Mark Madden's Hot Take: Steelers-Jets will be a proving ground, set tone for season
Sports don’t always offer instant validation (or rebuke) of decision-making.
But the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Week 1 game will provide exactly that.
It’s more than three months away, but the Steelers’ Sept. 7 visit to the New York Jets looms extremely large. It’s a proving ground. It will set a tone for the 2025 season. It will leave an aftertaste.
The Steelers picked Aaron Rodgers over Justin Fields. Fields signed with the Jets. Rodgers played last season for the Jets.
Fields, 26, has been preparing to be the Jets quarterback for more than two months.
Rodgers, 41, has yet to sign with the Steelers and will likely miss OTAs and minicamp.
It’s quite the contrast.
If the Steelers lose, it will immediately seem like letting Fields go and getting Rodgers was a costly mistake. The citizens will be unsettled.
Because of his lengthy arrival process and attached lack of commitment, it’s easy to imagine the great unwashed turning on Rodgers if he and the Steelers struggle.
In a further twist, they won’t want Mason Rudolph to step in. The people’s choice will be the rookie, sixth-round pick Will Howard, Ben Roethlisberger’s new protege. “Give that kid a chance! Big Ben likes him!”
This could keep getting better and better.
The Steelers should have gone back to Fields in the final 2-3 weeks of last season. Once Wilson started to stumble and the Steelers started to unravel.
Wilson had reportedly lost the huddle. Fields would have brought athleticism and fresh energy.
The Steelers weren’t likely to win a playoff game (and didn’t). They could have learned more about Fields and, if he played well, laid groundwork for keeping him. A young quarterback with upside.
Instead, the Steelers wait for an old man to sort through his feelings.
Steelers vs. the New York Jets. MetLife Stadium. Sept. 7. Sunday at 1 p.m., as God intended. Steelers currently favored by three.
As that game goes, so goes the Steelers’ season. You should be nervous already.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.