After Florida attorney James Uthmeier posted a video on Wednesday demanding that the NFL suspend the Rooney Rule, the team owned by the man after whom the rule is named had no comment.
On Friday, Steelers owner Art Rooney II — the son of Dan Rooney, the namesake of the Rooney Rule — had a comment.
“There’s no question that the environment has changed in recent years,” Rooney told Kalyn Kahler of ESPN. “We do have an obligation to make sure that our policies comply with the laws, whatever the law is, and whatever the changes in law might be. We’ve got to look at that and make sure we’re in compliance. . . . That’s just the environment we’re existing in today.”
The laws haven’t changed. The attitude toward them has. No state attorney general has ever investigated the NFL for decades of questionable hiring practices when it comes to race. Now, out of the blue, a red-state attorney general is attacking the Rooney Rule as being discriminatory on the basis of race.
Rooney’s comments have relevance far beyond Florida. They explain the NFL’s tiptoeing through the DEI minefield, dumping the Accelerator program last year before bringing it back in 2026 and expanding it to include white candidates.
The NFL has tried to strike the balance between saying all the right things and doing as little as possible. Now, the league is faced with a dilemma. Paying lip service to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts has invited an attack from Florida. What the NFL does from here could invite a social-media assault from one specific location in Washington, D.C.
It also could spark an effort by a blue-state attorney general or two to pluck low-hanging fruit that has been hanging there for decades.
Steelers Clips
Florida is taking aim at the Rooney Rule, calling it discriminatory. The Fritz Pollard Alliance, in a statement issued to PFT, has defended the provision.
“The Rooney Rule doesn’t limit opportunity; it expands it,” Fritz Pollard Alliance interim executive director Michele C. Meyer-Shipp said. “It doesn’t cap who a club can consider or dictate who gets hired and it’s not a hiring rule. What it does is increase fair competition and ensure a true merit-based process by opening the door beyond the traditional ‘tap on the shoulder’ system, so the best candidates from all backgrounds are actually seen, evaluated, and can compete.”
The Fritz Pollard Alliance, as explained on the group’s website, works “to ensure that hiring, advancement, and decision-making processes for career opportunities both on and off the field are open, fair, and inclusive, so that the leadership of the game reflects the excellence, talent, and diversity of the sport itself.”
The NFL has not responded to an inquiry from PFT regarding the Wednesday afternoon comments from Florida attorney general James Uthmeier, who has demanded that the NFL suspend the Rooney Rule or face possible enforcement action.
The Rooney Rule is named for late Steelers owner Dan Rooney; the Steelers had no comment on Wednesday evening regarding Uthmeier’s demand that the Rooney Rule be suspended.
Former Steelers coach Mike Tomlin is moving closer to taking the TV plunge.
Front Office Sports reports that Tomlin has hired Sandy Montag to represent the 19-year head coach in his consideration of roles in television.
Montag and former sportscaster Alex Flanagan will represent Tomlin. He’ll surely draw interest from every NFL broadcast partner. The ultimate question will be fit — and finances.
Montag represented the late John Madden. Tomlin could have a similar impact, frankly. He speaks in compelling and memorable sound bites. He’s direct, pointed, entertaining. When he speaks, people listen.
But first, Montag and Flanagan will be listening to offers for the Super Bowl-winning coach who’ll stop coaching for at least a year and maybe longer.
New Steelers wide receiver Michael Pittman hasn’t spoken to Aaron Rodgers, but said he thinks the quarterback wants to play. New coach Mike McCarthy has spoken to Rodgers since the Steelers hired him, but he insists he still knows nothing about Rodgers’ future.
Announcer Kevin Harlan asked McCarthy about a possible reunion with Rodgers during Monday’s tribute to former Packers president Bob Harlan — Kevin’s father — at Lambeau Field.
“Yes, it’d be a great story,” McCarthy said, via video from Rob Demovsky of ESPN. “I don’t know. I would love to tell everybody breaking news. It’s really cool to see Aaron at 42, a young man at 22, all that he’s been able to accomplish, and where he’s at in his personal life, trying to make this decision. He’s in a really good place.”
Rodgers remains a free agent after spending last season in Pittsburgh. Like the 2025 offseason, Rodgers appears in no hurry to decide whether to return to the Steelers or retire. Like the 2025 offseason, the Steelers appear in no hurry to know for sure that Rodgers will be their starting quarterback.
Thus, all signs point to Rodgers’ return, especially after the team’s hiring of McCarthy.
McCarthy and Rodgers were together in Green Bay from 2006-18 seasons, winning a Super Bowl. Rodgers was a two-time MVP while playing for McCarthy.
Wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr. said recently that he and his new Steelers teammates will “make the most of” whoever is playing quarterback for the team this fall and it remains unclear when they’ll have a better idea about the identity of that player.
Aaron Rodgers has not announced his plans for 2026 and Pittman reiterated on Up & Adams Monday that he believes the team will be in good shape if Mason Rudolph or Will Howard wind up taking the snaps. He also said he is “obviously hoping” to catch passes from Rodgers and that he thinks that will wind up being the case.
“I’m trying to give him space because Aaron’s a guy, he likes his space, he likes to get refreshed,” Pittman said. “I didn’t want to just get signed and then blow him up and be like, ‘Hey Aaron, what’s the deal?’ . . . I think that he wants to play. Just knowing Aaron prior to this, I just think he’s gonna try and play as long as he can.”
Rodgers hasn’t spoken publicly about his plans in a few weeks and he didn’t offer any hint about which choice he’ll make at that time, so it remains to be seen if Pittman’s perception is the correct one. The sooner the Steelers know if it is, the better for their chances of exploring other options that might be available to them.
The Steelers have added a player who appears likely to be a heavy special teams contributor.
According to multiple reports, running back Travis Homer has agreed to sign with Pittsburgh.
Homer, 27, spent the last three seasons with the Bears. He appeared in 10 games in each of the last two seasons and was on the field for roughly 62 percent of special teams snaps in games played both years. He played just six offensive snaps in 2025.
A sixth-round pick in 2019, Homer has appeared in 85 career games with two starts for the Seahawks and Bears. He’s recorded 474 yards rushing on 90 attempts with one touchdown, plus 55 catches for 475 yards with two TDs.
The Dolphins and Cardinals aren’t the only teams taking massive dead-money charges for quarterbacks no longer on the team.
The Jets are, too.
As noted by Rich Cimini of ESPN, the Jets will carry $48 million in 2026 for 2023-24 starting quarterback Aaron Rodgers and 2025 starting quarterback Justin Fields.
Overall, the Jets have $104 million in total dead money this year, third highest in the league.
The cap charge for Rodgers arises from his 2025 release, a post-June 1 designation that spread the dead money over two years. The Fields charge comes from the back end of his two-year contract signed in 2025, the recent trade that sent him to the Chiefs, and the fact that the Jets will pay $8 million of his $11 million in 2026 compensation.
The good news is that the Jets got quarterback Geno Smith for only $3.3 million this season. The better news is that, per Cimini, the Jets are expected to have more than $150 million in 2027 cap space.
Still, the Jets will be operating in 2026 with more than a third of the $301.2 million salary cap devoted to players who no longer play for the team.
If Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who tore an ACL last December, isn’t ready for the first week of the 2026 regular season, his new backup will make a very specific type of history.
As noted by Rich Cimini of ESPN, a Week 1 start by Justin Fields for Kansas City would make him the first player in NFL history to open the season as the starting quarterback for four different teams in four consecutive years.
In 2023, Fields started for the Bears. In 2024, Fields started for the Steelers (Russell Wilson was injured). In 2025, Fields started for the Jets.
He’s already one of seven quarterbacks since 1950 to make three straight Week 1 starts for three different teams.
And with the Jets due to play in Kansas City at some point in 2026, the schedule makers could set the stage for Fields to potentially start against his most recent team for the second straight season. Last year, Steelers-Jets in Week 1 gave Fields an immediate shot at his most recent former team.
As the Steelers and quarterback Aaron Rodgers continue to do whatever it is they’re doing in 2026, it’s a good day to look back at what they did in 2025.
On this day — March 21 — Rodgers made his secret trip to Pittsburgh.
Well, it wasn’t a secret. Word got out as it was happening. And the end result was that Rodgers spent six hours or so with coach Mike Tomlin and other members of the organization.
It eventually became clear that, at some point that day, Rodgers and Tomlin came up with a plan for Rodgers’s eventual arrival. The likely thinking was that Rodgers would be less of a distraction if he had yet to sign than if he were under contract but wasn’t attending the voluntary portions of the offseason program.
Not everyone got the memo. As the team waited, veteran defensive tackle Cam Heyward said this: “I ain’t doing that darkness retreat. I don’t need any of that crap. Either you want to be a Pittsburgh Steeler or you don’t. That’s simple, that’s the pitch. If you want me to recruit, that’s the recruiting pitch. Pittsburgh Steelers — if you want to be part of it, so be it. If you don’t, no skin off my back.”
This year, with Rodgers recently saying there have been no “progressive conversations” between him and the team, Heyward’s comments become relevant again.
Either you want to be a Pittsburgh Steeler or you don’t.
This year, there’s a new coach. It’s Rodgers’s old coach. And there was just enough of a cloud over the final years of the former partnership between Rodgers and Mike McCarthy to make it fair to ask whether both sides are truly interested in a reunion.
McCarthy and the Steelers seem to be. As to Rodgers, who knows?
At this point, one thing is clear. The timeline for 2026, which was supposed to be tighter than it was a year ago, as of today, falls behind the 2025 schedule.
The Steelers have left the light on for Rodgers. They’re the dog with a nose pressed against the front window, waiting for the owner to get home.
Through it all, other viable options have landed elsewhere. Not many capable, plug-and-play veterans remain.
Will it be Rodgers? Who knows? Through it all, Steelers fans will once again be dismayed by the fact that their favorite team is sitting around waiting for a 42-year-old quarterback whose name, through nearly two weeks of free agency, has yet to be connected to any other NFL team.
The Steelers are still waiting for word on quarterback Aaron Rodgers’s plans for the 2026 season, but they have reportedly moved to add another of head coach Mike McCarthy’s former charges to the roster.
Longtime Steelers reporter Mark Kaboly reports that they have agreed to sign offensive lineman Brock Hoffman.
Hoffman was not tendered by the Cowboys as a restricted free agent earlier this year. He joined the Cowboys in 2022 and played under McCarthy until the coach parted ways with the team after the 2024 season.
Hoffman played 54 games over four seasons in Dallas, including every game over the last three seasons. He started 16 of those contests.
