PITTSBURGH — Aaron Rodgers and Mike Tomlin share a aggressive stubbornness. An inherent conceitedness too.
Whereas that hardly makes them outliers within the alpha-driven NFL, their means to maintain the realities of the sport they’ve helped outline at bay for therefore lengthy does.
Coaches aren’t imagined to go practically twenty years with out experiencing a shedding season. Tomlin has.
Quarterbacks aren’t imagined to get better from an Achilles harm of their 40s and return to throw for practically 4,000 yards. Rodgers did.
Perhaps they’ve lengthy sensed this shared “otherness.” Perhaps that’s why they’ve made it a degree throughout their occasional skilled conferences to make GIF-worthy eye contact, a non-verbal method of claiming “sport acknowledge sport.”
So maybe it’s becoming that two males who imagine the foundations don’t essentially apply to them will share the sideline this fall in a season that would function a symbolic final stand for his or her worldview.
Rodgers is keen to maneuver previous two bizarre years in New York, the place he generated extra headlines than victories.
Tomlin has stored churning out successful seasons, probably on the expense of discovering the franchise quarterback that rival groups — groups the Steelers have been so frantically, if futilely, chasing for years — have in abundance.
‘Our enterprise is successful’
But reasonably than maintain Russell Wilson or Justin Fields — each of whom the Steelers let stroll in free company after main them to a 10-7 mark final fall — or roll the cube with Mason Rudolph or use a first-round decide in April on an important place, by signing Rodgers the Steelers are doing what they at all times have achieved for the final 50-plus years.
They’re attempting to win. Now. There may be the Aristocracy in that, to make sure. Glory, nonetheless, is one other factor solely.
Whereas Rudolph made himself a quasi-folk hero after coming off the bench down the stretch in 2023 to guide the Steelers to the playoffs, there’s little doubt that Rodgers is the best choice out there — even when watching the Steelers spend two-plus months hat in hand, ready for him to commit, brought on franchise icon and Corridor of Famer Terry Bradshaw to name his previous crew’s pursuit of the four-time MVP “a joke.”
But shedding isn’t any laughing matter to a coach who counts “our enterprise is successful” amongst his many Tomlinisms.
Using with Rudolph or (finally) rookie sixth-round decide Will Howard would have include a excessive danger/reward. Both they might have been profitable and the Steelers would have discovered “their man” or they might stumble and the crew would land inside the highest 12 within the draft with out having to commerce to get there for the primary time since taking Ben Roethlisberger eleventh in 2004.
Playing, nonetheless, is just not Tomlin’s method.
Enjoying it secure
For all of his inherent swagger, Tomlin’s method stays cautious. In a league during which scoring is paramount, Tomlin stays fixated on successful the turnover battle and avoiding errors, hoping in the long run his crew might be on the appropriate facet of a 20-17 sport.
A little bit most of the time, it’s. Till the playoffs come round anyway. Then the Steelers usually discover themselves going towards a crew with a greater quarterback, no less than on that given day, than the one they make use of, the protection struggles and all of the speak of a run to a seventh Tremendous Bowl title shortly vanishes.
Enter Rodgers, who’s hoping to place a extra constructive coda on the top of his profession than what would have been tacked on had he determined to step away after a depressing 5-12 slog with the Jets final season.
Rodgers pressured throughout his methodical decision-making course of that he wouldn’t decide to any crew till he was certain he may totally make investments.
Apparently he reached that time Thursday, conveniently just a few hours after his soon-to-be teammates wrapped up two weeks of voluntary organized crew actions. He possible will move the bodily that may ratify his one-year deal in time to trot out onto the follow subject on the Steelers facility for the beginning of the upcoming obligatory minicamp when the angst over his future will morph into angst over how a lot life stays in his 41-year-old legs.
An age-old debate
Rodgers turns 42 in December. The record of quarterbacks who’ve gained a playoff sport at 42 or older begins and stops with Tom Brady.
For Rodgers to affix that record, he’ll have to remain wholesome behind a younger offensive line that struggled at occasions to guard Wilson and Fields, develop chemistry with a large receiver group that’s largely unproven outdoors of lately acquired two-time Professional Bowler DK Metcalf and take a look at to ensure the quantity on the noise that accompanies him wherever the avid conspiracy theorist goes doesn’t drown out the team-first tone Tomlin is attempting to set.
It’s lots to ask, although Rodgers possible will are available motivated, properly conscious {that a} portion (albeit a small one) of his legacy is at stake.
The stress Tomlin faces might be completely different. Standard knowledge suggests it’s lastly time for the Steelers to get off the treadmill of “fairly good however hardly nice” by taking an overdue step again.
Standard knowledge, nonetheless, doesn’t have a protection with an ageless All-Professional defensive deal with, a future Corridor of Fame outdoors linebacker on the again facet of his prime and a perennial Professional Bowl security.
The Steelers do.
Cussed? Or caught?
Tomlin feels he owes it to Cam Heyward, T.J. Watt and Minkah Fitzpatrick to maximise 2025, even when it probably leaves them in a well-known place subsequent April when the draft involves Pittsburgh: with a first-round decide within the low 20s and no quarterback of the long run on the roster.
If it occurs, so be it. Tomlin has no plans to apologize for the way in which he goes about his job.
5 months in the past, not lengthy after one other fast playoff exit, this time by the hands of the Baltimore Ravens, he shrugged when requested if the Steelers had been “caught.”
“Caught is type of a helpless feeling,” the NFL’s longest-tenured coach mentioned with a contact of disdain. “And I don’t know that I really feel helpless.”
Helpless? No. But reasonably than name a tow truck, the Steelers are revving the engine within the hopes their tires don’t spin in useless however discover slightly grip amid all that mud.
The road between aggressive stubbornness and plain previous stubbornness together with the one between a wholesome conceitedness and prideful ignorance are fairly skinny.
Tomlin, Rodgers and the Steelers appear intent on getting an up-close take a look at each.