Heading into the 2025 NFL season, the Pittsburgh Steelers are perhaps the most fascinating team in all of football to evaluate in terms of what their potential ceiling could be with Aaron Rodgers at the helm. But while some Steelers fans may have high hopes for the Steelers, ESPN’s Chris Canty doesn’t exactly see all that much changing in Pittsburgh.
Very few quarterbacks have ever accomplished what Rodgers has done throughout his 20-year career, winning four MVP awards, two Offensive Player of the Year awards, and of course leading the Green Bay Packers to a Super Bowl victory in 2011.
However, Rodgers hasn’t exactly been the Rodgers of old in terms of the elite on-field production in over three years. And now that he is 41, Canty believes that it is largely ridiculous for Steelers fans to have high expectations for Rodgers leading into the 2025 season.
When Canty was put on the spot to pick which AFC North team, the Cincinnati Bengals or the Pittsburgh Steelers, had more questions heading into 2025 on Friday’s edition of First Take, the answer was an easy one for Canty. In fact, he questioned whether Rodgers brings any upside whatsoever to the Steelers given his age and decline in production in recent years.
“It’s the Pittsburgh Steelers, and it ain’t that close,” said Canty. “It’s because I don’t believe in the quarterback. I just don’t. They’ve pinned the regression of Aaron Rodgers on injuries that he’s suffered over the last three years. Whether it’s injuries or whether it’s age, it doesn’t really matter. Here’s the thing. As players get older, they don’t get healthier. I don’t understand why everybody is falling into the hoax that is Aaron Rodgers year over year. We saw it with the New York Jets. They were better off without him than they were with him.
“You’re talking about the Pittsburgh Steelers being bottom 10 in the league in sacks allowed last season. And, oh by the way, they lost a 1,000-yard rusher in Najee Harris in free agency. A guy (who’s) gone over 1,200 yards from scrimmage each of the first four years of his career. So, when it comes to Rodgers, I struggle to see how he’s going to raise the floor from what we’ve seen from the Pittsburgh Steelers over the last half decade. Having experience don’t mean a damn thing if you physically can’t go out there and do the job. And that’s what I’m concerned about with Aaron Rodgers for 17 games in the regular season.”
In theory, if all goes right for the Steelers in 2025 and Rodgers does somehow find the fountain of youth in 2025, which could very well be his last in the NFL, the Steelers could certainly contend in the AFC. However, as Canty alluded to, there are very few cases where quarterbacks at his age have improved instead of continuing to regress.
What we do know is that the vast majority of media members have largely shared Canty’s doubts. So clearly, Rodgers has his hands full to prove his believers right and proving his doubters in the media wrong, who he has of course had a longstanding contempt for.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.