Steelers Just Got GOOD & BAD NEWS For Week 2 + Why Aaron Rodgers & Matthew Stafford Are Similar QBs

Steelers Just Got GOOD & BAD NEWS For Week 2 + Why Aaron Rodgers & Matthew Stafford Are Similar QBs

[Music] Welcome in to Steelers Talk. I’m your host, Jack Sperry. On tonight’s show, we got a lot of stuff to talk about. First of all, the Steelers just got some bad news after Thursday night football last night between the Packers and the Commanders. Then we got of the week 2 injury updates for both the Steelers and the Seahawks. some big week 2 injury updates for you guys uh coming up later into in the show. Then the Steelers have been talking quite a bit about how impressed they have been with Jabril Peppers and it’s looking like he’s going to be ready to go for this Sunday’s matchup versus the Seahawks. And then Tom Brady went on Colin Cow herd show yesterday and explains uh Aaron’s Rogers’s most elite trade uh that he compares with Matthew Stafford. So very interesting stuff there. Make sure you guys stick around to see what that trait is and why that might mean Aaron Rogers could still be a top 10 quarterback in the NFL. Uh, but make sure you guys check out our earlier video that we put out here on Steelers Talk. I talked about the only uh college football quarterbacks to that to this point look like round one guys to in my opinion. I break down those quarterbacks. I break down some other guys that might sneak into the round one conversation and then some guys that were expected to be in the round one conversation that have had really slow starts in the first two weeks of college football. So, if you guys want to keep tabs on which quarterbacks are really impressing, which guys the Steelers have at their disposal to make their next franchise quarterback, I’ll put the link to that one in the top right of today’s show, as well as in the uh comments and description of today’s show. And of course, make sure you click that subscribe button to never miss a video here on Steelers Talk. We’ve put out we try to put out at least two videos a day. Um, of course, we go live twice a week and we go live for every single Steelers game. So, you’re not going to get a more extensive Steelers fan experience anywhere else on YouTube than right here on Steelers Talk. So, help us get to a 100,000 subscribers. We are so close to that number, guys, by clicking that subscribe button and joining the Steelers Talk family today. So, some bad news here to kick off today’s edition of Steelers News and Rumors here where Packers wide receiver Jaden Reed broke his collarbone on last night’s Thursday Night Football matchup between the Packers and the Commanders. And the reason why that’s bad news for the Pittsburgh Steelers is because that dramatically decreases the chances of the Steelers being able to land Romeo Dobs in a trade. So, if you’re someone out there saying, “Man, I really want Romeo Dobs. I really want to pair him back up with Aaron Rogers.” Well, now that Jaden Reed’s out of the lineup, that means Matthew Golden, Romeo Dobs, Savon Williams, the guys they do have available to them are going to be elevated in terms of the role that they’re going to have to play because Reed was their number one receiver to start the season and he’s going to be out multiple weeks. So, even if you want Romeo Dobs, like the trade deadline, unless he like straight up asks for a trade or demands a trade out of Green Bay, which I really don’t see happening with the increased role in the offense forthcoming for him, um it’s it’s definitely not looking good. if you’re look if you’re wanting to get Romeo Dobs and make him a Pittsburgh Steeler. But now shifting to uh some injury news here as we prepare for the home opener versus the Seattle Seahawks here on Sunday. Uh Joey Porter Jr. the quarterback for the Steelers is dealing with a hamstring injury. He was pulled from the game early last week against the Jets with that hamstring tightness and he has officially been ruled out for this weekend’s matchup versus Seattle. Uh that means Brandon Eckles will take his spot in the rotation. I thought Ecklesh did a pretty decent job. made some nice tackles out in open space. Um, and he certainly certainly showed his ability to play uh at a relatively high level in camp as well as in the preseason. So, I think he’s one of the better uh depth corners in the National Football League and I think he’ll hold up just fine. But, I do think that means we see Jaylen Ramsay play a little bit more on the outside than maybe what we’re used to seeing from him. Um, but the two guys that are out for Seattle this week, Nick Mmanry, uh, had an ankle injury last week, uh, versus the 49ers, he will be out. Uh, he’s their Bandit safety. That’s a very important role in their defense. And now they don’t really have a true Bandit, uh, on their roster. Uh, so that’s a very important piece. And then Devon Witherspoon, uh, their number one corner and slot corner is doubtful with a knee injury. Um, so Shaq Griffin is going to be taking Witherspoon’s place. And that’s going to leave uh a very big hole and a very big vulnerability in the slot for the Seattle Seahawks defense. Um and because you know Shaq Griffin, you know, I guess he can play in the slot, but he’s been more of an outside guy throughout his career. And then Josh Job and uh Reek Woolen are going to be the other two corners out there. Both of them uh are used to playing more on the outside. So I think a big vulnerability for Seattle is going to be in the slot. And that’s what Aaron Rogers and Arthur Smith really need to hone in on and try to attack this week here at Acer Stadium. Get Calvin Austin the third in there and force these guys that aren’t used to covering in the slot to cover Calvin Austin one-on-one. That’s going to be a very tough matchup for them. And then I already think uh Tyreek Woolen who is already going to be slated to go up against DK Metaf. I already like Metaf in that matchup. So, with Witherspoon out, that just makes it a little bit easier for the Steelers passing attack here to put up, uh, good numbers and have a successful day on Sunday. And then some more good news here for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Jabril Peppers is picking up the defense well according to reports. Um, and by all accounts, he’s going to be ready to go to play on Sunday. Juan Thornhill, who will be his running mate in the in the in the safeties in the safety room here this weekend if Peppers is able to go, said this about Peppers’s, uh, progression to this point. Jabril is doing well. Like just me knowing from him in the past, like he is a hitter, smart guy. He is he is picking up our defense. Well, sometimes it takes guys like maybe a week or something to adjust. It doesn’t even seem like it’s going to take that long. It just seems like he just knows what he is doing already. He is going to fit in really well and help us out. So, that’s really good news to hear, guys. And I’m really excited to see what Peppers looks like with the Pittsburgh Steelers. I’m sorry. The number 40 is a little bit of a crime in my opinion. That looks terrible. Uh but, you know, if he’s out there and he’s playing well, you can make any good any number look good. So, Peppers is a hard hitter. He’s a very savvy, smart player, veteran player, uh very smart. So, uh I’m looking forward to seeing what he’s going to be able to do. And I will say adding a defensive player is better than adding an offensive player mid-season. Uh just because, you know, the the playbook is easier to grasp. It’s a lot of the same concepts that you have played in the past. It’s very similar rules, all that different stuff. Maybe the biggest thing is getting down the verbiage and all the different stuff, the communication cues uh that the Steelers have in the secondary. Um, but Peppers has been around the block. He knows how to play specific coverages and it’s not like the Steelers play anything too crazy where he’s never seen it before. Um, so I do think that Peppers is going to be able to make this adjustment fairly quickly. Now, coming up here on Steelers Talk, Aaron Rodgers’s secret weapon, his best trait um that Tom Brady has even said uh is it shows his elite mental processing and high-end uh playmaking ability. But before we get into uh that and we talk about QB1 here for the rest of today’s show, let’s have a word from our sponsor today at Ethos. And guys, the summer before I started working here at Chat Sports, my family unfortunately lost my late grandfather. And as you tend to do when you lose someone close to you, uh you begin to think about your own mortality and what would happen to the people dependent on you if something were to happen. With today’s sponsor, Ethos, your family is protected. Cassie and I are getting married soon. Shortly after that, I imagine we’ll buy a house and start having some kids pretty shortly after that. If something were to happen to me, I want the last thing people that I love to worry about is being able to pay the bills. So, I trust Ethos to keep them protected. Ethos is an online platform that makes getting life insurance fast and easy to protect your family’s future in minutes, not months. There is no complicated process, and it’s 100% online. There’s no medical exam required, and you just answer a few health questions to get a quote in as little as 10 minutes. Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos today. Get your free quote at ethos.com/nflaily. That’s ethos.comaily to get your free quote today. So, A-Rod’s ultimate weapon here, guys, where yesterday uh Tom Brady went on the cam or on Colin Coward’s uh show on Fox Sports, and he laid out how impressive it is to do a nook pass as an NFL starting quarterback. Of course, Rogers is well known uh for no look passes. Uh Steelers defenders were talking all the time about Rogers doing no looks during Steelers training camp, how he manipulates the defense better than anyone they’ve ever seen. And this is what Tom Brady says about quarterbacks like that and why they’re elite in terms of the mental processing side of the game. When you see someone do these nolook passes, he knows where the defense is going to be aligned. So he knows he sees a certain coverage. He knows the high low combination that’s going to work against that coverage. So he stares at the low defender, draws the coverage to the low defender, stares at the low defender, and then throws it to the higher receiver in the combination. So that’s an elite level of play. talking both about arm talent to be able to throw the ball accurately without fully looking at the receiver as well as an advanced ability to manipulate a defense even at the NFL level. And in this quote, actually, here’s a little bit of a surprise. Uh Tom Brady was actually talking about Matthew Stafford, who is also well known for no look passes. But everything that Brady said about Stafford and why this shows that Matthew Stafford is an elite mental processor of the game applies to Aaron Rogers because Rogers is uh just as equally throws these no look passes all the time and and Steelers defenders as well. Uh we’re talking about this all throughout training camp. Here’s just a couple of examples starting with the leader of this defense TJ Watt. He said, “A lot of the no look passes from Aaron are things that we’re getting used to. I like to bat the ball down and passes at the line of scrimmage. He’s able to manipulate the defense good. So, that’s been very frustrating. Hopefully, one day we get the better of him. Then Deshawn Elliot in the secondary. This is his perspective on the no- look passes. I’ve never seen somebody manipulate a defense the way Aaron manipulates a defense. The lookoffs, the ball placement, the cadence, he’s different. And then Mike Tomlin, the head coach, who’s of course a defensive head coach, had this to say about Aaron Rogers’s impact here. There are so many subtle benefits that you really don’t talk or think about. The way he’s challenging the defense pre- snap, their snap readiness, his ability to work cadence and change pace. Sometimes he’s first sounding them, not giving them an opportunity to communicate. Sometimes he’s hard counting them, double counting them, triple counting them. Aaron’s ability to work the line of scrimmage through cadence and changes of pace is really good for a defense. Obviously, he can do no look throws and stuff like that and he’s challenging the defense with his talents, but his approach to the game, there’s some awesome benefits there as well. And my question, you know, when I talk when I see Tom Brady talk about how Matthew Stafford is an elite passer and the way he knows that he’s an elite passer is because he can pull off these no look passes, then what’s the big difference between Matthew Stafford and Aaron Rodgers at this point in their NFL careers? At this point, they’re both older quarterbacks that don’t have a lot of mobility. They’re both non-mobile quarterbacks, but they are still both high-end processors capable of manipulating defenses with their eyes. Um, doing all the things that they do in that regard with the no look passes, that sort of thing. They both have excellent arm talent as well, the ability to lower the arm slot, all that great stuff. And they both have great pocket presence. So, they’re still very, very good quarterbacks. And Matthew Stafford, at least in terms of the NFL world, is still seen as a bonafide top eight. Some people even think he’s still a top five quarterback in the National Football League. But yet, people seem to think Aaron Rogers sucks and can’t play football anymore when like they they have the same amount of mobility. They have the very similar amounts of arm talent. Um they both are very smart players that can uh read the defense better than just about any other quarterback in the game today and are some of the smartest quarterbacks to ever play the game. And you know there’s I think there’s a reason okay why Shawn McVey was considering at one point seriously considering trading away Matthew Stafford this off seasonason so that he could sign Aaron Rogers because maybe from McVeyy’s point of view hey these two guys are very similar skill sets that can do a lot of the same things only we can trade Matthew Stafford right now for a hall in terms of draft picks and then we can get Aaron Rogers for like close to the vet minimum right whatever he signed with the Steelers with $10 million right that’s an absolute bargain now obviously they decided to bring back Matthew Stafford. But the fact that that was a serious consideration from one of the best, if not the best, offensive head coach in football today should tell you exactly how he feels about Aaron Rogers even at 41 years old. So my question to everyone out there, guys, is that if Stafford is universally viewed as a top 10 quarterback and Aaron Rogers at this point, even at 41 years old, still has pretty much the same exact skill set, like why are we viewing Aaron Rogers as a bad quarterback nowadays? Is it because, you know, he played with the Jets last year and everything was crumbling around him? Is it because we haven’t seen him play at a top 10 quarterback level in terms of the efficiency number since 2021? Is it because of his stances on COVID and all these political things that people don’t like him for? I just don’t get it, man. When I watch Aaron Rogers on film, he still has the arm talent. He still has the pocket presence. He still has the elite mental processing ability both pre and post snap. And you know, this is what uh that was Tom Brady’s profile as well when he was still playing, right? and he won a Super Bowl in his 40s with the first with in the first year of a new team there at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. So, as long as the Steelers can surround Aaron Rogers with the right help like the Rams did with Stafford when he was traded to LA, like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers did when T when Tom Brady went to Tampa, if they can give him protection, if they can give him weapons, they can give him a little bit of a run game and they can give him a defense, I believe Aaron Rogers is still a good enough quarterback to potentially get this team to Super Bowl contention. And I’m very excited to see what he does. the rest of the season here in black and gold. So, what’s say you guys? Let me know down there in the comments section. Is Aaron Rodgers still a top 10 quarterback in the NFL today? Give me a yes or a no down there in the comment section. For me, I think that there’s certainly a decent chance he could get back in that top 10 conversation by the end of this season. Obviously, we’ve just seen him play one game with the Pittsburgh Steelers, but I think the skill set very comparable to Matthew Stafford. And if Stafford’s a top 10 guy, I don’t see any reason why Aaron couldn’t do it with the right help. That’ll be it for today’s show, guys. Thank you so much for all of your support. Make sure you click that subscribe button if you haven’t already. And until next time, guys. Here we go, Steelers. [Music]

Steelers Talk by Chat Sports on Friday, September 12th, centers around both the good & the bad news of the day as Pittsburgh continues to prepare to take on the Seattle Seahawks in their home opener on Sunday afternoon. On today’s show, host Jack Sperry goes over the latest Steelers injury news that has major implication for this week’s matchup as well as their prospects of landing one of their top wide receiver trade targets, updates Steelers fans on the progress Jabrill Peppers is making towards playing this weekend, and analyzes Tom Brady’s description of Aaron Rodgers’ greatest strength as an NFL quarterback at this point in his NFL career and how that trait compares to Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford.

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get your free quote at https://ethos.com/nfldaily

HIT THAT SUB BUTTON & turn on notifications so you never miss a Steelers Talk video: https://www.youtube.com/SteelersTV?sub_confirmation=1

Here’s some more Steelers YouTube segments for you to check out if you’re looking for more insight on the Black & Gold:
– Steelers 2026 QB Draft Targets: The ONLY College QBs That Look Like RD1 Picks So Far This Season – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGQ-vZYuAmY
– Steelers OVERREACTION MONDAY After Week 1: Aaron Rodgers For MVP? + Time To BENCH Broderick Jones? https://youtu.be/gnlLP0TMrl8
– MORE Steelers News After Week 1 WIN vs. Jets: Joey Porter Jr. Injury Update + SIGN Jabrill Peppers? https://youtu.be/m4cM6lzE8TA

Is Aaron Rodgers STILL a top 10 QB in the NFL? Yes or No?

Stay informed on the Black and Gold with daily articles from top sources like NFL.com, Ian Rapoport, Colin Cowherd, Adam Schefter and some others on the Chat Sports website: https://www.chatsports.com/pittsburgh-steelers

NEVER miss a Steelers news story this year by giving host Jack Sperry a follow on X: https://x.com/jack_sperry

If you’re excited about the future of the Pittsburgh Steelers, HIT THAT THUMBS UP ICON!

Love our videos? Then share this one!

Make sure to turn on your notifications to NEVER miss a breaking news story for the Pittsburgh Steelers this year!

Get all the latest NFL news and NFL rumors this season on the Chat Sports YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/chatsportstv?sub_confirmation=1

#SteelersNews #SteelersRumors #Steelers #CSET2025 #ad #CSB