Is Aaron Rodgers going to sign with the Pittsburgh Steelers? That seems very likely, but for whatever reason, he still hasn’t made an official decision on his future. With the NFL draft almost here, that might cause the Steelers to target a quarterback in Round 1. However, there’s no guarantee one of the top prospects will fall to them. Even in a down quarterback class, more value will likely be placed on that position than others. ESPN analyst Mike Greenberg recently laid out what he thinks is the worst-case scenario for the Steelers.
“If the Saints take Shedeur Sanders at number nine, someone else goes up and gets Jaxson Dart, and Aaron Rodgers tells you, ‘You know what? I’ve been in a dark room, I went on another one of my plant medicine trips, and I’ve decided I’m retiring.’ You’re the Steelers, now what?” Greenberg said Wednesday on ESPN’s Get Up.
That would place the Steelers in a bad situation under center. It’s not impossible for all of that to happen, either. Rodgers is 41 years old, and while it seems like he wants to keep playing in the NFL, he could decide not to put his body through that stress again. It’s also plausible that Sanders and Dart could come off the board before the Steelers’ pick at 21.
However, Louis Riddick, a former NFL executive, doesn’t think the Steelers are totally hopeless if that happens.
“We’ve already said that there’s been GMs and coaches who have said, ‘Tyler Shough is the best quarterback in the draft,'” Riddick said during that same segment. “Who knows what Arthur Smith thinks about him yet? We don’t know what Mike Tomlin thinks about him.
“He was one of their early guys who they brought in for a top-30 visit. We do know that. That looks like a pretty bad scenario, but I don’t think all hope is lost if that happens.”
It’s true that the Steelers brought Shough in for a visit. However, they did extensive work on most of the top quarterbacks in this draft class. Some analysts have spoken highly of Shough, but there are a few factors that will likely keep him out of the first round.
For starters, Shough is an older prospect. He played six years of college football, and he turns 26 in late September. While that probably isn’t a huge negative in today’s NFL, it still could be held against him.
The more important issue with Shough is his injury history. In college, he broke his collarbone twice and his left fibula. Shough has taken a beating. That could scare some teams off, especially in the first round. He’s a fine prospect, and he might be good NFL player, but it might be too risky to spend a first-round pick on him.
Still, Riddick might have a point that the Steelers aren’t totally hopeless if they miss out on Rodgers, Sanders, and Dart. While things would be bad, Pittsburgh still has Mason Rudolph. They won’t be Super Bowl contenders with Rudolph starting, but they’ve made the playoffs with him before.
That wouldn’t be an ideal situation at all, but the Steelers have won with poor quarterback play before. Maybe they could do it again. They’ve put themselves between a rock and a hard place at quarterback. Hopefully, this doesn’t happen again next year.
