{"id":58214,"date":"2025-05-17T20:06:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T20:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/58214\/"},"modified":"2025-05-17T20:06:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T20:06:10","slug":"steelers-deferring-to-mike-tomlin-on-aaron-rodgers-fittipaldo-believes-will-get-the-most-criticism-for-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/58214\/","title":{"rendered":"Steelers ‘Deferring To Mike Tomlin’ On Aaron Rodgers, Fittipaldo Believes, Will ‘Get The Most Criticism’ For Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike Tomlin seems to be driving the Steelers\u2019 bus toward Aaron Rodgers, but what happens if they end up crashing? If Rodgers is Tomlin\u2019s move, and it fails, how do the Steelers hold him accountable, if at all? That\u2019s a topic discussed recently by Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on 93.7 The Fan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Art Rooney and that front office are deferring to [Mike Tomlin] when it comes to Rodgers,\u201d he said. \u201cLet\u2019s face it, any free agent that\u2019s gonna sign here, playing for Mike Tomlin is gonna be a big part of that equation. A lot of people around the league want to do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if that Steelers logo right now means as much to Aaron Rodgers as Mike Tomlin does,\u201d he added. \u201cI think Mike is a big part of this equation, and I think if Aaron Rodgers doesn\u2019t sign, he\u2019ll probably get most of the criticism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s worth noting that Rooney has seemed a bit irritated<\/a> when discussing the subject previously this offseason. Is that an indication that the Steelers\u2019 president allowed Mike Tomlin to dictate their pursuit of Aaron Rodgers? Of course, Rooney is ultimately responsible for all decisions. But presidents don\u2019t fire themselves. And if they defer responsibilities to those who fail, those who fail lose their jobs.<\/p>\n

While the Steelers wouldn\u2019t fire Tomlin if Rodgers fails here, could it affect his standing in the building?<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely. It would be his first losing season,\u201d Fittipaldo suggested. \u201cBelieve me when I tell you this \u2026 they believe that they can get to the playoffs and win in the playoffs with Aaron Rodgers. \u2026 If it turns out another way, I think it\u2019s gonna be bad news for the Steelers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because the Steelers are working on a one-year timeline with Aaron Rodgers, though, I think the impact on Mike Tomlin is minimal. Everyone involved understands this is a matter for 2025, and 2025 only. They want to draft a franchise quarterback next year and are building toward that<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As with recent years, however, there just haven\u2019t been many great or realistic quarterback opportunities. Tomlin and the Steelers haven\u2019t been in a position to make an aggressive move up, and some recent quarterback classes have been weak.<\/p>\n

After all, this past draft, the Steelers had their choice of all but one quarterback, and they passed on all. Tomlin and the previous front office drafted Kenny Pickett as the first quarterback off the board in 2022. That didn\u2019t work out at all, and since then, they haven\u2019t bitten the draft bullet again. Aaron Rodgers is just the latest stopgap answer until they can strike on a more long-term solution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike Tomlin seems to be driving the Steelers\u2019 bus toward Aaron Rodgers, but what happens if they end…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[8740,1586,7,1255,57,7827,691],"class_list":{"0":"post-58214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-93-7-the-fan","9":"tag-aaron-rodgers","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-mike-tomlin","12":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","13":"tag-ray-fittipaldo","14":"tag-trending"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114524978265627252","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}