The Pittsburgh Steelers continue to wait on QB Aaron Rodgers, and according to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, the Steelers are Rodgers’ only option if he wants to play next season. While some continue to float the Vikings as an option for Rodgers despite the team stating they’re moving forward with J.J. McCarthy, Fowler put a kibosh on the Vikings still being a suitor during an appearance on SportsCenter this morning. He said people within the organization have said their pursuit of Rodgers is “all but dead.”
“When I talked to people with the Vikings, this is all but dead for them, essentially. Maybe if he’s available later in the summer they would revisit, but that just seems unlikely at this point. It’s Steelers, retirement, or bust,” Fowler said.
If Rodgers did really want to force his way to Minnesota, he could try and wait things out, but if McCarthy plays well, the Vikings won’t have interest in bringing Rodgers in. That’s why it doesn’t feel likely that he’ll continue to wait beyond the 2025 NFL Draft to make a decision on what he wants to do, and it continues to sound like if he’s going to play in 2025, it will be in Pittsburgh.
It’s just a matter of Rodgers making up his mind on what he wants to do. Per NFL Media’s Tom Pelissero, the contract parameters are already in place, so there shouldn’t need to be a whole lot of negotiating going on to bring Rodgers in. Retirement could be a legitimate option, but it doesn’t really seem as if that’s the direction things are going. With the draft at the end of the month, the Steelers would surely like to have a decision sooner rather than later so they can know for sure that Rodgers will be their quarterback in 2025.
Aaron Rodgers has already visited the Steelers facility and got familiar with Pittsburgh’s newest weapon, throwing with WR DK Metcalf, and it sounds like a decision could actually be coming, at least within the next few weeks.
The Rodgers saga is talked about endlessly, but it’s one where no one really knows what he’s thinking, but all accounts make it seem as if he’ll play the 2025 season in Pittsburgh. Whether or not that’s the case, we’ll hopefully have an answer in the coming weeks, and if it continues to drag on, Art Rooney II made it clear the Steelers won’t wait forever.
