It is both our blessing and curse as Americans that we have an uncanny ability to toss aside recent history and place all our hopes and beliefs behind the strange man on television. How many Pittsburgh Steelers fans a year ago were mocking Aaron Rodgers on Oct. 20, 2024, when the then–New York Jets quarterback threw two interceptions against Pittsburgh in an outright stomping at the (former) ketchup factory? 

Now Rodgers is something of a prize; a perceived upgrade from a year ago when the Steelers had both Justin Fields and Russell Wilson on the roster. The Steelers would be seen as winning him away from the New York Giants if Rodgers, indeed, decides to sign with Pittsburgh. And, God bless New York, which—should he sign with Pittsburgh—would have the unfortunate distinction of having shown the world that it must settle for its third choice after Matthew Stafford’s and Rodgers’s decisions. Losing out on Rodgers, a quarterback that is as bizarre a fit for the sterling silver franchise as a suit and tie at Woodstock, would now be considered a monumental travesty. 

While I, fellow Americans, would be just as excited as anyone else to see Pittsburgh go 10–7 and lose in the wild-card round (but with panache this time!) or see New York get swept by the Philadelphia Eagles by a lesser margin, I don’t see how the two- and possibly still three-team chase for a 41-year-old quarterback is anything other than a disappointing indictment on the league as a whole. 

We are watching the second college quarterback class in four years that may produce only one starting-caliber quarterback (the Steelers, drafters of Kenny Pickett in 2022, know the unreliability of this route), and we’re forced to wonder about the efficacy of the current collegiate system. Once praised by coaches for an ability to provide quarterbacks with a heavier volume of reps—Jayden Daniels, Bo Nix and Michael Penix Jr. are perfect examples—the pipeline now seems to be plagued by a culture of pacification over development. 

And let’s not allow the NFL ecosystem off the hook here, either. One of the biggest points of misunderstanding among modern fans is that a position coach is often—not all the time, but often—more of an undersecretary to a coordinator instead of a developer. This doesn’t mean these coaches can’t do it. It just means that, due to limitations on practice time, their own duties as it pertains to their game-plan responsibilities and the subculture of football player offseason training that usually keeps them away from the facility and in the care of a nonaffiliated position specialist, that it’s really difficult to take a product that is somewhat raw and mold it into something sustainably great. The prizes of this free-agent quarterback class, Geno Smith and Sam Darnold, had to endure some truly dark times before they reached a point where they could be considered starters again. 

On the opening day of free agency, the NFL pulled back its curtain to reveal the sport’s two most storied blueblood, family-owned franchises, tussling over Rodgers. Say what you will about the Giants but before this moment, the team had essentially employed two franchise quarterbacks over the course of 20 years. After the retirement of their own positional golden goose Ben Roethlisberger, the Steelers have been similarly wayward. 

While we could write this off as the natural order of things—outside of the Green Bay Packers, it seems, all other franchises must spend some time dumpster diving at the position—these are the teams that should be a kind of continuing example of competence and nondesperation at the game’s most important position. It’s not like both teams haven’t tried to replenish in different ways. It’s not like they haven’t cycled through different successful offensive play-callers in order to try to bolster the success of those prospects. And, yet, here we are watching a pair of terriers scrapping over an apple core weeks before the start of offseason activities for a quarterback who may or may not even join the team for said optional practices; a player that, while still incredibly respected by those inside football (I can say with some degree of confidence that the Jets’ coaches and players were not nearly as tired of Rodgers as the owner by the end of the 2024 season), would not seem to fit the kind of lofty ethos that both franchises have carved out for themselves. 

Again, it may just be a bad period of time for the NFL and the position generally. It’s a popular sport among our lot to, once every five years, signal that there is some sort of massive crisis at the position before inheriting another generation of superstars (terror sells). And Rodgers, like a fern taken from a dirty microwave and transplanted into a forest, could end up truly thriving again now that he’s no longer a Jet. 

But for now, it’s important that we catch ourselves before labeling this acquisition a prize instead of the best that we can do in a bad situation.

Published Mar 12, 2025|Modified Mar 12, 2025