Pittsburgh Steelers

Mason Rudolph was competing for the Steelers’ starting job . . . until he wasn’t.

Aaron Rodgers’ return this week has Rudolph now competing for the backup job to Rodgers. Will Howard and Drew Allar, who have never appeared in a regular-season game, are the other quarterbacks on the roster.

Rudolph expects the Steelers to have a veteran backup to Rodgers, and that veteran is him.

“This is a veteran team,” Rudolph said, via Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “We’re trying to win now. You don’t bring back Aaron Rodgers if you don’t want to win now.”

Rudolph, who turns 31 in July, has started 19 games and appeared in 31 since the Steelers drafted him in 2018.

“We want to make a playoff push,” Rudolph said. “And I know that I can contribute with that veteran culture.”

Rudolph, though, knows he will not get as many reps as the other quarterbacks on the roster. The Steelers want to get Rodgers ready for his final season, while developing Howard and Allar.

“That’s kind of been communicated,” Rudolph said. “That was the case when I got in [the league]. That’s a normal mode of operation.”

Rudolph said he will take advantage of every rep he does get.

Coach Mike McCarthy has said the Steelers could keep all four quarterbacks on their 53-player roster, but either way, Rudolph expects to remain in Pittsburgh for yet another season.

“I’m here to learn my offense,” Rudolph said. “My plans are to be here and to be on this team and to help in whatever fashion I can — and will.”

The Steelers have announced their schedule for this summer’s training camp.

Players will report to Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania on July 28 for the team’s 59th camp at the school. The first practice session will be held the next day with the first padded practice scheduled for August 3.

Both of those practices will be open to the public. Fans can also come to watch the team work out on July 30-31, August 1, August 4-8, August 10-11, and August 16-17.

The practice on August 8 will be a night practice at Latrobe Memorial Stadium and the team is set to announce its Hall of Honor class for 2026 at the August 1 practice.

Will Howard’s chances of starting games at quarterback for the Steelers this season took a hit with Aaron Rodgers’s return to Pittsburgh this week, but the 2025 sixth-round pick wasn’t lamenting the turn of events on Wednesday.

Howard’s early work in practice this offseason had drawn positive reviews from Mike McCarthy about his ability to be an NFL starter and Howard told reporters on Wednesday that he thinks another year playing behind Rodgers is going to help him progress toward that goal.

“None of us really knew. I think everyone had a little feeling and I had a feeling that he was probably going to come back, just knowing the competitor and the person that he is,” Howard said. “I was excited, I really was, because we really developed a special friendship, I felt like, last year. To be able to have another year with him and to learn from him, for him to continue to pour into Drew [Allar] and also me, is just an unbelievable opportunity for me as a young player in this league to learn from one of the legends that’s been doing it for a long time. So, I’m excited. I just want to soak up everything I can. Take advantage of my opportunities when they’re there and just be the best version of myself every day.”

Howard was the second quarterback into drills behind Rodgers on Wednesday, which gives some reason to believe he’ll beat out Mason Rudolph to be the next man up for the Steelers this season. With Rodgers calling this his farewell season, it could also position him for a better shot at the No. 1 job at this time next year.

If Aaron Rodgers makes $25 million in 2026, it’ll be the best $25 million the Steelers ever spent.

PFT has confirmed that Rodgers’s new contract with the Steelers hits the maximum value of $25 million if the Steelers win the Super Bowl. (The incentive package was first reported by Jordan Schultz.)

Rodgers earns $625,000 for each postseason win. The package maxes out at $2.5 million.

Each payment is premised on Rodgers participating in 75 percent of the team’s regular-season snaps. If he falls short of that threshold, he’s not eligible for any of the incentive payments.

Of Rodgers’s base deal of $22.5 million, $22 million is fully guaranteed. (The other $500,000 is guaranteed as a practical matter, since they’re most likely not going to cut him. If they do after Week 1, any remaining non-guarantee payments become fully guaranteed under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, as termination pay.)

Last year, Rodgers’s $13.65 million base salary included $5.85 million in available incentives. He earned $500,000 for taking at least 70 percent of the regular-season snaps and making the playoffs.

The rest of the incentives, which were not earned, included $600,000 for a wild-card win, $750,000 for a win in the divisional round, $1 million for a win in the AFC Championship, $1.5 million for a Super Bowl win, and $1.5 million for winning the NFL MVP award. (He did not finish among the top five vote-getters; the AP did not release the full voting totals.)

Even if the Steelers don’t make the playoffs, it’s a good deal for the Steelers. Especially since they didn’t have a clear-cut, high-end starter on the roster. With Rodgers back, they now do.

The Steelers currently have four quarterbacks: Aaron Rodgers, Mason Rudolph, Will Howard and Drew Allar. Steelers coach Mike McCarthy hopes they still have four quarterbacks when the regular season starts.

McCarthy said today that he’d like to see Steelers General Manager Omar Khan find a way to keep all of them into the regular season: Rodgers to start, Rudolph to back him up, and both Howard and Allar as developmental prospects.

“We’ve definitely got four that we love, I can say that,” McCarthy said. “You always have to develop the room. That’s always been the approach. We’re hoping that Omar can get the roster expanded to 55 and we can keep four. It’s a really good room. This is a good place to be, having four guys that can play.”

McCarthy said the rotation behind Rodgers right now is based on the experience of the three backup quarterbacks but that he wants to give all of them plenty of opportunities this offseason while giving Rodgers the right amount of work to keep him fresh and have him ready to start Week One.

“Mason has a lot of experience,” McCarthy said. “We’re trying to develop Will and Drew as well as we can. Will is ahead of Drew, just based on the fact that he’s been here.”

The most likely scenario is that Howard and Allar will compete for a spot on the 53-man roster, and that the Steelers hope the loser of that competition clears waivers and can be brought back to the practice squad. But McCarthy isn’t ruling out all four of them making the regular-season roster.

Aaron Rodgers announced on Wednesday that 2026 will be his last season in the NFL. The 42-year-old, four-time MVP signed a one-year deal to reunite with head coach Mike McCarthy in hopes of a last hurrah.

Rodgers called it a “full circle” moment to play for McCarthy for the first time since 2018.

That settled questions about how Rodgers viewed McCarthy after Tyler Dunne wrote a story for Bleacher Report in 2019 detailing friction between the quarterback and the coach that dated to earlier in their relationship. Rodgers indicated Wednesday that he is back in Pittsburgh only because McCarthy is the coach.

After Mike Tomlin’s departure, Rodgers said he suggested to General Manager Omar Khan that the Steelers consider McCarthy.

“I encouraged him for an outside perspective to interview Mike,” Rodgers said, via Brooke Pryor of ESPN. “Not thinking that he even would, honestly, just because the way the league goes and the trend, it’s kind of like whoever worked with Sean [McVay], Kyle [Shanahan] or one of those guys. Matt [LaFleur] now gets a lot of looks and multiple guys in those trees have.

“But then when it became more serious, I was thinking, ‘Wow, that’d be a really interesting thought to come back and play with Mike.’”

Rodgers has played for three teams over the past four seasons. He thought it was going to four in five seasons after Tomlin stepped away, admitting “there was some doubt [about a return to Pittsburgh] for sure.”

“When he said he was stepping away, that was an emotional moment just because we all love him so much and care about him, and I thought that was probably it for me in Pittsburgh,” Rodgers said. “But when the decision was made to hire Mike, I started opening my mind back up to coming back.”

Rodgers’ 22nd season will be his final season, absent a change of heart next offseason, giving him a final chance for a second Super Bowl ring. He and McCarthy won their only championship in the 2010 season.

Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers says his 22nd NFL season will be his last.

Rodgers spoke with the media today for the first time since re-signing with the Steelers, and he assumed that the one-year deal he reached will be the last NFL contract he signs.

“This is it,” Rodgers said.

Rodgers will turn 43 in December and is the oldest player in the NFL. So it’s not exactly a shock that he doesn’t see himself playing beyond this season. But today’s statement was his most definitive yet that he will retire after one more year in Pittsburgh.

Rodgers spent 18 years with the Packers and two with the Jets and is now beginning his second year with the Steelers.

For whatever reason, quarterback Aaron Rodgers kept everyone in the dark as to his plans for 2026, until he signed with the Steelers over the weekend. And despite the claims that Rodgers was always returning to Pittsburgh, the team’s decision to use the unrestricted free agent tender on Rodgers proves that the Steelers truly didn’t know what he was going to do.

Here’s a possibility as to why he returned when he did. Rodgers may have been waiting for the 2026 schedule to be finalized before making it known to the league office that he’ll be playing this year.

The idea has merit in the NFL’s past practices. After Rodgers missed all but four snaps of the 2023 season due to a torn Achilles tendon, the league justified its decision to give the Jets six primetime games in the first 11 weeks of the 2024 season by saying that the Jets “kind of owe us one.”

Last year’s schedule was set before Rodgers committed to Pittsburgh. NFL V.P. of broadcast planning Mike North later said that, if the league had known Rodgers would be signing with the Steelers, the Steelers-Jets game from Week 1 would have landed in a national window.

Other tweaks to the schedule would have possibly been made, if Rodgers or the Steelers had shared with the world before the release of the 2025 schedule what they apparently knew. So it would have been very easy for the league to say, this year, that the Steelers and Rodgers “kind of owe us one” in setting the standalone games for 2026.

As it stands, the Steelers have one prime-time game before Week 10, and three thereafter. Surely, that decision wasn’t made to showcase Mason Rudolph, Will Howard, or Drew Allar. And the later games can be flexed, if 2026 doesn’t go well for the Steelers.

Would they have gotten more standalone games if the league had known Rodgers was returning? Maybe, maybe not. But there was no reason for Rodgers (who has a tendency to hold a grudge) to do the league any favors, not after what happened in 2024.

And the timeline worked out perfectly. The schedule release happened days before the start of the Steelers’ OTAs. He signed in the perfect window for both participating in the full slate of OTAs and keeping the schedule makers in the dark.

With Aaron Rodgers officially on the roster, the Steelers currently have four quarterbacks.

Veteran Mason Rudolph, second-year QB Will Howard, and rookie Drew Allar fill out the rest of the room.

Rodgers’ presence means there are now fewer reps to go around for the younger players, Howard and Allar. But offensive coordinator Brian Angelichio told reporters on Tuesday that is not an issue.

“You can never have enough quarterbacks,” Angelichio said, via Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “With the system that’s in place here, it’s great that we have four quarterbacks. We have a plan on how all those guys are going to get reps.”

Angelichio is familiar with Rodgers from their shared time with the Packers, as Angelichio served as Green Bay’s tight ends coach from 2016-2018. With Rodgers potentially going into the final season of his career, Angelichio praised the QB for his willingness to help out his teammates.

“Aaron’s such a great mentor ... His feedback and the information he provides, you can’t beat that,” Angelichio said, via Brooke Pryor of ESPN. “He is very willing to help the players … I think that certainly is a big plus for us.”

With Rodgers set for at least one more ride with the Steelers in 2026, we likely won’t see the effects of his mentorship on the crop of younger QBs until a while down the road.

The news broke over the weekend that quarterback Aaron Rodgers is back with the Steelers. As of Monday, that was apparently news to linebacker Payton Wilson.

Via Brooke Pryor of ESPN, Wilson was surprised to see Rodgers at the facility.

“I was walking in, and he was coming out, and it was good to see him,” Wilson said. “I was a little shocked, definitely.”

Unlike last year, when Rodgers showed up for the mandatory minicamp at the tail end of the offseason program, he signed and reported for the first day of OTAs. Which makes sense. There’s plenty of work to be done without long-time coach Mike Tomlin there, and there’s only so much time with which to get it done.

If this will be Rodgers’s last year (and it would be wise for everyone to assume that), he’ll want to savor every minute of it. And he’ll want to have it go as well as possible.

Showing up sends a message that he gives a shit. That he wants to help the Steelers do something they haven’t done in a decade — advance past the wild-card round of the playoffs.

The work now begins in earnest. While it hardly guarantees a good outcome, it’s a good sign that Rodgers is both signed and committed.