The Pittsburgh Steelers are still waiting on Aaron Rodgers, whose long-anticipated road to Steel City is “more complex than artificial intelligence,” the team’s minority owner recently joked. Behind closed doors, the Steelers still have no better sense of the quarterback’s 2025 plans than they did prior to April’s draft, according to ESPN.
During a pre-draft visit to team facilities, Rodgers encouraged the Steelers to “please move on” if they weren’t comfortable waiting for his free agent decision, Peter Schrager reported this week on the “Pat McAfee Show,” and unlike the New York Giants, the Steelers decided internally they were willing to be patient. Team owner Art Rooney II all but confirmed this in March, telling reporters that Pittsburgh expected Rodgers to eventually join the club and was OK waiting on the quarterback “a little while longer.”
Two months later, Pittsburgh “knows no more now than they did at the draft or before the draft,” Schrager explained, with “McAfee” co-host and former Rodgers teammate A.J. Hawk essentially echoing the sentiment.
What, exactly, is the holdup? Rodgers, 41, is “still deliberating,” according to Schrager.
The quarterback was transparent in his own “McAfee” appearance prior to the draft, albeit without any commitment to any scenario for 2025, be it playing for the Steelers or playing at all.
I’m in a different phase of my life,” Rodgers said at the time. “I’m 41 years old. … To make a commitment to a team is a big thing, whether you’re a first-year player or a 20-year vet. … I am trying to be open to everything and not specifically attached to anything … I’m not holding anybody hostage. … When the commitment is made, it has to be an ‘all-in’ type of commitment. … I don’t think it was fair to the Steelers or anyone while I’m dealing with a lot off the field [to make that commitment]. … The people that need to know, know.”
