Paul Zeise: Aaron Rodgers stunk, but he had plenty of help in that category

Paul Zeise, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Nov 10, 2025

Published in Football

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PITTSBURGH — If there is any silver lining from the Steelers' Sunday night disaster in Los Angeles, it is that they are still in first place in the AFC North.

They won't be for much longer, though, if they don't fix the offense, and there doesn't seem like it will be easy to do so. The offense is a compilation of misfit parts that all seemingly have flaws and also don't seem to fit together very well.

There are no explosive players on offense except for DK Metcalf, and he has become the easiest man in the NFL to scheme out of games. Teams can bracket him, double-team him, roll safeties to him — whatever it takes — because they have no real fear of the other skill position players to make big plays.

Arthur Smith's archaic offense is also a part of the problem and maybe is the biggest part of the problem. I am glad he "does more with tight ends than any other coach," but what the heck does that mean?

The tight ends only had six targets on Sunday night, which is head scratching because they are supposed to be the focal point of the offense. But let's be honest, unless your tight ends are named Gronk and Kelce, building an offense around tight ends is losing football in today's NFL.

Jaylen Warren is probably the second-best weapon behind Metcalf on the offense and, once again, Smith and Co. acted like they didn't know he was on the team until late in the game when it was already decided. He carried the ball only 14 times, which is actually about two more than his average number of carries.

Make no mistake, Aaron Rodgers stunk the joint out on Sunday night and was a major reason the Steelers got blown out by the Chargers.

Rodgers looked a lot more like a man who should be getting on with his life's work than a man who should be contemplating playing another season. He looked like he had happy feet, he made bad decisions, he was off target too many times, and he tried to jam too many passes into places that weren't open.

It was by far his worst night as a Steelers quarterback, and the worst part about it is Rodgers at times looked disinterested, as if he were saying to himself, "Why the heck am I not on a beach somewhere enjoying life?"

There are a lot of people who want to blame Rodgers solely for the Steelers' woes against the Chargers, but that is way too lazy of a critique of this game. He was bad, for sure, but he had plenty of friends in that department.

The offensive line had been showing improvement but took a big step back Sunday. Troy Fautanu should have been credited with a strip sack of Rodgers on the play that led to a safety for the Chargers. He also got a bad holding penalty, and Broderick Jones wasn't much better.

Rodgers got hit too many times and outside of an "oh by the way" touchdown reception by Roman Wilson, the receivers didn't do a good job of getting open or catching the ball. I keep hearing people try to tell me that the Steelers have a legitimate second receiving threat in Calvin Austin III, and it makes me wonder what games they are watching.

As I have written many times, the Steelers' receiving corps is DK Metcalf and five guys named Mo, and I'm not sure that Mo isn't the best of that group. Austin is a nice complementary third or fourth receiver, but he is miscast as a legitimate second option.

That's part of the problem with the Steelers offense, and it shows up in a big way on nights when Rodgers is a little bit off or just isn't playing well for whatever reason.

Defensively, the Steelers played well enough to win in some regards — they did have five sacks and 11 tackles for loss — but the reality is they allowed too many chunk plays. They didn't do a good job of stopping the Chargers at too many critical moments, and they couldn't get off the field enough on big third downs.

They also didn't force any turnovers, and that once again shows they may be too reliant on turnovers and can't get enough stops to win without them. I don't know if that is a fair criticism, but there is plenty of evidence that suggests it is true.

Take all of these things and wrap them all together, and the result is a 25-10 loss that felt more like 45-10 given how bad the offense was playing.

It is absolutely true that Rodgers needs to bounce back and play much better than he did Sunday for the Steelers to have any prayer to beat any team, much less a team that is currently on a path to be in the playoffs.

But Rodgers isn't the only one that needs to be evaluated harshly during film sessions this week, as there is plenty of blame to go around — and that includes the coaching staff — as to why this game was such an epic failure.

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