Rodgersgate

By BRUCE LOWITT

The Pittsburgh Steelers were fined $1-million Monday by the National Football League after it discovered that the team had used an AI-controlled robotic quarterback in place of Aaron Rodgers to throw four touchdown passes Sunday in its 34-32 victory over the New York Jets.

“Pulling a stunt like this could permanently damage the reputation of our league, which is already pretty damaged by the decades of denials about brain damage due to head injuries inflicted on and by our players, not to mention steroids and our cozying up to gambling sites,” said Troy Vincent Sr., NFL Executive Vice President of Football Operations.

The Steelers initially denied that the team had any involvement in the substitution of Rodgers by the robot, known as the Ayahuascatron 2000 manufactured by Boston Dynamics, a Massachusetts-based tech company. The team claimed it believed Rodgers must have been “replaced by rogue equipment people, or maybe some men wearing phony NFL outfits working for FanDuel or Draft Kings” after the teams’ pregame warmups.

The ruse apparently went totally undetected until six minutes remained in the game when Jets linebacker Quincy Williams sacked Rodgers. Williams said he heard beeping and whirring coming from Rodgers’ torso and immediately mentioned it to first-year head coach Aaron Glenn. “Coach told me I must’ve gotten my bell rung and to just get back out there and keep up the pressure,” he said in a post-game interview.”

Mike Tomlin, the Steelers’ long-time head coach, said he was unaware that a robot had replaced Rodgers because “I had other things on my mind, like our strategy and making sure everyone’s executing the game plan. But I have to admit, looking back, that I should’ve realized something was a bit off when I saw Rodgers smiling after a few plays. I mean, when the hell has anyone ever seen him smile?”

The $1-million fine was more than double the previous largest penalty ever levied against the Steelers. In 1980, then-Commissioner Pete Rozelle hit the team with a $400,000 fine and quarterback Terry Bradshaw with a separate $50,000 fine for wearing an Eva Gabor blond wig that covered his helmet at the start of Pittsburgh’s Super Bowl XIV win over the Rams.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said he had considered voiding the entire Steelers-Jets game due to what he called “Rodgersgate” and requiring that the teams replay it after “every player on both teams are examined for their, uh, manhood.”

But Goodell said he decided against it because “there’s no way in hell that (replay) game would be as good as Sunday’s. Besides, even if the Jets beat Pittsburgh, what is it going to be, one out of the five or six games they win all season? Like they’re going to make the playoffs? Oh, please.”