Art Rooney II said during the draft that the Pittsburgh Steelers could get word soon from Aaron Rodgers, and more or less stated his expectation that he would show up for some of the offseason program if his plan is to sign with the team. May 27 is the first date to circle on the calendar with the Pittsburgh Steelers’ voluntary OTAs set to begin, but ESPN insider Adam Schefter thinks the wait will drag on a little longer.
“I think the Steelers’ mandatory minicamp is next month. Forget the exact date, roughly June 10th,” Schefter said via Unsportsmanlike this morning. “I would think that we would get a decision from Aaron Rodgers shortly before then about whether or not he should play. To me, you can’t miss that mandatory minicamp where you start gearing up. I guess you can, but it’s not ideal.”
As far as we know, the only Steelers player Rodgers has thrown with this offseason is WR DK Metcalf and he had a brief social media exchange with TE Pat Freiermuth. He still has chemistry to build with the majority of his potential pass catchers and certainly with his offensive line and coaching staff.
He should be fine regardless of when he shows up as a 20-year veteran of the league, but the young offense could surely use as many reps together as possible with its potential quarterback.
While he has a reputation for missing OTAs and minicamp, that was primarily because of a full and partial holdout with the Green Bay Packers in his final couple seasons there, and then the Egypt trip last year that made him miss mandatory New York Jets minicamp. Otherwise, he has been a full participant for the entire offseason for the vast majority of his career.
Mike Tomlin initially drew a line in the sand at the start of training camp before walking that back a bit. Rooney said they would wait a bit longer, but not forever. It really seems like ownership has been placing pressure on this to get done sooner rather than later. While mandatory minicamp would technically be showing up for “some” of the offseason program, Rooney seemed interested in getting Rodgers in for as many of the OTA sessions as possible.
Rodgers made it known during his appearance on The Pat McAfee Show that this process will go on his timeline. That much has been made abundantly clear over the last two months of this saga.
