It's now May 12, and we still don't have an answer on what Aaron Rodgers will do with the Pittsburgh Steelers, now or in the future.
It's a very unfortunate situation in Pittsburgh, though hopefully the organization knows, behind the scenes, whether he's returning or not.
With how old Rodgers is, and considering how much money he's already made throughout his career and that this isn't a contract problem, it's very frustrating that he continues to do what he does. Regardless, this isn't something that's going to change at this point unless they tell him to take a walk and go find another team.
But if Rodgers does return, there's a lot that I want to see changed in Pittsburgh, though that's somewhat difficult to do with a quarterback who's already in his 40s. The Steelers didn't have a great run game at times, and the pass game wasn't exactly efficient, either. Because of that, Rodgers was typically put in obvious passing situations, ones in which defenses were ready for.
“According to this particular DC, what you saw as the blueprint for attacking Rodgers last year was, when defenses got the Steelers in obvious passing situations, the focus was on changing the picture on him coverage-wise as much as possible and trying to get free rushers at him. The logic there: While you won’t fool him, you’re cooked if you give him the answers to the test. And if you can get him to hold the ball for a second longer and you can hit him, you can aggravate him.
“Schematically, there was a shift too in how he was defended coverage-wise. In the past, when teams played him in man, it was usually with a single-high safety, then a spy to cover for all the defenders who had their back to the ball. Last year, the Steelers increasingly saw ‘two-man’ looks—two safeties high and man coverage underneath—with opponents feeling less of a need to spy Rodgers the way defenses traditionally have, while having more freedom to do what they need to to get defenders around Rodgers’s feet,” Albert Breer wrote.
Having free rushers on Rodgers is obviously never ideal because of how old he is. Not only is he probably one big hit away from dealing with a tough injury due to his age, but it isn't like the guy can move at this stage of his career too well, either.
The Steelers will probably have to change that or try to do things to fix it for things to work out.