Steelers Clips
As the Steelers’ rookies work their first minicamp, fewer and fewer of them are working for free.
Three more members of the 2026 draft class have agreed to terms. The Steelers announced the deals on Saturday morning.
Signing their slotted rookie deals were third-round cornerback Daylen Everett, third-round guard Gennings Dunker, and fifth-round fullback Riley Nowakowski.
The trio joins fourth-round wide receiver Kaden Wetjen, sixth-round offensive tackle Gabriel Rubio, and seventh-round safety Robert Spears-Jennings as officially being under contract.
The remaining unsigned players are first-round offensive tackle Max Iheanachor, second-round wide receiver Germie Bernard, third-round quarterback Drew Allar, and seventh-round running back Eli Heidenreich.
There’s a growing trend toward getting draft picks signed before they set foot on a practice field for the first time. Yes, unsigned players sign letters of protection that allow them to practice in exchange for a promise that, in the event of a serious injury, they’ll still get their contracts.
The best protection is to have the contract in place.
When it comes to the Steelers and quarterback Aaron Rodgers, the new normal is abnormal.
With no sign that Rodgers will be signing with the Steelers in the immediate future, 93.7 The Fan reported on Thursday morning that Rodgers would be visiting Pittsburgh, with an expectation that he would sign a contract. NFL Network confirmed the visit, but tapped the brakes on a deal being done.
On Friday morning, Steelers G.M. Omar Khan said he doesn’t know where Rodgers is.
Now, Mark Kaboly (Steelers correspondent for The Pat McAfee Show) has shared this observation on Twitter: “From everything I can gather, there is no meeting scheduled or expected between Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers. I’ve reached out to a couple inside the building and nobody has seen him yet. Today is the first day of rookie minicamp. Media will be there on Saturday. Stay tuned. Maybe Rodgers will show later, maybe tomorrow or maybe he won’t.”
That pretty much summarizes the situation with Rodgers. Maybe he will. Maybe he won’t. Either way, he won’t be saying anything. And he’ll reserve the right to complain when the media tries to make sense of the nonsensical.
Yes, Rodgers has the right to make decisions on his own timeline. He doesn’t have the right to play games. All too often, it seems as if he is.
The Steelers signed three draft picks on Friday.
They announced that fourth-round wide receiver Kaden Wetjen, sixth-round offensive tackle Gabriel Rubio and seventh-round safety Robert Spears-Jennings.
They are the first of the team’s 10 draft picks to sign, leaving first-round offensive tackle Max Iheanachor, second-round wide receiver Germie Bernard, third-round quarterback Drew Allar, third-round cornerback Daylen Everette, third-round offensive tackle Gennings Dunker, fifth-round tight end Riley Nowakowski and seventh-round running back Eli Heidenreich unsigned.
Wetjen, who played at Iowa, was selected with the 121st overall pick.
He started seven of the 40 games he appeared in for Iowa and made 23 receptions for 197 yards and one touchdown over three seasons.
Wetjen was drafted for his special teams ability. He had 954 punt return yards for a 17.7-yard average, with four touchdowns. He also returned 56 kickoffs for 1,538 yards, a 27.5-yard average, and two touchdowns.
Rubio, who played at Notre Dame, was selected with the 210th overall pick.
He appeared in six games in 2025, starting five, but missed the final six due to injury. Rubio played 39 career games for the Fighting Irish, starting eight. He recorded 66 tackles, 27 of them solo stops.
Spears-Jennings, who played at Oklahoma, was selected with the 224th overall pick.
He played all 13 games in 2025, starting the final 12.
Spears-Jennings finished his college career with 178 tackles, including 101 solo stops, with eight tackles for loss and two interceptions in 47 games.
After word emerged on Thursday that quarterback Aaron Rodgers was visiting Pittsburgh, a report surfaced that this was news to the Steelers.
A Friday morning appearance by G.M. Omar Khan on You Better You Bet underscored that reality.
“Yeah, you know, I don’t know where specifically Aaron is,” Khan said. “You know, I can tell you that Aaron and I, and Coach [Mike McCarthy] and Aaron and Aaron’s representatives, we’ve had some good conversations since the season ended and since Mike got here and it’s been positive.
“But, yeah, I don’t know where [Rodgers] is at this moment. We continue to have conversations and they’re positive and, you know, we had a good experience with him last year, and, you know, I think he would probably echo the same thing and, you know, conversations continue.”
It’s odd, to say the least, to think that Rodgers would just show up in Pittsburgh unannounced and unplanned. It’s odd, to say the least, for the Steelers not to know he was coming and, one day later, to not know where he is.
Again, the conversations can be only about one thing — money. There’s nothing else to negotiate.
And maybe Rodgers has decided to make things awkward in an effort to break the logjam and get a deal done. Until then, the only way to describe the situation is with one word.
Odd.
When news broke on Thursday that quarterback Aaron Rodgers was heading to Pittsburgh, it seemed at first that a dam break of normalcy was returning to the city framed by three rivers.
It’s all still kind of abnormal.
Rodgers will be showing up not for a veteran workout session, but for rookie minicamp. There are reports he wants to get to know the new players. The Steelers reportedly didn’t even know he was coming to town. (As one source put it, the Steelers chalked the development up to “Aaron being Aaron.”)
Hovering over the entire situation is the absence of an agreement, tentative or official, between Rodgers and the Steelers. Despite the insistence by some that it’s not about money, an NFL veteran contract is only about money. All other terms are predetermined via the CBA. Amount of money to be paid and structure of the payments are the only things for haggling.
If the two sides had an understanding as to what will be paid, there would be widespread reports of a deal being in place.
Here’s the problem. Rodgers gave the Steelers the equivalent of an introductory rate in 2025. Now, the price is increasing over the relative bargain basement cost of $13.65 million.
The Steelers understandably don’t want to pay more than the introductory rate, with perhaps a slight adjustment for inflation. And, like most savvy consumers who know that a phone call to customer service with a suggestion of cancellation can result in something closer to the introductory rate than full retail, the Steelers are pushing back.
From Rodgers’s perspective, there’s no leverage. There’s no alternative. No other team has expressed any interest in signing Rodgers to a contract.
From the team’s perspective, there’s also no leverage. The alternative to Rodgers is Mason Rudolph or Will Howard or rookie Drew Allar. Which is the same as saying there’s no alternative.
That’s ultimately why the Steelers used the UFA tender, in our opinion. They’ve said it was simply about getting a compensatory draft pick if he signs elsewhere. The truth, we believe, is that it was about eliminating his alternative to playing for the Steelers or no one.
Without the UFA tender, Rodgers could have waited and watched. He could have signed with anyone, at any time. Before the season. During the season. Late in the season. During the postseason.
The message would have been simple. “Until you pay me what I want, I’ll just wait for another opportunity to potentially emerge.”
The Steelers have now blocked that path. Which brings the question back to playing for the Steelers or no one. Which compels the two sides to come to an agreement on money — especially with Rodgers showing up in Pittsburgh and apparently planning to loiter around the locker room until a deal is done.
So what’s a fair salary for 2026? At a minimum, it likely begins with a “2". And it’s hardly unfair to expect $25 million, given that Malik Willis has parlayed six career starts into a $25 million-per-year deal with the Dolphins.
Our guess is that they’ll eventually reach an agreement. Possibly in the range of $20 million plus incentives that can push it to more than $25 million based on postseason success or other triggers. (Last year’s deal included $5.85 million in incentives, $500,000 of which — for a playoff berth — was earned.)
Still, there’s no agreement yet. And the only holdup is money. That’s the only thing that a team and a veteran player have to negotiate in order to come to terms. If it wasn’t an issue, there would be a contract.
With quarterback Aaron Rodgers returning to Pittsburgh today, the question becomes whether a contract will be finalized between Rodgers and the Steelers for 2026.
On one hand, Rodgers wouldn’t be making the trip unless he had a pretty good idea that a deal is doable. On the other hand, no deal — no matter how doable — is done until doable becomes did.
The tweets from Ian Rapoport of NFL Network regarding Rodgers’s return visit to the Steel City underscore the point that the yellow towels must be accompanied by sufficient green bills.
The unrestricted free agent tender that was applied to Rodgers last week puts on the table a one-year deal at an increase of 10 percent over last year’s salary of $13.65 million. Will Rodgers take roughly $15 million for another season? If (as he should) he wants more, how much more does he want?
Some have consistently downplayed the money angle. If it wasn’t an issue, now would be the time for the reports to indicate that the two sides have an agreement as to the financial side of the arrangement. Absent such reporting, there’s no deal on money.
Which means they’ll need to reach one.
Still, the two sides have surely kicked around numbers. To the extent a gap currently exists, Rodgers wouldn’t be flying back to Pittsburgh if he didn’t think it is something that can be bridged fairly easily.
There’s another wrinkle in all of this. Mark Kaboly, the Steelers correspondent for The Pat McAfee Show, reports that the Steelers were not aware that Rodgers will be coming to town. The truth could be that Rodgers has decided that it’s time to get in a room and hammer out whatever differences may remain as to the financial investment the Steelers are willing to make.
Again, nothing is final until it’s final. Plenty of Steelers fans are surely relieved that something finally is happening.
Plenty of other Steelers fans are surely wishing that the looming negotiations will end in an impasse. The fan base was split last year on Rodgers. This year, the “nay” camp has only gotten larger.
Last year, quarterback Aaron Rodgers made a secret visit to Pittsburgh in March. (It didn’t remain a secret for very long, to his chagrin.) Today, Rodgers is reportedly returning for another visit.
As first reported by 93.7 The Fan, Rodgers will be visiting Pittsburgh on Thursday. Per 93.7 The Fan, Rodgers is “expected” to sign with the Steelers this weekend.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, in reposting a tweet from 93.7 The Fan, confirms the planned visit. However, Rapoport adds that “no deal is in place.”
Regardless of whether Rodgers does or doesn’t sign a contract this weekend, it’s finally something — after several months of nothing. The team’s uncertainty prompted it to place the unrestricted free agent tender on Rodgers last week, a move that both extends the window for compensatory draft-pick consideration if he signs elsewhere and complicates significantly his ability to wait beyond July 22 to see if a better opportunity arises elsewhere.
As always when it comes to NFL matters, nothing is done until it’s done. At a time when many were wondering whether anything would get done for 2026 between Rodgers and the Steelers, there’s finally a tangible indication that he may indeed play for Pittsburgh again this season.
The Steelers’ recent decision to apply the unrestricted free agency tender to quarterback Aaron Rodgers has sparked speculation as to whether Rodgers may be thinking about signing with another team. That speculation has centered on the Cardinals, the only other team that still doesn’t have a clear starter — or two obvious in-house candidates to compete for the job.
Josh Weinfuss of ESPN asked “a source” if the talk “was real.” The response was this: “Not at all.”
It’s no surprise. If the Cardinals were going to make a play for Rodgers, something would have surfaced by now. Despite the links to coach Mike LaFleur and offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, the truth is that the Cardinals face a stiff challenge in 2026 — one that would make it difficult for Rodgers to cap his career with a playoff berth.
And so the options continue to be: (1) the Steelers; or (2) retirement. And while a serious injury to a starter in the next two months could change that, the UFA tender will give the Steelers exclusive negotiating rights for Rodgers as of July 22. That complicates any potential plan by Rodgers to take a wait-and-see approach.
From the moment quarterback Aaron Rodgers became a free agent, it was obvious that not many teams were interested in signing him to be the starting quarterback. To date, only the Steelers have shown such interest.
The Cardinals have always been a possibility, given that they don’t have a clear first-string quarterback on the roster. And it would make sense for the Cardinals to be interested in Rodgers.
Nathaniel Hackett, his former offensive coordinator with the Packers and the Jets, has that same role in Arizona now. And Mike LaFleur, brother of Packers head coach Matt LaFleur (with whom Rodgers won a pair of NFL MVP awards), is the Cardinals’ head coach.
Last year, Mike LaFleur was the Rams’ offensive coordinator. They viewed Rodgers as a potential Plan B, if Matthew Stafford had been traded to the Giants or the Raiders.
In recent days, some in the media have connected dots that had been hiding in plain sight for weeks. Even after drafting quarterback Carson Beck, the Cardinals don’t have an obvious answer at the position.
But here’s the reality. How competitive will the Cardinals be this year, even if Rodgers were to join the team? They have to contend with the Seahawks, Rams, and 49ers in their own division, playing each twice per year. The Cardinals also play the four teams of the AFC West, the four teams of the NFC East, the Saints, Jets, and Lions.
If Rodgers is hoping to finish his career with a playoff run, it won’t be easy to do it with the Cardinals. It won’t be impossible. But it won’t be easy.
So, yes, there are reasons for the Cardinals to be interested in Rodgers, and for Rodgers to be interested in the Cardinals. There are also reasons for Rodgers to not be interested in the Cardinals.
Regardless, nearly two months into free agency, there’s been no indication that the Cardinals are eyeing Rodgers or that Rodgers is eyeing the Cardinals. Could it still happen? Sure. Would it make sense at one level? Absolutely.
At another level, it would make no sense.
The Steelers signed tight end Jaheim Bell to a one-year contract, the team announced on Monday. Financial terms of the contract were undisclosed.
The Eagles waived Bell last week.
The Patriots selected Bell in the seventh round in 2024 out of Florida State. He appeared in 15 games for New England as a rookie, catching two passes for 20 yards.
New England cut him out of the 2025 preseason, and he signed with the Eagles’ practice squad in October. The Eagles waived him a week later, and he spent a few weeks on the Steelers’ practice squad before signing a futures contract with Philadelphia after the season.
Bell, 24, did play a game in 2025.
