Steelers Now
Aaron Rodgers isn’t the only player entering this NFL season on the wrong side of 40. Carolina Panthers long snapper J.J. Jansen, a former teammate of the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback’s, is 40 and heading into his 18th professional go-round.
Jansen also isn’t very enamored with this Steelers team, which is directed by Mike McCarthy. The Steelers host the Panthers in Week 16 — still a while away — but Jansen might have added some fuel to the fire.
“I just don’t think they’re particularly interesting,” Jansen said Wednesday on the “NFL Daily” podcast. “I think they will be fine. I was in Green Bay when Aaron was a starter for the first time with Mike McCarthy. I think it’s gonna be a fine working relationship. One of the interesting things, getting to talk to Aaron a little bit last year, he spoke so highly of Mike Tomlin. He equated it to playing for Mike McCarthy. He has a lot of respect for Mike McCarthy.
“I thought Aaron played OK last year. You’re not paying Aaron $45, $50 million. … I still feel like they’re a 9-8 team. They’re gonna beat some teams that they shouldn’t, and they’re gonna lose some games that they shouldn’t. I would certainly trust the ball in Aaron’s hand in the fourth quarter, but it’s sort of just an uninteresting 9-8, 10-7, 7-10 kind of team for me.”
The show’s host, Jourdan Rodrigue, didn’t push back. Rodgers went 10-6 as the Steelers’ signal-caller last season, passing for 3,322 yards, 24 touchdowns and seven interceptions. But she contends that he’s a weak link at this point in his career.
“To me, it’s all about the quarterback here,” Rodrigue said. “I think they have a good team, I think they have a good roster. I think that going all out and being so obvious and so just everything on pause while we go out and try to get this quarterback who did not even play very well last year and who knows how he’s gonna be last year? To me, (that) was so anti what you think the Steelers would do, just with their history. … It just sort of reeked to me a little bit of desperation.”
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now: Steelers 2026 Opponent Throws Shade at Mike McCarthy’s Team
