Hines Ward has perfect reaction to Aaron Rodgers' final season

Hines Ward has plenty of reasons to smile about Aaron Rodgers joining the Pittsburgh Steelers. He’s also got one very old reason to grumble.

Ward, appearing on “The Yinziders” podcast while promoting his new documentary “Becoming Hines Ward” (premiering July 21 on SEC Network), joked about Rodgers’ place in Steelers history.

“Of course, he beat us in a Super Bowl. Gosh darn it. I would’ve had three of them if it wasn’t for him,” Ward said.

As much as it still hurts, it’s funny. The 2010 Steelers went 12-4, survived a brutal playoff path through Baltimore and the Jets, then came up short against Rodgers and the Packers in Super Bowl 45.

Sixteen years later, Rodgers is donning black and gold — for his second-straight season. The strange part isn’t just the colors but what he represents for a franchise trying to pull itself out of a playoff rut that has dragged on for far too long.

The Steelers haven’t won a playoff game in nearly a decade. Since 2018, if they’ve made it to the playoffs, they haven’t been able to clear that Wild Card hurdle, which was the frustration fans kept circling back to with Mike Tomlin’s teams. Pittsburgh could stay competitive, keep seasons from falling apart, and finish above water, but January kept exposing the gap.

Rodgers won’t fix all of that by himself, especially at this stage of his career. We’ve seen that already. The offensive line has to hold up, the run game has to give the offense balance, and the defense has to pitch in by slowing the opponent. But Rodgers does give Pittsburgh a quarterback with playoff experience, control at the line, and the confidence to raise a veteran roster’s ceiling.

The guy who once blocked Pittsburgh from a seventh Lombardi (okay, we all know it was Rashard Mendenhall) is now being asked to help end the franchise’s longest postseason drought.

This article originally appeared on Steelers Wire: Hines Ward has perfect reaction to Aaron Rodgers’ final season