It’s amazing how last January can feel so far away, yet so close at the same time.

A cold January night on the North Shore had yielded yet another disastrous night for the hometown team. The Pittsburgh Steelers had been blown out, at home, 30-6 by the visiting Houston Texans. A night that began with blinding hope was flipped in an instant. The Steelers were trailing just 7-6 heading into the fourth quarter, believe it or not.

But for as demoralizing as that night was, why would anything change?

It was the ninth straight year without a playoff win, the seventh straight playoff loss, and at least the fourth or fifth playoff game in a row where the game was over by halftime. We had seen this movie time and time again.

The remakes still brought in views and money. The national critics still lauded the work. Why would anything change?

If anyone was leaving the Steelers, we thought it would be Aaron Rodgers. The 42-year old quarterback had signed on as a hired gun in the hopes of not only showing the league it was the Jets, not him, that was the problem in New York. If all went according to plan, perhaps he would have returned the ring he had stolen from the Steelers all those years ago as well.

A week prior, Rodgers triumphantly walked off that field having secured the next step in that goal. He thought he had the game sealed, when his go-ahead touchdown pass to Calvin Austin put the Steelers ahead over their arch-rival Ravens with 55 seconds to go.

Baltimore’s last gasp made for an agonizing waiting game, but after a field goal try went wide right, Rodgers and the rambunctious energy inside Acrisure Stadium celebrated even harder.

It punched Pittsburgh’s ticket to the playoffs, solidified themselves as Kings of the North, and earned the Steelers the right to host a playoff game. Eight nights later, Rodgers was walking solemnly off the field, surrounded by players and media who collectively wondered whether this was the last time we had ever seen the future Hall of Famer.

Instead, the man who recruited him to Pittsburgh and the long-tenured head coach who found himself a more and more polarizing figure by the day, abruptly decided it was time.

In the wake of the loss the next day, Mike Tomlin stepped down from his post. An era of Pittsburgh Steelers football had died on the field that night.

Though an increasing number of fans wanted the Tomlin time to end, very few expected it to actually happen. The Rooney family wouldn’t fire him, and it was nearly impossible to imagine Tomlin simply walking away from the headset.

For a franchise that had become stale, and was either unwilling or unable to address that directly, Tomlin’s departure was a secret gift for the Steelers. For the first time in nearly two decades, the Steelers embarked on a head coaching search, leaving them with a field of candidates ranging from very young upstarts like Nate Scheelhaase, to former head coaches like Brian Flores.

Unfortunately for the more radical members of the Steelers fanbase, the team’s selection was shockingly moderate and centrist.

Mike McCarthy, the former head coach in Green Bay and Dallas, who grew up in Greenfield and defeated his boyhood team in Super Bowl XLV, was hired as the new man for the job.

McCarthy did not excite this fan base. An irate crowd was dissatisfied at best to hire someone with an incredibly similar résumé to Tomlin: won a Super Bowl years ago, great regular season success, failures in the postseason.

But, in addition to his hometown story ingratiating himself with more and more fans, McCarthy’s attribute as a quarterback developer got more and more fans on board with the idea. His quarterback experience was headlined by Rodgers in Green Bay, but McCarthy also showed the ability to get the best out of backups and journeymen, including Cooper Rush.

And it just so happened the Steelers had a young quarterback already on the roster. Will Howard, the team’s sixth round pick from the 2025 draft class, had missed last year’s training camp and preseason, but his Ohio State days and national champion pedigree had a sizable chunk of fans far more excited for him than your average sixth-round pick.

Then, the Steelers acquired a second. In the first draft of the McCarthy era, the Steelers used the 76th overall pick to select Drew Allar out of Penn State, a selection that stunned the hometown crowd as Pittsburgh hosted the draft.

And for as unproven either one of these young passers was, pairing them with McCarthy was one of their best chances to make something of themselves in the NFL.

It was all coming together.

Tomlin’s 19-year streak of never having a losing season was undeniably impressive, but it hung over the team like a dark cloud. Players felt pressure to get Tomlin over that .500 mark, even when it was clear that was this team’s ceiling.

Now that he was gone, the streak could die its natural death. McCarthy could enter the season with two young quarterbacks he could develop: Howard, who had already been here a year, or Allar, the shiny new toy.

Truthfully, it didn’t matter which one McCarthy picked. Giving one of them a legitimate chance to start and put real NFL tape out there for the folks up in the press box would have yielded the Steelers a benefit no matter what.

If Howard or Allar succeeded, the Steelers might have found their next long-term quarterback. And if they failed, Pittsburgh would likely be in prime position to go all-in on a first-round quarterback in 2024.

Yes, you would have to take a year off from competing and contention. But long term, it would be beneficial to tie organization. And let’s be honest, can you really call what the Steelers have done “contending?”

For a while, this looked like the potential plan. And then, on May 16th, Rodgers comes back. Cashing in on a surprise 2025 season, the quarterback inked a one-year, $25 million deal for one last ride…officially this time.

What better way to do it than with the coach who you started with? And in what better city to do it than McCarthy’s home town, and the city whom Rodgers and McCarthy took a Super Bowl ring from all those years earlier.

So now, this idea better work. Rodgers didn’t come here to lose, an he didn’t sign here to surrender snaps ahead of him. If all goes according to Pittsburgh’s new plan, Howard and Allar will never touch the field, and their development will have to wait.

Can Rodgers and the Steelers win the Super Bowl? Who knows? But probably not.

Can the Steelers win a playoff game? Maybe, just maybe. And for a city that is going on ten years without it, Pittsburgh might settle for that now. We can argue about that, but it certainly feels that way within the fan base. They want the streak to be over, by any means necessary.

That’s what Rodgers came back for. That’s what McCarthy is aiming for. They believe a new age of playoff football is on the horizon for this town.

This better work.