The Steelers have Aaron Rodgers under contract in time for minicamp, meaning the team will have its expected quarterback starter for 2025. Other options received consideration this offseason, though, and it appears at least two of them were higher on Pittsburgh’s wishlist. 
During an appearance on Get Up, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Rodgers represented the Steelers’ third choice at the quarterback spot (video link). Schefter notes Pittsburgh first attempted to work out a trade with the Rams for Matthew Stafford this offseason. The Super Bowl winner wound up remaining in Los Angeles on another revised contract, but a number of suitors showed interest in a trade before that agreement was reached.
The Steelers were among them, with a February report linking them to Stafford. Pittsburgh checked in with the Rams on that front, Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated writes, but the team doubted a departure from Los Angles was realistic. Likewise, interest was shown in Kirk Cousins, but at no point was he regarded as a preferred option to Rodgers.
Per Schefter and Breer, the Steelers’ efforts were aimed first at re-signing Justin Fields before serious Rodgers consideration took place. Pittsburgh was well known to have interest in keeping one of Fields or 2024 starter Russell Wilson for the coming season. The Jets – having released Rodgers with the arrival of a new HC-GM combination – provided Fields with an unquestioned starter’s role on a two-year pact, however. Once he agreed to head to New York, Rodgers became one of the best veteran options on the market.
The 41-year-old visited the Steelers early in free agency, and he and head coach Mike Tomlin remained in touch throughout the spring. As Breer notes, that communication played a key role in Pittsburgh’s ongoing confidence that a deal would eventually be worked out. He adds much of the legwork regarding the contract details have been in place since March, leaving only certain aspects of its structure to be finalized recently.
Rodgers will receive $10MM in guarantees and $5.85MM in incentives could increase his earnings for the campaign. The four-time MVP’s pact stands in contrast to what Fields received from the Jets ($40MM over two years, including $30MM fully guaranteed) and Stafford’s new Rams arrangement ($84MM across the 2025 and ’26 seasons, up from the $58MM he was originally owed). At a discounted price compared to the top of the position’s market in particular, it will be interesting to see how Rodgers fares with his third career team.
Stafford declined to join teams such as the Raiders and Giants despite their willingness to reach the $50MM-per-year mark. Fields, meanwhile, understandably departed on the open market after Tomlin elected to keep Wilson ahead of him on the depth chart once both passers were healthy last season. It took until well after the draft and through much of OTAs for the Rodgers acquisition to become official, but Pittsburgh’s apparent Plan C under center is now set to take shape.
Pitt did Fields wrong and he was smart to leave elsewhere.
100%
You mean Tomlin did fields wrong
And now he’s stuck with arguably the worse QB room. Them and the Browns come to mind. We’ll see about the NYG rookie.
Do you think that Aaron Rodgers, Mason Rudolph, and Will Howard are worse than Cam Ward (who has yet to play a down)and Will Levis (who, in some people’s minds, shouldn’t play any)? If you’re banking on Ward’s potential, you could maybe say yes, but that’s still pretty unproven right now. Also, having seen what you’re written about Lawrence, it’s curious to consider this room worse than that of Jacksonville (who just lost its former bust backup to San Fran).
Actually, the more that I dwell on it, there are significantly more teams that I can think of that have a worse room than I expected. The Steelers have a starter and a backup that have each started multiple games, and thrown multiple touchdowns. That sounds like a low bar, but consider the fact that other teams are starting players who haven’t even thrown twenty touchdowns in a single season (Fields, for instance), and yet others don’t even have ten combined starts amongst all of their players (New Orleans). Then, there are some that are just top heavy (the Chargers) and some that have completely new players and completely new coaches (Vegas). Heck, The Colts have two busts competing for redemption.
I wouldn’t say that Pittsburgh has a great QB situation room-wise, but the more you look at it, the more you see worse red flags from around the league. Of course, a lot of this depends on Rodgers not being as terrible as people here seem to expect, but if he gets hurt or is awful, the Steelers at least have an experienced backup in Rudolph that’s had good moments. They have a developmental third stringer in Howard, too, in case of complete emergency. That doesn’t sound like much, but we’ve seen teams have to scramble midyear for a third stringer that gets bumped up to second string because of an injury, or even has to start (Nathan Peterman, anyone?).
Stafford makes sense, as he’s still operating actively at a high level, but I’m not buying the Fields take. If they wanted Fields to stay, all they had to do was to start him last year. They even let the player that replaced him walk. In order for this to make sense, we’d have to believe that the Steelers:
1. Thought that was Fields was worse than Wilson, thus the benching when he was actually there and the still the starter
2.Thought that Wilson wasn’t good enough to keep, and let him walk while waiting on Rodgers
3. Allowed Fields to sign a deal with the Jets for more money, even though he’s the one they supposedly wanted
Granted, there exists the strong possibility that Fields just didn’t want to sign again in Pittsburgh after the benching, but the fact that the benching occurred at all says pretty clearly what the Steelers thought about him. Letting Wilson walk while they waited on Rodgers tells us also what they thought about the guy that they replaced Fields with. If Pittsburgh wanted Fields more, they’d have made him a better offer, and probably would have handled him differently while he was there. I know they liked Fields as a player, but it’s hard to believe when you come down to it that a team is confident in a guy that they chose to bench.
Usually, there is some truth that grows into the more abstract rumors, but in this case, Pittsburgh had a pretty avenue for retaining Fields if they really wanted him. They chose to not play him, and they (at least in some part) let him walk.
Well, they may have wanted Fields as QB1 at Low QB3 Rates.
Clearly they did not value him as a starter, after benching last year.
It’s really hard to believe how much Pittsburgh really muffed this one.
They had two cromulent starters last year.
I’m going to guess they will have Zero this year…..
They don’t even have a developmental QB.
As much as I don’t like S. Sanders, I would have taken a flyer on him before the 5th round….Especially since they did not even have Rodgers by that point.
Just no excuse…Front Office malfeisance.
I agree with the first part, but I disagree that this move is that bad. It’s less than $20 million, possibly as low as $13 million, for a starting quarterback that threw 28 touchdowns last year. If we eliminate the handwringing over the media, it’s not a bad deal.
I really do think Pittsburgh was simply passing on this past draft’s QB crop in favor of next year’s, and I can’t say that I blame them. We shouldn’t forget, though they DID end up picking a developmental type guy in Howard, so they do have someone. The team still needs a lot of non-QB help, and after striking out on Pickett, I don’t have an issue with them waiting for someone else that they think is better as a prospect than what was available in the last class.
I don’t think it’s a big deal because I think that they’re playing for next year. If the QBs this year were more of a sure thing, I think that you’d have seen the Steelers go for one.
Fields was their first choice. They were just too cheap to land him.
Buyers remorse just two days after signing Rodgers? LOL.
Oh well! the Steelers can always prolong this drama farce by bringing Landry Jones in for a workout 🙂
The old guard would have chosen Stafford, but they decided on Rodger’s instead . Whah whah whah – insert shaking my head emoticon here