The Pittsburgh Steelers made their bet. They brought in Aaron Rodgers for what looks like a final ride, and last season he gave them 3,322 yards, 24 touchdowns, and a 10-6 record. That got them into the playoffs. It also got them bounced in the Wild Card round for the third straight year.
And that, according to former Steelers defensive back and current ESPN analyst Ryan Clark, is exactly what this team is going to keep getting.
“The ceiling for this team is what we have been seeing for the last few years,” Clark said on ESPN. “This team could be slightly above average. Aaron Rodgers could get this team to nine, ten wins. Maybe sneak into the playoffs. Nobody expects this team to compete with the New England Patriots, the Buffalo Bills, the Denver Broncos.”
It’s a grim take for a franchise that hasn’t won a playoff game since 2016. But Clark isn’t just being a hater. He’s looking at the offensive roster and seeing the same holes that existed before Rodgers ever put on a Steelers uniform. The front office chose not to rebuild over the last two years. They didn’t draft a quarterback of the future. They bet on a 42-year-old legend holding off time.
“The Steelers made the decision that they weren’t going to rebuild the last two years,” Clark said. “They weren’t going to find their quarterback of the future. But this team offensively still has holes. I think they could be competitive and fight for that Wild Card. But they’ll be home by the Divisional Round, thinking to themselves, ‘are we stuck in quarterback purgatory?’”
That’s a brutal question to be asking yourself in Year 3 of a Rodgers experiment that was supposed to be a bridge, not the whole damn bridge. And yet here we are. The Steelers have made the playoffs three years running and haven’t won a single game once they got there. That’s not a fluke. That’s a pattern.
Rodgers played all 16 games last season and looked competent. But competent doesn’t scare the Bills or the Patriots or the Broncos in January. The AFC is loaded. Kansas City is still Kansas City. Cincinnati has a quarterback. Even the Jets look like they’re figuring things out. Meanwhile Pittsburgh is running it back with a guy who’s been elite but is no longer automatic and an offense that still doesn’t have a proven No. 2 receiver or a line that can dominate.
Clark’s prediction isn’t that the Steelers will be bad. It’s that they’ll be stuck. Good enough to make the tournament, not good enough to matter once they get there. And that might be the worst place for a proud franchise to be.
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