The Ringer NFL Show - Aaron Rodgers Signs With the Pittsburgh Steelers

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

Sheil, Steven, and Diante get together for an emergency pod to share their instant reactions to the news that quarterback Aaron Rodgers has signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia, Steven Ruiz, and Diante LeeProducer: Chris SuttonSocial: Kiera GivensProduction Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you hear the word Seattle Supersonics, what comes to mind? Maybe it's Sean Kemp, The Rain Man, or Gary Payton, the glove, or maybe an image of a tall and skinny 19-year-old rookie, Kevin Duran. For fans in Seattle, it's something else. It's tragedy. It's theft. An iconic team with an incredible fan base that packed its bags and shipped off for Oklahoma City. From Spotify and The Ringer, I'm Jordan Ritter-Con.

And in my podcast, Sonic Boom, I talk to players, politicians, owners, and fans about how Seattle lost the Sonics. You can listen to it on the Book of Basketball feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Emergency pod time. Shield Kapati here on the Ringer NFL show. You're joined by Deonté Lee and Stephen Ruiz. We are working on a divisional preview episode and then we check our Slack messages. And there it is.

Our long national nightmare is over. Aaron Rogers is a picture. Pittsburgh Steeler. I don't know who reported it first because it just happened. I'm looking at NFL Network and Ian Rappaportes. Aaron Rogers plans to sign with the Steelers. It will be a one-year deal at long last the fourth time MVP lands in his best spot. Okay, I don't know if I agree with the editorializing there, but we can bat it around.

Aaron Rogers to the Steelers speculated for a long time. I think everybody assumed it was going to happen at some point. it finally does happen. There are a few ways to discuss this, Ruiz, but first just give me your sort of general reaction on Aaron Rogers playing for Mike Tomlin next year. I mean, it's going to be fascinating to watch how those two kind of clash, obviously.

We've seen, you know, Mike Tomlin, I think, prefers guys to kind of keep things in-house and we've seen Aaron Rogers be a guy that does not want to keep things in-house, as long as it suits his narrative. But from a football perspective, I think it's the best quarterback they've had, in the past couple of years since Ben Rathesberger officially lost it, and I would say 2020 was probably the year. I mean, if you're them, I think it was the best option they had,

realistically, to gain a quarterback who can get them over the hump and maybe win a playoff game this time. But it comes down to how good the infrastructure is going to be around him. Because I think the one thing we could say for sure is that Aaron Rogers no longer has that. I can extend the play, make things happen outside of the pocket, and I'm a dangerous threat to the defense. I just don't think he's there anymore.

He's a guy that has to be in the pocket to get the most out of him. So unless the Steelers can cultivate an offensive environment where you're not asking Aaron Rogers to be a playmaker, I think it's going to go bad. But I think if they are able to cultivate that and get a good running game going, then I think we could see an efficient version of Aaron Rogers if it's not the former top 10 MVP candidate version of them.

All right, a little bit of a bullish perspective there from Ruiz, Deonté. Do you agree with him or are you on the other side of this? I think that for me, what Stephen's painting has been painting really over the offseason in terms of sealing is all fair. It just feels so hard to envision him accessing that on a week-by-week basis based off what we got in New York. And I think that the most fair or the median outcome is a quarterback that is more dependent upon his offensive infrastructure than the offensive infrastructure is relying upon his individual play.

And I think that the landing spot then becomes a real point. conversation. And I just look at what Pittsburgh has been over the last couple of seasons, specifically last year under Arthur Smith. I don't know what this offensive infrastructure is going to look like when you drop in Aaron Rogers in because so much of projecting out positive results is going to be based upon Aaron Rogers doing what he did very begrudgingly with Matt LaFleur, where you know he wanted to play a very particular way. But Matt LaFleur had enough, you know, kind of cachet in the building being the new hired head coach to say, hey, if you do it this way, he will be an effective quarterback and he ends up putting back-to-back MVP's.

That's not going to happen here. I mean, he's just not the same quarterback now than he was towards the tail in in Green Bay. And I don't know if Arthur Smith has a cachet offensively to say that, hey, we're just going to run play action. Your job is to fake the hand off, throw the ball to the tight end out in the flat, and take four and a half yards. That's all I'm asking you to do on this play. I think that there's going to be a little bit of friction.

Maybe it gets worked out because I think that this signing is earlier than I anticipated. I didn't think that he was going to show up in Pittsburgh until like midway through training camp because that's just kind of how Ann Rogers has a reputation of operating on his own schedule. But I do think that him getting there early enough, maybe he does get acclimated. And at the very least, he's got a vertical receiver in D.K. Metcalfe. And maybe there's just enough there with pushing the ball downfield and avoiding negative plays in a way that's not necessarily harmful or detrimental to the flow of the offense will be enough for them to keep their head above water. I don't see it.

I think this is going to be a disaster. I think this is what is going to cause Mike Tomlin to have his first losing record as an NFL head coach. I understand why they did it. You guys made the points. What are the options out there? All those things. It's a one-year deal. He doesn't have to be Superman.

He needs to kind of be an average quarterback. And you hope your defense is good enough. I just, I mean, he is 42 years old. I mean, that last MVP season was four years ago. There's just a not a precedent other than the non-Tom Brady division of a quarterback even starting, you know, 12 games at this age. It doesn't happen for a reason here. And I think their offensive line has some potential where you say, okay, that could be a solid group if some of these young players take steps forward, although they are, you know, they're young players and we don't know that they're going to take steps forward. But the supporting cast, I mean, let me ask you this, Ruiz, is it a better supporting cast than he had with the general.

last year when you look at it because I'm looking at the depth chart I mean DK Metcalf and then the other receivers here are Calvin Austin Robert Woods Roman Wilson you see what you get from him there Pat Firemuth at tight end Jalen Warren at running back like I think the offensive line I guess should be better than he had with the Jets I don't think that the past catching group is really better than he had it with no it's definitely not better I don't think the skill group is better but I think all of its line is the more important piece for a quarterback who can't really move anymore and those days are behind him.

I think the offensive play caller is definitely better compared to Nathaniel Hackett and what they replaced them with. Like I think... That's the tough one, though. Like Deonti said, I mean, we've had this conversation a bunch of it, but we just don't know. Is Roger is going to come in there at 42 years old and say, all right, Arthur, what, you know,

what are we running? Or, you know, like, how is that going to work? Maybe he has respect for him and is like, yeah, let's get back to that and let's be a meshing of our minds. But there's also the chance he just goes in there stubborn and is like, this is my last season. This is what we're doing, Arthur. That's definitely on the table. But I'm more inclined to take the more optimistic view just because Arthur Smith did spend

time coaching under Matt LaFlor and there is some similarities there. I think there's, you know, it's not like he's presenting this new offense and being like, just trust me, bro, on this, you know? Like, I think there's already some built-in buy-in from Rogers with this offense. He won two MVPs in a similar style. So that's the only reason I have a little bit. more optimism. But I just don't think, like, if they're signing him expecting to get a top five quarterback or whatever Aaron Rogers, like whatever the ceiling is, I think that's naive.

But I'm just comparing it to the standard that's been there at quarterback the past couple of years. And it's by far the best quarterback they've had for me. Like, I don't think a wash, Russell Wilson doesn't even compare to a wash Aaron Rogers. Kenny Pickett, like enough said with Kenny Pickett, Mason Rudolph, Duck Hodges, all these guys like, even 2020, Ben Rothesburg, 2021, Ben Rothesberger, isn't close to what we even saw out of air in Roger's down the stretch last year. So that's where my optimism comes from. But, like, this division, like, it doesn't matter.

That's the thing. Like, it's not closing the gap between them and the Bengals and them and the Ravens, especially not the Ravens. So I don't know if they make the playoffs because of this. I don't think, like, the record changes significantly, but I think it might be a more watchable offense than we've seen in the past. And then we also can't discount the fact that the. the defense kind of fell apart towards the end of the season last year.

Yes. Thank you. I feel like that gets forgotten. There's more to this than just the air catchers. Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you. Quarterback situation was bad, but that defense was terrible down the stretch. They couldn't do anything against the good team.

They looked lifeless. There were weird comments made to the media sort of figure pointing without naming names there. And Mike Tomlin has been an unbelievable head coach for a long time, but he couldn't do anything to fix those issues and resolve those issues. So like those teams with. Duck Hodges and the other guys, they didn't have to do as much, obviously, offensively. And I just wonder if this team is actually set up to be the Steelers teams that we know that, hey, they're going to win with defense and special teams and QB just do enough.

Like that's a question mark based on, now they do still have some talent on defense, but they kind of have to get back to that. Let me ask you this. What, Deonti, what does success look like? If we just look back at this after the season's over and we say, okay, you know, they achieved X, or if they're in the Steelers building right now and saying, hey, this would be a successful season from Aaron Rogers. How do you define that at this stage of his career,

given where the franchise is? It's so funny because I think it would be different if he was coming back to New York. My expectations would be different. But this is so interwoven now in the story of Mike Tomlin that the only way I can really paint this as a definitive objective success is if he leads them to win a playoff game. They've got to win a playoff game.

You don't have to win the AFC North because, I mean, this is tough. a division as there is in football. They don't have to be a 12-win football team, but you have to get to the postseason. And Aaron Rogers has to be what this slew of quarterbacks that has been in and out since Ben Rathesberger retired has not, which is a playoff winning guy. Because that clearly has been, that has been the limiting factor for them.

I think that everybody in that building recognizes that that's been the limiting factor for them. And that's what he's going to have to change about this franchise in order for me to feel like Mike Tomlin made the right move, that Omar Conner's GM made the right move, that this franchise mortgaging so much of this phase that they've been in of trying to maximize their window, it's only worth it if a quarterback like this gets you over the hump. Anything short of that, I'd have a really hard time seeing why this franchise should continue to operate the way it's been operating. I will say that much.

Is that where you're at, Ruiz? Got to win a playoff game for this to be a success, or do you have the bar a little bit lower? I think it depends on what the defense looks like. If the defense is like middle of the pack and they make the playoffs, I think that's, it's a win just because it's, it flips the narrative. Like, it's not the defense carrying them to another playoff. It's the offense doing most of the heavy lifting. I don't know how likely that is. And, I mean, I think if Aaron Rogers plays well individually, I think maybe you can chalk it up as a win, even if there's not team success.

But if their aspirations are any higher than that, then, like, I think this is bound to be a failure. I don't see how this is much of a ceiling razor at all. I think it's a floor razor, if anything. Yeah, I think if they make the playoffs, they'll be pretty happy about it. I think if he just performs like the, let's say, 16th best quarterback in the NFL statistically or something like that where it feels like, all right, you're getting something from that position that you haven't gotten. I think they can look at that and say, all right, it was worth it.

It's a one-year deal. We didn't give up a draft capital there. So I think something like that. But you're right, the different things are tied to it. I mean, if the defense isn't as good and now he's performing like the 20th best, quarterback, you know, then where does that really get you? Your draft pick's going to be worse. Next year, I know

there's no tanking in the NFL, but just kind of zooming out to where they've been here at the quarterback position, having to try to figure it out year after year after year and just like the team's too good for them to be bad enough to take a big swing on a quarterback and the timing hasn't set up. So I'm not telling you

there was another option that was great for them, but it just kind of extends this sort of weird window they're in, I think. I think just looking at the football is the only way to really feel optimistic about this movie, to be honest. Like, I think the potential for disaster just with off-the-field stuff. You can count it as a success if there's no headline on, like, Fox News in October that has Aaron Rogers in it, you know?

If there's no controversial Pat McAfee interview, that's a success. But from like a football perspective, even then, like him playing 12 games might be chalked up as a success. He's like in his 40s. Like, there's no guarantee. Even if he is good, like there's no guarantee he's going to play. 18 games, 17 games or whatever. I'm trying to think of what he was good at last year and how that's going to look in the

Steelers' offense. And I think that's the one concern I have from a football standpoint. He was really good at quick game. That's where he still seemed to have his juice as a quarterback. That's where he still was like a top 10 quarterback. But outside of that, the deeper you've gotten to snaps, the worse he got. And it's hard to separate that from offensive line play. It just is.

Like it's hard to be able to watch the film and be like, oh, that's. quarterback has 0.2 seconds less than the other quarterbacks do on average. You can't really see that. So I do wonder how this better offensive line is going to make his game look. And I think maybe we could see him show a lot of improvement from where he was last year. And then you get to the question of like, is the rest of the team around him good enough to actually take advantage of that? And it's just it's really hard to answer that with an optimistic answer. Yeah. 24th in EPA per pass play last year, 25th in success rate to Ruiz's point though. Maybe if the offensive line is better. Maybe there's some upside there. But then again, there's the tradeoff. I mean,

man, if the DK Metcalf goes down, yikes, you know, I don't know what that supporting cast really looks like unless one of these unknown guys steps up and really plays well. So I just don't know about the situation. I don't know about the experiment with Tomlin. I mean, Ruiz has pointed out before that, hey, Ben Rotslberger has a had a radio show back in the day. Tomlin's used to deal with stuff. He can deal with stuff. He doesn't shy away. from it. He had Antonio Brown on his roster for a long time. So maybe he knows what comes and he has a plan for dealing with it. It's not like he says you can't do any of that stuff. But it just feels like a very interesting mix there with a Mike Tomlin team and Aaron Rogers. All right, let's end by just going

on the, oh, we can change these in August. This is what we do in June. We go go on the record with some predictions that we can change a couple months from now just on how you think this thing plays out. I can start since I already said it. I think they are just a middling, underwhelming. They feel more entertaining now, but by the time we get to November 1, we're like

no one wants to watch this Steelers team. They're just an average team with no upside. It kind of comes crumbling down a little bit at the end. I'm not saying they're one of the worst teams in the NFL, but they're like a seven-win team. Rogers retires at the end of the season, maybe late

into the offseason, waiting for a slow news period. I don't know. The Steelers have to figure out another quarterback solution next offseason. They might have to come up with solutions for some of these older players on defense, and they're kind of back to where they started. And the Tomlin streak, an incredible streak. I don't care. It's been a long time since he's won a playoff game. Just to not have that losing record has been incredible. I think this is the year that. And now I have predicted this before, and it's been wrong many times to let's just say that. But I feel like Rogers is the push I need to just, hey, try it again,

so I'm trying it again, that he finally finishes with the losing record. So that's my prediction. Deonti, what's your prediction for how this plays out? I think that this team, I think the saddest prediction

is the most realistic one, which is that they go nine and eight and they're the eighths seed. They'll be, they're ranked eighth and the AFC and they just miss out on making the postseason. I think that that's the most realistic

and probably the most depressing outcome from all of this is that they're just good, enough to be in the picture and the picture is not changed at all from last season or the last five seasons to this year. And ultimately, the AFC is too competitive and boxes them out. Yeah, I think we're going to follow a similar script that we've followed in Pittsburgh for the last couple of years where they start off with a great record and then kind of tail off. Like, everyone has questions about how real it is and then they get tougher competition in the

second half and they tail off. But like, there's a chance for some narratives to come out of these first three weeks, I mean, they have the Jets, which, by the way, NFL schedule makers always ahead of the curve. Jets in week one, that's beautiful. The Jets, they have the Seahawks at home, one o'clock game for West Coast team. They have the Patriots on the road, very winnable game. This could be a three and no start if the defense is back to where it was at their best. And they're going into that Minnesota game in week four, and we're wondering, it's a primetime game. And we're wondering, actually, I think it's a London game, but we're wondering if this is like a real team, and that's the

discourse throughout the week, is can they compete with a team like the Vikings? But I do think they have a good record, because the schedule is very forgiving over the first couple of months, but then after that, down the stretch, bills, ravens twice, lions, at the lions, the dolphins could be a better team. Obviously, they play the

Bengals in the second half, play out the chargers. So I think we could see a hot start, and then it just fizzles out. And I think once it starts fizzling, once that train goes down the track, I think it's going to be hard to stop the negative momentum. So a little bit like last year, maybe. Like the last 10 years, honestly.

Yeah. Yeah, I didn't realize that's who they start with the first three weeks. So yeah, they'll probably be favored, I would think, in those three games. Overall, though, they have the 10th hardest schedule in the NFL. So to Ruiz's point, it gets a lot tougher there down in the stretch. So Aaron Rogers, two of the Steelers, we can finally find a resolution there. We'll see how it all plays out. I think there'll be moments of entertainment to Ruiz's.

point early on. I think it'll get pretty old, pretty fast, where it'll be like, no, I'd rather watch Jaden Daniels, you know, than watch Aaron Rogers and the Steelers. It's not that interesting anymore to me once we get to November, like I said earlier. All right, a little emergency, nothing like a little emergency pod. The first week of June, there you go. Thanks to Christopher Sutton for producing Kiera Givens on social. And of course, thanks to Deonti Lee and Stephen Ruiz. I'm Shield Capadio. We'll talk to you next time on the Ringer NFL show. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C.C.com. Gambling problem.

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