Most assume quarterback Aaron Rodgers will return to the Steelers for another season. One Steelers player seems to think Rodgers remains on the fence.
Appearing on NFL Network’s Good Morning Football, Steelers linebacker Patrick Queen put the odds at “50-50,” via Jeremy Bergman of NFL.com.
“Is he gonna be back? I don’t know,” Queen said. “But hell, I’ll take him. Dude is a great teammate, great quarterback. We all know him, we all love him. He knows how to win. We just have to be better for him.”
That may ultimately be the source of any hesitation. How much better will the Steelers be this year than last year?
Much of the AFC is in flux. The Steelers are in flux, too. And Rodgers arrived in large part because of the presence of coach Mike Tomlin. With Mike McCarthy now leading the team, who knows whether the Steelers will be better, or worse, than they were in 2025?
Then there’s the reality that there’s no other viable option for Rodgers, if he wants to play in 2026. Beyond the Cardinals, every team has a clear starter — or the clear candidates to win the starting job.
Some think Rodgers will commit to the Steelers next week, when Pittsburgh hosts the draft. He could show up on the stage, using the enthusiasm of having the draft in town to boost the enthusiasm of a fanbase that is lukewarm at best regarding another year with Rodgers.
He also could wait. If an eventual contender loses its starter, his phone could ring. He could swoop in, leading the way for one of the leaders of the pack. He could cap his career with a real playoff run, not a one-and-done disaster that ended with a pick-six.
That pick-six on his last throw of the season perhaps becomes the magnet for another run. Rodgers surely doesn’t want his final act in the NFL to be the thing he avoided better than most quarterbacks who have ever played.
Even with Queen pegging the odds at even, it feels like he’ll end up in Pittsburgh. With Rodgers, however, there’s no way of knowing what he’ll do until he does it.
The Steelers expect to get word from Aaron Rodgers about his plans for the 2026 season before the draft, but they’ll still need to think about the future of the quarterback position if Rodgers does return for a second year in Pittsburgh.
A player who could be part of that future is spending some time with the team on Monday. Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports that Taylen Green is visiting the team.
Green spent the last two seasons as the starter at Arkansas and threw for 5,868 yards and 34 touchdowns while completing over 60 percent of his passes. Green also ran for 1,379 yards and 16 touchdowns, but threw 20 interceptions to mitigate the big plays he made through the air and on the ground.
The physical tools that Green flashed in game action were also on display when he set a record for vertical leap by quarterbacks at this year’s Scouting Combine. He also ran the 40 in 4.36 seconds and we’ll find out next week if the Steelers take a chance on seeing if his athletic ability translates into professional success.
Seven years after the ship sailed on Paxton Lynch’s NFL career, he’s still dog paddling after it.
Most recently, Lynch was playing for the Colorado Spartans of the National Arena League. He suffered a torn ACL in his third game.
“I was pissed off,” Lynch told Luca Evans of the Denver Post. “And it sucks. I didn’t want it to be like this.”
The sentiment undoubtedly applies to his entire professional career. A first-round pick of the Broncos in 2016, Lynch washed out of Denver just before the start of his third season. Lynch started four total games in two seasons, with 792 passing yards and a passer rating of 76.7.
He didn’t play for anyone in 2018 before getting a shot to make the Seahawks in 2019. He eventually landed in Pittsburgh after Ben Roethlisberger suffered a season-ending elbow injury against Seattle in Week 2.
The Steelers waived Lynch before the start of the 2020 regular season. He then spent a season in the CFL before playing for three teams in two years with multiple spring leagues.
In both 2024 and 2025, Lynch didn’t play. The Spartans were his return to football.
“I was like, ‘OK, if I play this year in arena football,’” Lynch said, “‘I’m going to play as Paxton Lynch. I’m going to have full confidence in myself. I don’t really care.’ And that’s what I did. . . . It felt good to do that again.”
He lost that authenticity in 2018, when the Broncos signed Case Keenum to be the starter and doubt derailed Lynch’s time in Denver.
“I always knew who I was off the field,” Lynch told Evans. “But when it became Paxton Lynch the football player, and all these people had these different opinions about me — that’s when it was hard for me. . . . I was like . . . ‘You believe that you’re good. But you’re not playing good. And then all these people are saying you’re not good. So it’s like, ‘Are these people seeing something I’m not seeing?’ It was the constant battle in that.”
Whether a brief stint of feeling like himself again is the final chapter or just another page in a longer book remains to be seen. Regardless, he had talent. He wasn’t a fluke first-round pick. He was widely regarded as the No. 3 prospect in the 2016 draft, behind Jared Goff and Carson Wentz.
And if the Broncos hadn’t traded up to get Lynch at the bottom of round one, the Cowboys would have. Which would have likely short-circuited Dak Prescott’s time in Dallas before it even began. Prescott was a fourth-round pick that same year.
One of the remaining unanswered questions for the NFL offseason is whether Aaron Rodgers will be back at quarterback for the Steelers this fall.
The Steelers have indicated that they expect an answer before the draft gets underway on April 23 and it doesn’t sound like he’s shared any hints with one of the team’s top offensive players. Running back Jaylen Warren said on NFL Network that he’s not making any bets about whether Rodgers will play or retire at this point.
“You know, I’m not really expecting anything,” Warren said. “Whatever happens, happens. I’m rocking with whoever’s at the quarterback position. But if he comes back, great. If he doesn’t, then we’ll miss him.”
The Steelers will have new questions to answer if Rodgers does not decide to play a second season for Pittsburgh, so Warren won’t be the only person waiting to find out his decision in the coming days.
A couple of defensive players from the SEC had a pre-draft visit with the Steelers on Friday.
Brooke Pryor of ESPN.com reports that former Texans cornerback Malik Muhammad and former LSU linebacker Harold Perkins were in Pittsburgh. Former Memphis offensive tackle Travis Burke also met with the team.
Muhammad was a starter during his final two seasons with the Longhorns and wrapped up his college time with 30 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss, a sack and two interceptions last season.
Perkins excelled in his first two seasons at LSU, but a torn ACL in 2024 slowed his ascent to the NFL. He returned in 2025 with 56 tackles, eight tackles for loss, four sacks and three interceptions.
Burke spent one season at Memphis after playing at Gardner-Webb and Florida International. He saw time at both tackle positions over his time in college.
