clearly behind Kansas City, Baltimore, and Buffalo. Cincinnati on their best day is probably a better team, too.
But I’ve also acknowledged warming up to Rodgers a little bit and once Fields came off the board and it was clear bringing back Russ was a non-starter, then Rodgers was the best QB left. And really the only option to have a chance in 2025. If Rodgers wasn’t the QB, the Super Bowl odds would be about zero.
Steel Rain:
Here’s one for you Alex: a lot of Steelers fans are rightly frustrated with the long streak of winning seasons without anything afterwards to show for it.
They reason, if they can’t win a playoff game in this long, they never will.
How do you view this and how do you still go about enjoying the Steelers after such frustration??
Alex: Well “never” is a long time. A playoff win will come at some point. But the frustration is fair. It’s not acceptable. Pittsburgh’s had too much talent and the expectations should be higher than just being happy to be there at the end of the regular season. The longer the streak mounts, the more frustration will grow. As it should be.
I still enjoy it because football is fun. There’s always something to watch and learn. It also being my job doesn’t hurt, either.
