People use this turn of phrase too often nowadays, but I truly mean it when I say the Pittsburgh Steelers have the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever.

Please, please sign Aaron Rodgers.

It would be a must-watch event — you know, like how people can’t look away when a skyscraper is being demolished. It would be better reality TV than Bravo can dream up, and you wouldn’t even have to film it on a yacht.

As someone who spent his formative years rooting for the Ravens, I would find nothing more hilarious than the Steelers — an organization with bedrock stability as its core principle — signing the guy who blows hot air on Pat McAfee’s show every week. Rodgers’ gift of gab is matched only by the gift of turnovers for the defenses he faces.

I understand why it looks like Rodgers and the Steelers make sense for each other, a little bit like the last two wallflowers trying to dance together for a few numbers at prom. But, the way Rodgers is wired now, Pittsburgh would have a hard time making sense of his steps and rhythm. It wouldn’t be a pretty sight, not by a long shot.

That is why I can’t stop thinking how funny it would be.

Pittsburgh has to do something. During their run of success with Lamar Jackson in the AFC North, the Ravens have had a great quarterback in his prime — something Pittsburgh hasn’t had during the end of Ben Roethlisberger’s career, a failed Kenny Pickett experiment and a one-year run with Russell Wilson.

The only quarterback on the roster is Mason Rudolph, and the Steelers know that road doesn’t end anywhere good. With the 21st overall pick in next weekend’s draft, the Steelers likely won’t be in the mix for Cam Ward or Shedeur Sanders, and maybe not even Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart.

Desperation rarely leads to sound personnel decisions. Maybe Baltimore has backed the Steelers into a corner where they’re crazy enough to do something dumb.

Rodgers sounds like he wants it to happen. In his Thursday interview on McAfee’s show (a 44-minute appearance, jeez, can we just get a highlight reel?), he said he loved Pittsburgh and was especially impressed with coach Mike Tomlin. “He’s more than I even thought from afar, as far as the type of person that he is,” Rodgers said. “I have a lot of respect for what he’s accomplished in the league.”

I believe in Rodgers, though. If he put his mind to it, he could tear down all Tomlin has accomplished in 18 years in the Steel City. At this stage of his career, he’s the perfect man for the job.

If it wasn’t clear enough that Rodgers, who threw 28 touchdown passes but had 11 picks and eight fumbles last season for the 5-12 New York Jets, is not a desirable QB candidate, he completes the picture by opening his mouth. Also on McAfee’s show, he complained about an offseason meeting with the Jets and specifically new coach Aaron Glenn. He flew in from California, he vented, just for the Jets to say in a 15-minute session that they were going in a different direction.

The key question that seemed to turn it all was when Glenn asked Rodgers if he truly wanted to play. “Yeah, I’m interested,” Rodgers said by his own admission. After that, he said, Glenn didn’t want to entertain the possibility more.

“Interested” is an interesting word for Rodgers to use, especially because — in the same interview with McAfee — he acknowledged that he’s in a different phase of life at 41 years old. “I’m open to anything and attached to nothing,” he said. “So, yeah, retirement could still be a possibility. But right now my focus is on ... my personal life.”

Did he stop to think that maybe Glenn — who has his job only because his predecessor, Robert Saleh, was fired midseason during the Rodgers circus — was looking for Rodgers to give him an unambiguous “yes”? Instead of ruminating for long stretches, playing games with the possibility of retirement (as he has for four years or so), maybe a coach just wants to hear that you actually want to play.

To use Rodgers’ own word, he called his tenure in New York “a debacle.” Why would he fool himself into thinking the Jets would want a sequel?

Maybe Rodgers thinks the way I do. Sometimes, the sequel is so bad it’s fun to watch.

In your 40s, playing in the NFL takes absolute commitment and discipline. You can get a job at this age — just look at Joe Flacco, who spent his time as an unsigned free agent in 2023 dropping dimes to his brother on a youth field every morning before picking up his kids from school. He just turned 40, and the Cleveland Browns signed him back.

As unthinkable as it would feel to have seen Flacco in black and yellow, maybe the Steelers should have picked up his number first. I know which 40-something passer I’d rather have.

Nobody here is saying that Rodgers isn’t an all-time great quarterback, but he’s just not that anymore. An MVP as recently as 2021, Rodgers is slower, not as good throwing and hasn’t won enough to justify the intense, breathless coverage of his free agency. Last season, he ranked 28th in QBR and 21st in passer rating. One of the few categories in which Rodgers was in the top 10 was most sacks taken (40).

And yet it’s possible that levelheaded leaders such as Steelers general manager Omar Khan and Tomlin will risk it all for Rodgers. Make no mistake: They’d probably lose it all, too.

Khan still is in the prove-it stage of his GM tenure, and the inability to stabilize quarterback (so far) is his Achilles’ heel. Tomlin is the longest-tenured head coach in the NFL, but incredibly his last playoff win was in 2016. Neither is on such solid ground that he can definitely withstand the chaos that Rodgers brings with weekly ESPN musings on which teammates he’d like, why his team isn’t successful or (God forbid) his political opinions on vaccines.

Rodgers’ mediocre on-field performance is damaging enough, but his sideshow act on McAfee has the power to level even the most stable football organizations. That might be why no quarterback-needy team, such as the Minnesota Vikings or the New York Giants, has signed him. Imagine Tomlin, who can be a terse and testy podium speaker, fielding questions about Rodgers’ passive-aggressive critiques on ESPN. You can almost see the steam coming out of his ears.

Rodgers listed his desired salary at $10 million, which would make him the lowest-paid starting QB besides anyone on a rookie deal. But folks who want to keep their jobs should consider paying Rodgers just to stay away — it would be worth the investment.

If I were the Steelers, I’d look into a trade. Maybe check if Kirk Cousins is available from Atlanta. Maybe trade up in the draft for one of the promising rookies. But neither of those options would be as entertaining as watching them take a huge swing — and probable miss — on Rodgers.

Entertaining for the rest of us, that is. Please, Pittsburgh, do it for the laughs.