Aaron Rodgers’ preseason run with the Pittsburgh Steelers seems to be over before it even started as coach Mike Tomlin confirmed after practice on Tuesday, August 19, that the quarterback will be sitting out the team’s final preseason game against the Carolina Panthers on Thursday, August 21.
Tomlin held out Rodgers for the first two Steelers’ preseason games as well. Last season, with the New York Jets, Rodgers again ended up skipping out on the entire preseason while recovering from an Achilles injury from 2023. This implies the 2023 preseason finale against the New York Giants would be his only prep game since 2018.
When asked what he expected to gain out of the Panthers game, Rodgers told the New York Times, “Health. Everybody is getting through healthy. Most important thing.” “I’m comfortable with what I’m seeing out here,” Tomlin said. “If I weren’t, I would be playing him.”
Additional practice
Rodgers’ Steelers debut will have to wait until he meets the New York Jets in Week 1 of the regular season. Outside of practice, the closest he got to a game-real environment was during the Steelers’ joint practice with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last week. Rodgers explained earlier in camp that defenses are typically vanilla in the preseason. On the flip side, during joint practices, teams are much more willing to show exotic pressures or disguised coverages,” reports Mike DeFabo of the New York Times.
“That was good for us to get some work in,” Rodgers said. “I felt like there was a lot of film to correct. Failure is always best this time of year to learn from and to be able to let the coaches go through or let Arthur (Smith) go through. The thing I loved is that there weren’t fans there, so they felt comfortable bringing a lot of different pressures. I thought it was good work for us in the protection game, especially.”
{{/usCountry}}“That was good for us to get some work in,” Rodgers said. “I felt like there was a lot of film to correct. Failure is always best this time of year to learn from and to be able to let the coaches go through or let Arthur (Smith) go through. The thing I loved is that there weren’t fans there, so they felt comfortable bringing a lot of different pressures. I thought it was good work for us in the protection game, especially.”
{{/usCountry}}In addition to Rodgers, defensive tackle Cameron Heyward, outside linebacker T.J. Watt, and wide receiver DK Metcalf are also being held back by Tomlin from the Steelers’ preseason finale.
– With inputs from Stuti Gupta