Jason McIntyre, often Colin Cowherd’s co-host on FS1’s The Herd, hasn’t been positive about the Pittsburgh Steelers. At all. He thought they would go 7-10 before the season. Then, when they started winning, it wasn’t because they were playing well, it was because other teams were handing them games.
It’s been a long, long time since McIntyre has said anything positive about the Steelers. And that continued this week, as on Friday’s episode of The Herd, McIntyre said that Aaron Rodgers will be in for a “rude awakening” against the Green Bay Packers defense.
“How do you square this with Rodgers facing the Jets defense, which is abysmal, we know that. The Seahawks defense, he did not cook, they lost. The Patriots defense, he was ok in that game, he didn’t win it, remember the Patriots had five turnovers,” McIntyre said. “Then you face the Vikings in London, as we saw last night, the Vikings’ defense is a joke. The Cleveland Browns’ defense doesn’t travel, didn’t show up in Pittsburgh after the London trip. And then the Bengals last week, he destroyed them, but the Bengals can’t stop anybody.”
“So now all of a sudden you gotta face a top-10 defense after not facing one for five, six weeks? I think this is gonna be a bit of a rude awakening for Rodgers. I like the Packers here.”
What McIntyre fails to mention is that the Steelers’ offensive line has made positive strides and that Rodgers has looked more mobile in recent weeks. Also, the Browns entered that Week 6 matchup as a highly touted defensive unit, but he can make the easy excuse that they didn’t travel. It doesn’t discount that Steelers kept Myles Garrett largely out of the box score and Rodgers played well.
It’s a tougher task against the Packers this week, but Pittsburgh will get Calvin Austin III back healthy, and it’s an offense that’s really made strides in recent weeks. McIntyre isn’t wrong about the Packers being a more difficult defensive matchup than the Bengals last week, and they do boast a talented defense that operates well under defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley. But something tells me that even if the Steelers were playing the Saints this week, McIntyre would have some reason to think that Rodgers and the Steelers will struggle.
The Steelers also enter this matchup as the more well-rested team, which could play a part. They had a mini bye after a Thursday night game in Week 7, while the Packers had a multi-hour flight delay on Saturday and looked sloppy for much of their game in Arizona against the Cardinals. Backup Arizona QB Jacoby Brissett threw for 279 yards and two scores against a Packers defense that McIntyre thinks will be a rude awakening for Rodgers.
We’ll see if he’s right, but it sounds like just another case of McIntyre looking for a reason to denigrate Rodgers and the Steelers’ success.
