Aaron Rodgers is the talk of Pittsburgh sports, which is fascinating since there’s no proof he will ever have anything to do with Pittsburgh sports.

For months, the potential of the former Green Bay Packers and (briefly) New York Jets quarterback to don the black and gold for at least one season has burned up the internet, sports radio and column inches.

Will he? Won’t he? Did he sign? When will it be announced? How much did the Rooneys offer him? Spring trades were watched with breathless anticipation and the tepid reaction to news of Mason Rudolph’s return was less disappointment than it was an anticlimax. And while some insist the deal is inevitable, the window of people caring may have passed.

What is certain is that training camp starts in July and the first preseason game is against Jacksonville on Aug. 9. Given a 10-7 finish to the 2024 season, the team needs a good game plan to produce better results. Without knowing whether there will be a Super Bowl-winning veteran on the roster, how can the Steelers plan much of anything right now?

That sounded a lot like sports analysis, didn’t it? It’s not. We have much better people more capable of doing that than me. I’m just a fan who tends to see a lot of things through a slightly different lens. The Rodgers-Steelers situation isn’t sports to me. It’s politics.

Specifically, it’s an allegory for the current political climate, where everything is being teased out like must-see TV with ratings and page views as the measure of success or failure. Meanwhile, what’s getting done? Even worse, what isn’t?

Let’s pretend Rodgers is Washington. Between the White House and Congress, there are a lot of unanswered questions. The “big beautiful bill” has passed the House with a lot of questionable provisions. Whether it passes the Senate remains to be seen, and if it does, it might have a lot of changes that would have to go back to the House for another vote.

There are Republican senators, like Kentucky’s Rand Paul, who are unhappy about the increased debt it contains, and others, like Missouri’s Josh Hawley, who called the proposed Medicaid cuts “morally wrong and politically suicidal” in a New York Times op-ed.

At the same time, the Trump administration is proposing tariffs, negotiating changes, pulling back, then reversing course again in whiplash-inducing example of economic bumper cars.

So how does Pennsylvania make its budget, which is due to be approved by June 30? Sure, it probably won’t happen by then, but that’s the deadline. The state is a conduit for federal money in many cases. How can the state make a plan when it doesn’t know what’s on the board? And that’s assuming that what’s ultimately approved will be provided. That’s no longer a given.

Maybe Washington politicians think this is all a game, like football. If so, they should remember that when those players and coaches lose, their contracts aren’t renewed and they end up looking for new jobs.

Ask Rodgers.

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