Aaron Rodgers has continued to drag his feet on a decision for the 2025 season, but one former teammate believes the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2025 schedule could push him a little closer to signing.
The Steelers’ 2025 opponents have been known for quite some time, but the way the schedule fell would give Rodgers an opportunity to exact revenge on his most recent team right away with a road trip to the New York Jets in Week 1.
“He should be juiced up with this schedule,” James Jones said via FS1’s The Facility this morning. “I’m not even talking about the Packers. The Packers, y’all split ways, that’s all good. We’ll see you again. They’ll probably celebrate him and all that stuff. But this Jets stuff, the way they disrespected him leaving down there.”
Aaron Rodgers’ only media appearance of the offseason came via The Pat McAfee Show. While he did address his pending decision (without saying too much), he really laid into Jets head coach Aaron Glenn and the organization in general for the way they handled his release.
They had him fly all the way across the country to tell him he was being cut. It sounds like Rodgers would have been fine with a phone call and wasn’t very pleased with the way things went down. Even Cam Heyward chimed in on the situation and said “this ain’t cool” about the way Rodgers was treated.
With a panel full of former players on The Facility, they all had something to say about the way Rodgers is likely feeling.
“There’s nothing worse. There’s no more criminal crime charged than when you can’t get your lick back,” Emmanuel Acho said. “Aaron Rodgers, you have been presented by the football gods, Roger Goodell, on a silver platter, an opportunity to not just get one more lick back, but to get two more licks back. You can get the Jets Week 1 and then you get the Packers Week 8.”
The competitor in Rodgers likely doesn’t want to retire with two disappointing seasons in New York marking the end of a Hall of Fame career. Now he has a golden opportunity to play with a team that consistently makes the playoffs and exact revenge on his former two teams that pushed him out along the way. If that doesn’t tug at the strings of a competitor, I don’t know what will.
The next critical date in the process is May 27 when voluntary Steelers OTAs begin with the full team. Even though he missed mandatory minicamp last year due to his Egypt trip, Rodgers was at voluntary OTAs. Maybe a decision will come over the next 10 days.
