Pittsburgh Steelers

Quarterback Aaron Rodgers officially re-signed with the Steelers on Monday, just as the team began its OTAs.

When it comes to Rodgers’ pass-catchers, Pittsburgh traded for Michael Pittman earlier this offseason. The two started to get acquainted weeks ago, when Pittman got in some throws with the QB. But he found out Rodgers was officially coming back much like the rest of us.

“I found out from Twitter,” Pittman said Monday, via Mark Kaboly of the Pat McAfee Show.

Pittman is still getting familiar with Rodgers’ style as a QB, but the receiver knows Rodgers isn’t afraid to let a teammate know when he doesn’t like something.

“It didn’t happen to me specifically yet, but I’ve seen it from watching games and stuff,” Pittman said with a laugh, via Chris Adamski of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “He’s just a vet — a super vet quarterback. So he knows what he likes and doesn’t like. You guys have watched him [play, how if you’re not doing what you’re supposed to do, he’s going to let you know — which is good. I just think it’s good to have that leadership.”

Even with Rodgers’ experience, Pittman knows he and the QB have some work to do to get on the same page.

“This is the first day,” Pittman said, via Brian Batko of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “so we have from now up until that first game, and we’re gonna get as many reps as possible.”

With quarterback Aaron Rodgers returning to Pittsburgh, the Steelers now have four quarterbacks on the offseason roster. Eventually, they’ll be required to cut the roster to 53. Which could mean they’ll be moving on from one of the three quarterbacks not named Aaron Rodgers.

Or will they?

Chris Simms and I talked it through during Monday’s PFT Live. And we came to the conclusion that they’ll possibly keep all of them — Rodgers, Mason Rudolph, Will Howard, and Drew Allar.

It rarely ever happens. Three, for most teams, is the maximum. (Plenty only keep two.) Still, this could be one of those unique situations in which a team keeps four quarterbacks after the cuts are made.

As to Rudolph, the Steelers need a veteran who can play in a pinch. A guy who is game ready. A guy who can step in if Rodgers is injured during a game. And Rudolph has 34 regular-season appearances and 19 starts, with a 9-9-1 record.

As to Allar, they just used a third-round pick to draft him. Even if they need to re-teach him the position from the ground up (and they apparently do), cutting Allar would be an admission that they wasted a prime pick, the 76th overall selection.

As to Howard, the Steelers spent plenty of time in the offseason talking him up. McCarthy supposedly loves him. Cutting him would expose their comments as the smokescreen many believed they were.

Yes, Allar or Howard — if cut — could be signed to the practice squad. But first they’d have to get through waivers. Any other team could make a claim. And if they aren’t claimed by another team, wouldn’t that be a loud and clear indictment that neither guy should have been drafted?

The safe way to save face would be to trade Allar or Howard. Or to cut Rudolph (who wouldn’t be subject to waivers) and sign him to the practice squad. They could then elevate Rudolph for game days and make him the backup quarterback. But Rudolph would have to be willing to not sign to another team’s active roster, for that strategy to work.

In the end, the only practical solution could be to keep all four of them on the 53-man roster. Which would make them shorthanded at some other position, by one player.

With Rodgers back, it’s a good problem to have. Still, the only good problem is no problem. With four quarterbacks, the Steelers eventually will have a problem to solve as to how the rest of the depth chart fits into the 53-man limit.

The news that Aaron Rodgers is officially back with the Steelers for his 22nd NFL season means he’ll continue to add to one of the most impressive statistical résumés any quarterback has ever assembled.

Of particular note is that Rodgers is likely to move ahead of Peyton Manning for the third-most touchdown passes in NFL history. Rodgers has thrown 527 touchdown passes in his NFL career, while Manning retired with 539, so Rodgers needs just 13 touchdown passes to move ahead of Manning. As long as Rodgers stays healthy, he should eclipse Manning’s career total early in the season.

Rodgers would likely need to play two more seasons to move into second place, which is currently occupied by Drew Brees, with 571 career touchdown passes. And Tom Brady’s all-time record of 649 career touchdown passes appears insurmountable.

Rodgers could also lose, a couple of of the career records he currently holds, however. At the moment, Rodgers is tied for the highest career passer rating in NFL history: Rodgers and Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson both have a passer rating of 102.2. But last year Jackson’s passer rating was 103.8 and Rodgers’ was 94.8, so if they both play at the same level in 2026, Jackson will take first place in the record books all to himself.

Rodgers could also fall behind Joe Burrow (101.1) and Patrick Mahomes (100.8), who are currently third and fourth in NFL history in career passer rating. The best career passer rating is a record Rodgers likely won’t hold by the end of the season.

Another career record Rodgers could lose is the all-time lowest interception percentage. Rodgers has thrown 123 interceptions in 8,743 career passes, a career interception rate of 1.41 percent. Rodgers is just barely ahead of Cardinals quarterback Jacoby Brissett, who has a career interception rate of 1.42 percent, and not far ahead of Justin Herbert at 1.7 percent and Burrow and Mahomes at 1.8 percent.

Ultimately, the numbers Rodgers puts up this season, when he’ll turn 43 years old, won’t matter a lot to his legacy. He’s an all-time great regardless of what he does this season. But his career numbers will change, and perhaps not entirely for the better.

It’s official.

Aaron Rodgers is back.

The Steelers have announced that Rodgers has re-signed with the team, on another one-year deal. The move reunites Rodgers with coach Mike McCarthy. Sixteen years ago, their partnership with the Packers resulted in a Super Bowl win over the Steelers.

The item confirming the contract contains no quotes from Rodgers, McCarthy, G.M. Omar Khan, or owner Art Rooney II. The only person quoted in the article is Steelers quarterbacks coach Tom Arth, who was a Packers quarterback in 2006 with Rodgers, when Brett Favre was the starter.

“He’s extremely focused and locked in,” Arth said. “He’s such a competitive player, but he has so much fun playing the game. And that’s what I really enjoy about Aaron.

“He loves playing this game. He plays the game like he’s still 10 years old running around in the backyard. At the same time, he’s got this ferocious competitive spirit that obviously helped push him to the heights that he’s reached.

“His football IQ is off the charts. What he’s able to process and see on a play-by-play basis, between plays, it really is uncanny. There are not many players who have been able to do the things that he’s done.”

For the Steelers, there weren’t many viable options at the most important position in the sport. For Rodgers, there were no other options to be a starting quarterback.

With quarterback Aaron Rodgers recommitting to the Steelers for a second season, a new narrative has emerged in some circles of the media.

“As it turns out, there was never any question at all.”

“Which was the plan all along.”

“That was the plan.”

“That was the plan all along.”

Each of those lines come from one-sentence paragraphs in the Sunday item from Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Dulac has covered the Steelers for decades. He’s plugged in. He knows the team. And if it was the plan all along that Rodgers would be back, Dulac’s source(s) were lying to his face.

Two weeks ago, Dulac wrote that the team’s “patience could be starting to wear thin” with Rodgers, after he didn’t give them an answer before the draft. If “there was never any question” about Rodgers returning, there would have been no reason for the team’s patience to ever be tested.

Then there’s the fact that, three weeks ago, the Steelers applied the unrestricted free agent tender to Rodgers. If “there was never any question” about Rodgers returning, there was never any reason for the Steelers to make a CBA chess move aimed at securing a potential compensatory draft pick for Rodgers if he signed with another team. If “there was never any question” about the outcome, the Steelers never had to be concerned about Rodgers signing with another team.

Of course there was a question about whether Rodgers would re-sign. The Steelers thought he’d come back, but they didn’t know he was coming back until he did. They didn’t even know he was making a sudden and unexpected trip to Pittsburgh 11 days ago. They brushed it off, as one source told us, as “Aaron being Aaron” — and they remained both willing to roll out the Terrible Towel and fully unaware as to what he was going to do.

The fact that he chose to sign a one-year deal with the Steelers over the weekend hardly means that it was a fait accompli from the moment the 2025 season ended.

If anything, the immediate signs were pointing to Rodgers walking away. In the regular-season finale between the Ravens and Steelers, NBC’s Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth seemed to be dropping fairly strong hints that Rodgers was leaning toward calling it quits — something they surely gleaned from whatever Rodgers had said during the production meeting before the game.

Ultimately, Rodgers chose to return to the Steelers, even with the guy who attracted him there in the first place (coach Mike Tomlin) gone. Maybe the explanation is as simple as this: Rodgers didn’t want his last throw in the NFL to have been a pick-six in a playoff game.

Whatever his reason(s) for running it back in Pittsburgh, the fact that Rodgers decided to come back hardly means it was always inevitable. In the end, however, the Steelers (who have no other immediately viable starter) needed Rodgers and Rodgers (who had no other takers in free agency) needed the Steelers.

Once Rodgers decided he wanted to keep playing, the passage of time — and the lack of options elsewhere — left him with only one place to play.

The Steelers haven’t made an official announcement about quarterback Aaron Rodgers re-signing with the team yet, but it should be coming very soon.

Word that Rodgers has agreed to a one-year contract with the team came on Saturday and Brooke Pryor of ESPN.com reports that Rodgers is at the team’s facility on Monday morning. Rodgers is expected to sign a deal paying him up to $25 million for his second season with the Steelers.

The Steelers are kicking off the OTA phase of their offseason workouts on Monday and they are due to be on the practice field at 11 a.m. ET.

With Rodgers back in the fold, the Steelers are on track to have the same starting quarterback in Week 1 of back-to-back seasons since Ben Roethlisberger did it in 2020 and 2021. The wait for a playoff win stretches even longer — a January 2017 win over the Chiefs — and the Steelers will be hoping Rodgers can help end that streak as well.

The Steelers supposedly had a strong affinity for quarterbacks Mason Rudolph and Will Howard. And then they used a third-round pick on quarterback Drew Allar.

Now that Aaron Rodgers is back, the Steelers eventually will have a decision to make.

One of the other three will be gone, via trade or release. Rudolph would be the obvious candidate to go, but they’ll need a veteran backup with playing experience in the event Rodgers is injured.

That leaves Howard and Allar. Surely, they wouldn’t move on from Allar after using a second-day pick on him last month. Howard, a sixth-round pick in 2025, becomes the most likely candidate to be traded or released.

Yes, Howard. The guy new coach Mike McCarthy supposedly loves. The moment they drafted Allar, the truth trickled out about their feelings as to Howard.

For now, they need four quarterbacks. And it’s smart to keep all of them in the event one of them gets injured. Still, if all are healthy as August creeps toward September, someone will be gone. The most likely someone at this point is Will Howard.

Last year, quarterback Aaron Rodgers gave the Steelers a massive bargain. This year, it’s still a bargain. But it’s not as massive.

Per multiple reports, Rodgers will earn up to $25 million from the Steelers in 2026, with a base deal of $22 million. In 2025, his base rate was $13.65 million.

It always seemed as if $25 million was the magic number. That’s what former Packers backup Malik Willis will get for each of the next two years from the Dolphins, fully guaranteed.

Regardless, the Steelers are still getting a very good deal. The top of the market is $60 million. Getting Rodgers for up to $25 million is a win.

Now, they’ll need to get some wins come September. It’ll be a lot easier with Rodgers than it would have been without him.

He’s back.

Per multiple reports, the Steelers and quarterback Aaron Rodgers have agreed to terms on a one-year deal.

The move comes two days before the first of the Steelers’ 2026 OTA sessions. They’re voluntary; Rodgers isn’t required to attend. The annual mandatory minicamp is next month.

The agreement caps months of speculation regarding whether Rodgers will play again in 2026 and, if so, where. Nearly three weeks ago, the Steelers upped the ante by using the unrestricted free agent tender, aimed both at ensuring compensatory draft-pick consideration if Rodgers signs elsewhere — and at giving the Steelers exclusive negotiating rights if he didn’t sign with anyone by July 22.

Now, it’s moot.

The next question becomes the value of the deal. Last year, Rodgers gave the Steelers a bargain, with a base package of only $13.65 million. (He added $500,000 by the Steelers making the playoffs.)

Either way, a deal is in place. Rodgers is back. Which is good for the Steelers. It’s unclear what they’ll be with him. They likely would have been screwed without him.

Even for a slow weekend, initial accounts on social media of free-agent quarterback Aaron Rodgers supposedly getting ice cream with multiple Steelers players in Pittsburgh didn’t initially move the needle.

Beyond the basic fact that bullshit is currently ubiquitous on Twitter, it wasn’t entirely clear that it was Rodgers — or that the video posted by @brogey412 was recent (the presence of pumpkin on the menu sparked a side debate as to when the video was taken). Now that multiple members of traditional media are passing it along, it’s worth a mention.

It’s unclear what it all means. There’s been no indication that the Steelers and Rodgers have agreed to terms on a contract. Or that he has visited the Steelers. Or that anything is imminent. It shows only that Rodgers was physically in Pittsburgh as of last night. Which is no different than where he was a week ago.

That said, OTAs start Monday. If Rodgers signs and shows up, he’ll be officially joining the team several weeks before he did a year ago. In 2025, he arrived for the mandatory minicamp that capped the offseason program. If he signs by Monday, he’ll be available for the full slate of OTAs and the mandatory minicamp.

It’s possible Rodgers simply waited until the schedule was released, in order to prevent the league from giving the Steelers a more burdensome schedule of standalone games. Two years ago, the NFL saddled Rodgers and the Jets six early-season prime-time games — and a pair of short weeks — under the rationale that “the Jets kind of owe us one” given Rodgers’s Week 1 torn Achilles tendon in 2023.

As it stands, the Steelers have four night games. That decision possibly presumes they’ll have Rodgers; without him, the Steelers arguably don’t have a quarterback room that is ready for prime-time.

Regardless, Rodgers apparently is still in Pittsburgh. Whether (or perhaps when) he’ll be signing with the Steelers remains to be seen.