The Steel Beat

It was always going to be this way. 

We may have thought that as the Steelers walked off of that frozen field on the North Shore, we had our last glimpse of the future Hall of Famer. Marching off the field, with the cameras around him as he disappeared into the tunnel leading to the locker room. 

Little did we know that the future HOFer that was walking his last steps at Acrisure was Mike Tomlin, and not Aaron Rodgers. 

Tomlin quit the next day as I was driving home to North Carolina. 

My immediate thought was “well, that seals the deal. Rodgers is done in Pittsburgh. He only came to the Steelers to play for ‘Mike T’”, as he affectionately called him. 

The timing wouldn’t be great for Rodgers to hang them up. Set aside that his last throw in the NFL would have been a pick 6 in a game where he and the rest of the Steelers offense looked abysmal. 

The 2026 QB Draft class was going to be less than stellar and Will Howard hasn’t thrown a pass that even remotely counted in the NFL. Mason Rudolph is a mid-level backup.

And then the Steelers hired Mike McCarthy. 

And the timing changed. 

We know the history between Rodgers and Big Mike. But that’s not why they brought him to Pittsburgh. They know it’s time to develop the next great Steelers QB. He wasn’t hired to lure back a 42 year old QB for one last fling. 

But all signs pointed towards this happening. Rodgers loved Pittsburgh. He loved his teammates. They loved him. He played well. 

He’s still a top 18-22 QB in the league. You don’t have players like Cam Heyward, TJ Watt, Jalen Ramsey, DK Metcalf….only to give them a mid QB. Or a 2nd year QB with zero NFL experience. Or a rookie QB who, by all accounts, is being torn down to the studs and rebuilt. 

You don’t make moves like Jaquon Brisker, Rico Dowdell, Jamal Deal and Michael Pittman, and not give them the best chance at playing deep into January.

This was always the plan. Rodgers was going to be the QB in Pittsburgh in 2026.