The Ringer’s Bill Simmons cast doubt on the Aaron Rodgers-Steelers experiment after the quarterback played “particularly awful” in a brutal 25-10 loss to the Chargers Sunday night at SoFi Stadium.
During Monday’s installment of “The Bill Simmons Podcast,” Simmons questioned if the 41-year-old Rodgers is breaking down physically after Pittsburgh dropped to 5-4 in primetime.
“It’s Rodgers, it’s Sunday night, it’s [NBC Sports analyst] Cris Collinsworth cackling his way through the game — it had all the makings, and the Steelers were just awful. Rodgers, particularly, was awful,” Simmons said.
“And I do wonder, was this a two-month thing with him physically where he could kind of patch this together but as the season went along and he took some hits, now we’re seeing him break down.”
Rodgers completed 16 of 31 passes for 161 yards and a passer rating of 50.6, his lowest of the season.
The former four-time MVP — who was sacked three times and had two interceptions — couldn’t get the offense in sync as he struggled overthrowing and underthrowing the ball.
“Unfortunately, they didn’t have a confident quarterback,” Simmons said. “He was back by the second half to being the guy that we saw last year — the guy that didn’t want to get hit.”
Pittsburgh’s only touchdown came in the fourth quarter when Rodgers connected on a 27-yard pass over the middle to Roman Wilson.
The Steelers are now 0-3 in primetime games.
Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin didn’t have much to say about Rodgers’ performance.
“How would you?” Tomlin responded when a reporter asked the coach to assess the quarterback’s play. “Next .”
Rodgers, who took responsibility for his part, explained that this is part of the “ebbs and flows” of the season.
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“This was not my best performance,” Rodgers said. “I got to play better than this for us to win. Whatever it takes … if it’s better checks, if it’s better throws, whatever it is, I got to play better. I will. … We got to play better on offense, for sure. But this is part of the season. There’s ebbs and flows, there’s ups and downs, and we can’t ride the wave.”
The Steelers play their division rival, the Cincinnati Bengals (3-6), in Pittsburgh on Sunday.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
