When Aaron Rodgers entered the NFL in 2005, few could’ve foreseen the career that he would go on to have. Over 20 seasons — 18 with the Green Bay Packers and two more with the New York Jets — he has completed 65.1% of his passes for 62,952 yards and 503 touchdowns, which rank fifth and seventh in league history, respectively. He has won four MVP’s and is the all-time career record holder for interception percentage, adjusted yards per attempt, and passer rating.
But all good things must eventually come to an end. After inking a one-year deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Rodgers acknowledged today that this will almost certainly be the final season of his Hall of Fame career.
Rodgers will hope to follow in the footsteps of Peyton Manning, the five-time MVP who famously won a Super Bowl title in his final season with the Denver Broncos in 2015. It wasn’t a particularly impressive individual season — he completed just 59.8% of his passes with nine touchdowns and 17 interceptions — but his strong supporting cast, led by Super Bowl MVP Von Miller, helped him to a second Lombardi Trophy.
Rodgers faces a more difficult run; Pittsburgh’s roster doesn’t have as much top-to-bottom talent as Denver’s did, although edge rusher T.J. Watt has the fourth-shortest odds to win Defensive Player of the Year at DraftKings Sportsbook. The Steelers’ win total is set to just 8.5, and they have the same odds to have the league’s fewest wins (+3500) as they do to win the Super Bowl. Individually, 21 players, including one non-quarterback, have shorter odds to win MVP than Rodgers does.
The Steelers were one of the more active teams during the offseason, sending wide receiver George Pickens to the Dallas Cowboys and trading a second-round pick for former Seattle Seahawks star DK Metcalf. It’s a fairly lateral move; last season, Metcalf had 66 catches for 992 yards and five scores on a 49.1% success rate, while Pickens had 59 catches for 900 yards and three scores on a 44.7% success rate. Metcalf has a more impressive pedigree overall, but it’s not the sort of move that changes the championship picture. Pittsburgh also didn’t adequately address the loss of Najee Harris, a former Pro Bowl running back who signed with the Los Angeles Chargers.
Last season, the Steelers hobbled into the postseason after starting out 10-3, losing their final four games against some difficult opponents before failing to put up much of a fight in the Wild Card Round against the Baltimore Ravens. Pittsburgh’s defense, touted as its stronger unit, allowed the ninth-most passing yards, committed the fourth-most penalties, and hurried the quarterback at the third-lowest rate, which wasn’t enough to make up for an offense that recorded the seventh-fewest passing yards, seventh-fewest rushing yards per attempt, and scored the 11th-fewest touchdowns.
Partially because they used their second-rounder in the Metcalf deal, the Steelers didn’t have a standout draft class. Derrick Harmon, their first-round pick, projects as an above-average run stuffer but a long-term project as a pass-rusher. They didn’t select again until the third round, when they took Iowa’s Kaleb Johnson, a productive but athletically unimpressive running back who will split time with Jaylen Warren in the backfield. Pittsburgh also didn’t draft a single offensive lineman despite the fact that Russell Wilson was pressured at the league’s second-highest rate last season. It also waited until the seventh round to address the struggling secondary, which is thin behind Minkah Fitzpatrick and 34-year-old Darius Slay.
Combine these personnel deficiencies with the fact that the Steelers play in arguably the league’s toughest division — the Baltimore Ravens have the second-best odds to make the playoffs in the AFC, and the Cincinnati Bengals rank fourth — and Rodgers capping off his career with a title would be one of the most surprising runs in NFL history.
