Difference Between Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers on Display Sunday Night

Two former Super Bowl–champion quarterbacks took very different paths to their current teams. One bought in to the team’s strong and existing culture.

Wilson got a prime-time win in his Steelers debut / Barry Reeger-Imagn Images

On one sideline Sunday night, we saw a team that gave up everything for a veteran, Super Bowl–winning quarterback. And on the other, we saw a team that forced a veteran, Super Bowl–winning quarterback to give up (almost) everything simply for the right to play there. That is the story of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 37–15 win over the New York Jets.

The Jets became Aaron Rodgers Incorporated the moment the team traded for him and began the long process of making moves that, directly or indirectly, stemmed from his presence there. Rodgers changed the way the team approached the draft and free agency. He changed the way the team approached the trade deadline. He changed the way it played offense. Like when a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer recruits a new backing band, no one wants to be the one with a cymbal tossed at their head, making everyone play a little tight because of it. While Rodgers did not order the firing of his head coach, the immense pressure of his being there changed the way the Jets approach even the most basic of human niceties. Robert Saleh, let’s not forget, was the first in-season coach firing of the Woody Johnson tenure, despite being a game out of first place at the time. 

And while the Jets were never really a team with a definitive, owner-created culture or identity that spanned decades and influenced years of success, it’s safe to say that the team’s ethos is now wrapped up entirely in tasting the playoffs with Rodgers under center to somehow rationalize how vulnerable a place prone to jokes has made itself. 

Russell Wilson, on the other hand, had to become the consummate Steeler the moment he signed there with the “pole position” for a starting job but no guarantees. He was there when the team also traded for Justin Fields. He was there when Fields started the season 4–2. He had to sit there with his eye black on like a painted figurine, unable—or perhaps wisely unwilling—to respond to what had become a chorus of jokes about his Leave it to Beaver demeanor. Once the highest-paid player in the sport, as far as his current team was concerned, he was worthy of the veteran minimum. Expendable. 

On Sunday, I was less enamored with his scoring three total touchdowns and throwing for 264 yards than I was watching him, on multiple occasions, sandwich his body beneath that offensive line and subject himself to a series of trash compactor-like positions to pick up short-yardage gains. This is the same quarterback who came into his new situation in Denver with a private staff and an office; a quarterback who did not want to play rugby-style football anymore. And while no one can blame him for wanting the tail end of his career to include less punishment, this was a quarterback who seemed like an entirely poor fit for one of the toughest, machismo-drenched franchises in all of sports. 

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To be clear, I was one of the first people to call for the Jets to acquire Rodgers and one of the loudest detractors of Wilson in Pittsburgh. I don’t get to flip sides and claim clairvoyance on a night like this when it’s convenient, but I do get to point out what I overlooked: It is far better to bend your will to a culture already in existence than it is to force a kind of existent culture to bend to your will. 

Before Rodgers’s arrival, the Jets were a team of young stars. They had offensive and defensive rookies of the year in Garrett Wilson and Sauce Gardner. They had a newness about them. Now, they more closely resemble a team outside the playoff picture during baseball’s steroid era—a list of names you recognize but aren’t quite sure why or how they’ve all come together on this field. 

Before Wilson’s arrival in Pittsburgh, the Steelers were the Steelers. On Sunday night, the Steelers very much remained the Steelers. They hit the quarterback eight times, broke up six passes and picked off two. If we could identify one clear difference with Wilson in the lineup, it was a more calculated—and successful—aggressiveness. Per NextGenStats, Wilson attempted more than double the percentage of throws into tight coverage than Justin Fields did in Week 6, which, at least on one night, led to some game-defining chunk plays and the involvement of some hungry wide receivers. 

While it’s only one game, the exit strategy for both teams could not be more different. Pulling Wilson out of the lineup for Fields, a quarterback who handled his demotion with class, would be nothing more than a few well-chosen words at the podium. Both Wilson and Fields understand how to succeed there. Both of them understand that being in Pittsburgh means there are certain expectations; a code, a playing style, that are necessary. It would not represent a controversy if both of them started a handful of games throughout the remainder of this season.

Pulling out of the Rodgers experiment would leave behind a kind of ruin that is hard to wrap one’s head around given that, after seven weeks, we still have no idea what the Jets are even building or how they get there.