Aaron Rodgers had quite a peculiar two years with the New York Jets. He tore his Achilles tendon four plays into the first year, and spent most of the second one trying to get used to playing football again. Thus, expectations for his debut season with the Pittsburgh Steelers were all over the place.
While it’s been something of a mixed bag, the early returns on Rodgers are encouraging. He’s making the crucial throws when they matter, like the Steelers hoped he would. And for the first time in what feels like forever, the quarterback position isn’t one of the bigger problems on the Steelers’ roster. Despite that, CBS Sports’ Pete Prisco is grading him at a C+ through the first three weeks.
“By his standards, a C+,” Prisco said Wednesday on CBS Sports HQ. “By these other guys’ [other quarterbacks] standards, it probably would have been a B. But I’m used to Aaron Rodgers. Aaron Rodgers is usually Aaron Rodgers, and he hasn’t always been this-season Aaron Rodgers. There have been times where he’s struggled. He’s done some good things. I give him a C+ by his normal standard.”
Grading legendary quarterbacks on a different scale than others usually makes sense. It makes a little less sense when that quarterback is 41 years old. Although Prisco has been somewhat high on Rodgers, nobody expected him to come into the season in the MVP form we’ve seen from him.
It’s also a little hard to grade Aaron Rodgers, given how much the offense is struggling at times. They can’t run the ball, and even when passing, the offensive line isn’t giving him as much time as he needs. It’s causing the offense to actually rely on Rodgers a bit too much, which wasn’t really an expectation coming into the year. That worked to the tune of four touchdowns and a 34-point effort in Week 1. But since then, the offense hasn’t gotten away with Rodgers carrying them to victory.
For the most part, Rodgers has been good. He’s completing 65.1-percent of his attempts and has 586 yards, seven touchdowns, three interceptions and a passer rating of 97.3 on the year.
Those are solid numbers, but the end result hasn’t been a high-functioning offense. The good news is that the Steelers don’t need Aaron Rodgers to play at such a high level. He’s been more than good enough. If the offensive line can improve and the Steelers can run the ball successfully, the Steelers shouldn’t need more from him than he’s provided so far.
