The Pittsburgh Steelers have been waiting on Aaron Rodgers for months now. Understandably, many are growing impatient with how long the veteran quarterback is taking to make a decision. At this point, it feels like things could end up working out well in the end, or the Steelers could end up with egg on their face because Rodgers plays poorly in 2025.
At least that’s the opinion of NFL insider Tom Pelissero.
“In my mind, this is going to be an ‘A’ or an ‘F’,” Pelissero said Friday on The Rich Eisen Show. “This is either going to be similar to [Brett] Favre coming in in 2009, where, at an advanced stage in his career, he puts the whole thing together, and is just able to, in this case, [get] 17 games, plus playoffs out of his body. Brett Favre played at an unbelievable level. So that’s the ‘A’ scenario.”
If Rodgers signs and is anything like Favre was in 2009, Pittsburgh will be thrilled. Favre also spent the entire offseason without a team, before joining the Minnesota Vikings during training camp. In his case, he actually retired, then decided to play football again before joining the Vikings. Favre and Minnesota weren’t publicly flirting as much as Rodgers and the Steelers are either.
Favre did have a tremendous 2009 season, though. The Vikings went 12-4 in the regular season, and nearly made it to the Super Bowl, falling short in the NFC Championship Game. If Rodgers was to win a playoff game and nearly make the Super Bowl, that’s a massive improvement compared to the past half decade in Pittsburgh.
With that said, things could very well end badly.
“The ‘F’ scenario is, it looks like it did last year with Aaron Rodgers,” Pelissero said. “And he just doesn’t play well. You might have a top 15-type of pick. This is either going to work at a really high level, or this is going to crash and burn in epic proportions here.”
Last year, Rodgers won five games. The season included a blowout loss to the Steelers at Acrisure Stadium, which also happened to be Russell Wilson’s first start in Pittsburgh. The football world saw Rodgers in a hopeless season for the first time in a while. Steelers fans saw it up close in Week 7. He’ll turn 42-years old this season and does have a somewhat recent Achilles injury. A bad season from Rodgers, and thus the Steelers, is certainly not out of the equation.
However, that scenario could give the Steelers a decent draft pick for the first time in forever. As they will presumably hunt for a quarterback in the 2026 draft, that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. It would make the organization look pretty bad after the patience it has shown all offseason, though.
