Does Aaron Rodgers REGRET Joining Steelers? + Big Ben’s ‘CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENT’ On 2025 Steelers..

Does Aaron Rodgers REGRET Joining Steelers? + Big Ben’s ‘CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENT’ On 2025 Steelers..

Did Big Ben say something controversial about the Steelers? Hm. Big Deak news. We’ve all heard of Savatar 7. In fact, we got to witness it with our very own eyes. [Music] We may be on the verge of sabotage 8. Unfortunately, the warning signs are there. And if you guys need a refresher on what Sabotage 7 is because we may have some forgetfulness amongst our viewers, but also there may be new viewers tuning into today’s show. Sabotage 7 goes back to 2021 when Big Ben was playing in his final season for the Steelers. that off seasonason. In fact, he took a pay cut to make sure he could play another season for the Steelers and enabled the team to try to build up his surroundings for the better. Pretty much the opposite of what happened with Cam Hayward this off season. But instead, what transpired is we gave him the worst roster possible, the worst surroundings possible, and the worst offensive coordinator calling the plays on offense. But Big Ben still carried that broken ass team to the playoffs, led the league in game-winning drives. He had to overcome not only opposing defenses and opposing teams, but our own team, the the Pittsburgh Steelers organization because they gave him the worst offensive line in the league. Kendrick Green snapping the ball, Dan Moore as a rookie, fourth round rookie, as a starting left tackle. Wide receivers dropping the ball over the place. A bunch of these guys that Ben was throwing to are out of the league right now. The worst rush defense in the league. Steelers literally ranked 32nd in the NFL in rush defense. And again, Matt Canada, uh the worst offensive coordinator was calling the plays. I I’m feel like I’m missing probably another aspect or two, but that’s what we gave seven at age. What was it? 38 39. Come on, bro. Come on. Still made the playoffs. still led the league in game-winning drives. Yet, the fan base and the organization put the blame on seven as to why that team didn’t reach the heights that we desired. He’s forced into an early retirement after 2021, even though he said he wanted to play another season. I I think I I knew I was, you know, I knew that the Steelers didn’t want me back after, you know, I had one more year, so I knew that that was it. and we’ve seen what has taken place with the Steelers ever since Ben has left. Clearly wasn’t Seven’s fault. It’s almost like I knew what I was talking about whenever I was telling you about all this, but I digress. Now we’re here 2025 and I’m seeing a lot of the same signs with Aaron Rogers. You have a all-time great quarterback surrounded by incompetence on the offensive line, wide receivers dropping balls, a lackluster offensive coordinator, and a defense that’s, let’s just face it, pretty damn terrible right now, giving up way too many yards, even though the expectations are at least top 10 for the unit. Meanwhile, they’re what? Bottom five in the league right now. the Steelers defense. The difference is the difference is or rather no one’s blaming Aaron Rogers back then. Everyone was blaming seven. Everyone was pointing to him as the scapegoat. They wanted to run him out of town. It was just disgusting after everything he’s done for the city, the Super Bowls, the the elite quarterback play, being the franchise quarterback for two decad. Just absolutely disgusting what took place. Uh, no one’s blaming Aaron Rogers and Aaron Rogers signed up for this. Like Aaron Rogers is free agent. He’s signed up with the Steelers. So, I don’t know if we can necessarily say we’re sabotaging eight. We’ve tried to build up this roster best we can around Rogers. Whereas with seven, they didn’t want him back. They didn’t. It just didn’t seem like they cared. Yeah, we’re just going to throw out this offensive line here. You get Matt Canada. We’re having Devin Bush start on defense with Rogers. Like again, he was a free agent. He willingly signed up to come here and it’s like the Steelers are trying with Rogers. They trade for a DK Metaf. They trade for a John Smith. Lot of moving parts on defense that we added trying to improve there. So, I don’t know if we could call it sabotage necessarily. And Omar Khan’s even talking about Rogers coming back potentially another year. Whereas again with seven, it’s like it’s clear they didn’t want him back. Maybe we call it mistake eight. Is that what this is? Rogers will ultimately regret signing with the Steelers and trying to do this last year. At least that’s what some people like Mike Florio are thinking even this early into the season. Stuff that’s been the bread and butter of Pittsburgh football, the defense and the running game. It just hasn’t been what it needs to be. And in the year that you get Aaron Rogers and they get the upgrade, you know, when you look at all the quarterback injuries now, and there’s five quarterbacks who are injured and missing time, Rogers may ask himself in a quiet moment if he should have just waited for a serious quarterback injury and not signed on with the team because if things don’t change quickly, he’s not going to get that playoff birth that he wants to cap his career with. Uh, I’m gonna disagree with Florio here. I don’t think Rogers is regretting his decision to sign with the Steelers, and I don’t think he is going to regret his decision to sign with the Steelers. Let’s talk about the here and now. Let’s talk about three weeks in, is Rogers thinking about, man, should I have signed somewhere else or should I have waited it out with some of these quarterback injuries and gone with the Vikings or maybe the Bengals? Aaron Rodgers doesn’t become Aaron Rodgers by having this thought process or thinking this way, especially only three weeks into a season. And the team that he’s the leader of that he’s the quarterback of is two and one, tied for the top of the AFC North, clearly in the playoff hunt, and he’s tied for second in the league in passing touchdowns. So, no, I don’t I don’t think he’s looking around the league and wondering if he made the wrong decision to sign with the Steelers this off seasonason and go through their offseason programs and training camp and all that stuff and is wondering if it would have been better for him to just retire or just like pseudo retire, wait it out and see what the quarterback landscape is going on throughout the course of the regular season and who gets injured and who doesn’t. Because let’s not forget one of the main reasons he signed with the Steelers too is because of coach T. Mike T is the man. Any hate, disrespect, and the ilk is complete and utter Hell yeah. Mike T is the man. Those other teams don’t have Coach T. For better or for worse. Um, but that was a big reason why Roger signed here. relationship that they had prior and that they developed through this free agency process is what made Rogers comfortable signing with the black and gold. But also, if you hear Rogers talk about why he wanted to do a final season, the reasons don’t jive with waiting and signing with another team midseason and try to chase a Super Bowl. Don’t get me wrong, Rogers is of course trying to win a Super Bowl and trying to win, but I think there are other factors at play that he values and makes him fulfilled not only outside of the football field, but even within the football realm that he’s mentioned. He’s very processoriented, wants to dig into the work and get involved with the offense, build relationships with his teammates, wants to showcase leadership, all the experience that he’s gathered and pay it forward to the next generation. And that’s that’s type of stuff that he wouldn’t necessarily be able to accomplish to the fullest extent if he was just signing on with a team middle of the season. You got to be there from the start. Like that is how you build relationship. That is how you build rapport. That is how you build trust with your teammates with the organization is being there from the start. And to his credit when it was mandatory, he was there from the offseason programs, training camp, preseason, all that. So that’s another reason why I don’t think he’s having any regrets about this. I think for his final season, he wanted to join a good organization, historic organization like the Steelers where there’s there’s meaning behind it. He also mentioned there’s all these Pittsburgh ties throughout his football career, so it made sense for him. And then obviously Coach T, you know, I think it starts with Mike Tomlin. I mean, I’ve been a fan of his for a long time. Uh there’s a few iconic franchises in the NFL. I played for one of them for 18 years. This is another one, one of those. Uh there’s something special about uh obviously this this area. So many great quarterbacks are from Pittsburgh. I feel like Pittsburgh has been a part of my career from the beginning. And add to the fact that I think honestly anything he does here with the Steelers is going to be house money compared to his Jets season last year. And I said he’s on pace for I think 40 touchdown with him having seven touchdowns right now, second in the league. If he keeps that pace, he’s he’s on pace for like 40 touchdowns. If he ends up throwing for 40 touchdowns, we make the playoffs, maybe we lose in round one or round two. Like for him, that’s probably a way better way to go out than that Jet season because I think the one thing he wants to prove, at least from a on the- field standpoint, is that that Jet season was an outlier and even at 41, he can still get it done at an elite level. But going back to what I was saying at the beginning, like if we don’t get our together around him with the offensive line and stuff, then we uh he may have a problem getting there. He may have a problem just getting to 17 games and finishing out this regular season. And that’s something Big Ben talked about on his podcast. He was actually dropping some heat. He was dropping some takes. He wasn’t holding back. I think that the the Steelers are afraid to take shots down the field because that cause forces your quarterback to stay in the pocket and hold it a little bit longer. And I don’t think the line’s playing well enough to do that. I think Aaron’s getting the ball out of his hands because he doesn’t trust what’s going on. I’m concerned with the line because I think what it’s doing is it’s preventing us u them the team. I know that part of it preventing the Steelers from opening up the offense, but but I don’t think I don’t think that the line is giving him enough time. And I think it starts with that left tackle. So, either give him help, right, or figure something out. He also talked to defense and how that side of the ball hasn’t been living up and has been pretty mediocre. You know, I don’t know. I to me without studying our defense, it seems like we’re a pretty vanilla defense as it is. Like, it doesn’t feel to me like we’re getting a lot of unique pressures, unique defenses. And I think even coach Tomlin said that today in his press conference. He said there’s something along the lines of and I and I I’ll probably mess it up that situations or circumstances are preventing them from doing things. And I don’t know what that means exactly or is it injuries? Is it Yeah. I don’t really know but I want to see Jaylen Ramsey blitzing. Yeah. I want to see safeties doing I want to see more linebacker stuff. I I I just I’d like to see the uniqueness. And finally, finally, seven went as far as to question the coaching staff and whether or not they’re about to get outclassed in this upcoming Vikings matchup. I’ll say this. Oh, this is probably this too controversial. If I say I think we’re going to get out coach, is that controversial? I’m going to say Brian Flores is a very good like he’s going to call he’s gonna call a good coordin. I’m gonna say he’s better than coach Austin good quarter. I think coach Kevin Okonnell is a exceptional offensive line. Oh yeah. Yep. And I think so I just think that there’s that working those things they’re going to find ways to exploit try and exploit our defense and their defense is going to try and which is what everyone does. I get it. I just think that there’s a chance that it could listen I don’t really think there’s much controversy here for having that sentiment. Uh you go head coach for head coach since Okonnell’s joined the Vikings that was four years ago. His win percentage is 66% in the regular season. Tomlins is 57%. Both coaches don’t have a playoff win, but Kevin O’Connell has reached higher highs with better regular season records of 13-4 and 14 and three, won coach of the year last year and helped turn Sam Darnold around into being a borderline MVP candidate in 2024, which is like insane. whereas with Tomlin like 10 and seven, nine and eight. Again, neither coach has a playoff win. So, there’s that. And then if you want to go to defensive coordinator, Brian Flores versus Terrell Wson, I don’t even think there’s a debate. Brian Flores is arguably the best defensive coordinator in the league. Whereas Terrell Austin, I don’t even think we’re sure what his role is with this defense. If it’s really just Mike Tomlin’s defense and Terrell Austin’s just kind of like the assistant, he takes some of the blame for when the defense doesn’t do well, like who really knows because and other stops for Terrell Austin. Really not so good outside of one year with the Lions where he had a top 10 defense. So Brian Flores definitely over Terrell Austin. Kevin O’Connell over the last like three or four seasons, I think you could say, has been a better coach over Mike Tomlin. I don’t know where the controversy is now. Is that the whole story for this upcoming matchup? Like, do the Steelers not not have a chance in this game? No. I I’m going to pick us. I think we got a chance. This is a get right game. This is This is where everything turns around, you know. But to wonder if the Vikings coaching staff is going to out coach the Steelers coaching staff in this game. Not a crazy thought to have considering that I mean we kind of got out coached in certain aspects over these first three weeks against the Jets, Seahawks, and Patriots. So, uh yeah, that’s that I think for today’s show. Let me know your thoughts. We uh yeah, we kind of went all over the place with this one, but at the same time, I it actually it kind of all ties together if you think about it. Hope you guys enjoyed. Uh stay chill. Let me know your comments. uh or let me know your thoughts in the comments on topics discussed today. Stay chilling.

0:00 Similarities Between Big Ben’s 2021 Season & Aaron Rodgers 2025 Season
5:03 Does Aaron Rodgers Already Regret Joining Steelers?
10:18 Did Big Ben Make Controversial Statements On Steelers 2025 Coaching?