Tim Benz: Looking forward to how Aaron Rodgers' role as 'servant leader' plays out

I’m not quite sure what Aaron Rodgers meant last week when he reported to Pittsburgh Steelers’ minicamp and said that he wants to be a “servant leader.”

I think I know what he means. I just wonder if he truly understands the message he is conveying by sending it.

“I just want to be a servant leader here and just pass on the knowledge that I have for 20 years — the experience — and just try and fit in with the guys, get to know them, let them get to know me, and just enjoy the process,” Rodgers said.

If we are going with the standard definition of what “servant leadership” means, and Rodgers is casting himself as the frontman of the collective looking for nothing more than advancing the common goal of the greater good, then … OK.

Cool.

However, if what Rodgers is trying to suggest on a broader scale is that he is just going to be carrying out the marching orders of Mike Tomlin and Arthur Smith, then, c’mon!

Please, who does he think he’s fooling?

Not only don’t I buy that, I don’t want that either.

“I’ve called some two minutes over the years. But the idea that somehow I need to, or have spent most of my career playing outside of an offensive system, is just not correct,” Rodgers insisted. “I’m going to learn the offense, and Arthur and I are going to talk a bunch this summer. If there’s things that I like that I’d like to see in the offense, Arthur, I’m sure, is going to put it in. He knows how to call a game. I know how to get us in the right spot based on what’s called. There’s two or three plays called in the huddle sometimes. My job is to get us in the right play.”

I understand why Rodgers dislikes the notion that he tries to operate outside of an offensive system or just does his own thing at all times.

Based on how restrictive the Steelers have been with their quarterbacks in recent years, though, I don’t want to see extensive restrictions applied to Rodgers.

If there is one thing I’m remotely optimistic about with Rodgers, it is his game from the neck up. So, I don’t want him to feel like he has to overcompensate and just do what he is told to do all the time.

Nor do I think that would last very long if he tried.

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Russell Wilson tried to walk that balancing act for a while here last year. After all, he was trying to shed his reputation for being a guy who operated as his own corporate entity rather than the leader of an offense.

For the first seven weeks of his run under center, everything went swimmingly.

Until it didn’t.

The season crashed and burned over the last five games, and the Steelers finished 2024 without a playoff win for the eighth year in a row, amid speculation that Wilson wasn’t given the autonomy to change as many plays at the line of scrimmage that one would assume a quarterback of his resume would deserve.

That was certainly the case for Justin Fields over the first six weeks as well. He admitted as much. And I have to think (as well as finances, of course) that was part of his calculus as to why he decided to leave Pittsburgh for New York in free agency.

Rodgers is here now. How things go during the work week in between games remains to be seen. But I think we all know how it is going to play out on game days. Once the ball is kicked off, he’s going to be in charge.

How that meets the definition of “servant leadership” is up to Rodgers, Smith and Tomlin to decide among themselves.

The efficiency of that dynamic will be proven in the standings.