PITTSBURGH — It's already a sensitive issue. You could tell as much from listening to Aaron Rodgers and his offensive coordinator, Arthur Smith, over the past couple of days.

How much freedom will Rodgers have at the line scrimmage, where games can be won and lost in those precious seconds before the snap? How much freedom will Rodgers have overall?

It's an issue, of course, because of the Steelers' recent history with future Hall of Fame quarterbacks — and, in what is possibly a related matter, their recent awful history on offense.

First, Mike Tomlin somehow thought it best to restrict late-career Ben Roethlisberger at the line, even though Ben's coordinator was Tomlin's hand-picked disaster, Matt Canada, who had never called plays in the NFL.

Roethlisberger did his best work that year (2021) when he flushed Canada's playbook down the toilet and winged it, usually after the Steelers fell behind. That is well-documented.

(The fact that Roethlisberger threw for 22 touchdowns and took his team to the playoffs in his final year here, despite working with Canada and playing behind an overmatched rookie center, is nothing less than a miracle).

Next came Russell Wilson, Mr. Unlimited, who reportedly was quite limited in his abilities to change plays at the line as last season wore on. And despite Wilson and Smith putting on a happy face, there clearly was professional tension — and a terrible offense over the final month and a half.

Now along comes Rodgers, a four-time MVP who dabbled a bit in coaching and general managing during his calamitous tenure in New York. He isn't exactly a wallflower. His working relationship with Smith will be fascinating to track.

Everything is good now, of course. It's always good in June. The Mike Sullivan-Erik Karlsson relationship was great before they actually started playing games.

I'm not saying the Rodgers-Smith marriage will fail. It might be a much better fit than Wilson-Smith was last season. But you might want to have your popcorn ready.

The question came up Tuesday as to whether Rodgers will feel free to "take over" when he sees fit. It seemed like a fair question, and it seems like a good idea to let Rodgers do just that. Why bring him in if you don't hand him the reins?

He didn't love the question.

"I don't understand that last term, 'take over when I see fit,' " Rodgers said. "I've called some two-minutes over the years. But the idea that somehow I need to, or have spent most of my career playing outside of an offensive system, is just not correct."

Well, nobody said that. The question was, will you see fit to sometimes take over? And let's not pretend Rodgers hasn't done that from time to time (again, as he should).

Former Packers tight end Marcedes Lewis — a player Rodgers complimented in comparing Steelers tight end Darnell Washington to him — recounted one notable occurrence a few years back on a Yahoo! Sports podcast.

Lewis said he was in the huddle when Rodgers ignored coach Mike McCarthy's play call.

"I guess McCarthy called in a play, and Aaron was kind of like, 'Nah,' " Lewis said. "He gave a direction and a protection to the line, and went. It was a four-minute offense, he threw a 40-yard bomb for a completion. I'm like, 'What's really going on?' I've never seen anything like that before in my life."

Smith didn't seem to enjoy broaching this topic, either, telling reporters, "I know that's a hot-button issue here. I never had the privilege of working with Ben. He was here for a long time. He's a gold-jacket player. I'm not sure how he did things. Whatever the fantastical narrative was where they were just calling plays at the line, I don't know the history of that. I just know what we did in Pittsburgh in 2024."

Yes, which wasn't much. And that's the real point here. Nobody will care how much control the quarterback has if the Steelers can finally put a competent, explosive offense on the field. They haven't had a top-10 scoring offense since 2018.

Smith hasn't had a top-10 scoring offense since he had Michael Jordan — a.k.a Derrick Henry — in his backfield. Smith's offense ranked fourth and 10th in those two years in Tennessee. Without Henry — meaning, three years as Falcons head coach and last season as Steelers coordinator — Smith's offenses rank 26th, 15th, 26th and 16th.

What's more, the Steelers failed to score a first-drive touchdown all season, were awful in the red zone, were awful on first down, and mostly awful in short yardage. The offense no-showed in the first half of the playoff game in Baltimore and for the first time since the 1-13 team of 1969 went five straight games without eclipsing 17 points.

And yet we hear reports of what a great job Smith did. It's baffling.

"I'm going to learn the offense, and Arthur and I are going to talk a bunch this summer," Rodgers told reporters. "If there's things that I like that I'd like to see in the offense, Arthur, I'm sure, is going to put it in. He knows how to call a game. I know how to get us in the right spot based on what's called. There's two or three plays called in the huddle sometimes. My job is to get us in the right play."

That sounds simple enough — but the games don't start till September.

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