The Pittsburgh Steelers are running it back with quarterback Aaron Rodgers, officially re-signing the 21-year veteran on Monday morning for a second season in Pittsburgh. The move also rekindles a familiar partnership with coach Mike McCarthy, marking their first reunion since 2018.<\/p>\n
On FOX Sports’ “The Herd” with Colin Cowherd, FOX Sports analyst Geoff Schwartz joined the show to discuss Rodgers\u2019 reunion with McCarthy. Cowherd questioned McCarthy\u2019s support for the move, suggesting he would prefer to roll with the team\u2019s young quarterbacks.<\/p>\n
“I think [Mike] McCarthy is publicly taking a bullet because he would rather go with the kids,” Cowherd said. But he got the job and part of the deal is don\u2019t badmouth us when we bring Aaron [Rodgers] back.”<\/p>\n
Schwartz pointed to the prior tension between Rodgers and McCarthy in Green Bay, where their working relationship ended with McCarthy\u2019s firing in 2018 amid reported friction. He questioned how the reunion in Pittsburgh would function given that history.<\/p>\n
“Remember, Aaron Rodgers and McCarthy did not end well, like he got him fired,” Schwartz said. “Now, they\u2019re supposed to be best friends again at work? They\u2019re professionals, but again, I don\u2019t know if you\u2019re a Steelers fan, how you\u2019re looking forward to the season.”<\/p>\n
Not only have the Steelers struggled to find a long-term answer at quarterback, but playoff success has also become a concern. The team has largely settled into the 8\u20139-win range in recent seasons, reflecting mediocrity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh\u2019s last postseason win came in 2017, when it defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Divisional Round.<\/p>\n
“You know exactly how this is going to go,” Schwartz said. “They haven\u2019t won a playoff game in nine years, but you knew how the last nine were going to go anyway, but this doesn\u2019t feel like any hope.”<\/p>\n
Schwartz questioned whether Pittsburgh\u2019s commitment to staying competitive in the short term is preventing a needed reset with an aging roster.<\/p>\n
“I think that if you asked McCarthy, \u2018hey, let’s sort of get rid of the old guys, let\u2019s go young this year and next year we\u2019ll hit it hard,\u2019 I think he would rather take that,” Schwartz said. “But the pride, the organization, at some point you should have to say for a year or two that we\u2019re going to be bad.”<\/p>\n
The Steelers have never fully hit the reset button or entered a traditional rebuild, but Schwartz has pointed to examples where that approach has worked elsewhere.<\/p>\n
“There\u2019s probably examples of it working,” Schwartz said. “The Patriots got Drake Maye, like it works if you do it right. It does work if you do it right and Pittsburgh refuses to do it right.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Steelers are running it back with quarterback Aaron Rodgers, officially re-signing the 21-year veteran on Monday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3269,4849,73,75,74,1833],"class_list":["post-196155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-aaron-rodgers","tag-national-football-league","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-steelers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}