Aaron Rodgers may not have been the Pittsburgh Steelers’ primary option entering free agency this year but painting him as some distant Plan C might not be accurate either. Following Adam Schefter’s report that Rodgers was the Steelers’ third choice, one local insider is giving that idea some pushback.
“What are we talking about Matt Stafford here?” Mark Kaboly said Monday via 93.7 The Fan’s Morning Show. “Matt Stafford was just a ploy by the Rams to get him to sign back there. That was never legitimate. Maybe that was a call and say, ‘Hey, what do you think?’ But that never even went past the initial conversation, so I’m not putting him in that same group as Justin Fields.
“It was Justin Fields, then when he said no, it was like, ‘Uh oh, we don’t really want Russell [Wilson]. What’s our next option?'”
One thing we know for sure is that Fields was the Steelers’ first choice. Team president Art Rooney II stated that their preference was to bring back one of their 2024 quarterbacks. Arthur Smith reportedly really liked working with Fields and so it made sense to bring the young, former first-round pick back for an honest shot at the QB1 job. The Jets blew him away with an offer that the Steelers probably weren’t willing to match.
It ultimately doesn’t matter what option Rodgers was. In the end, the Steelers waited almost three full months for him to make up his mind and sign with the team. His contract has a base salary much lower than that of Justin Fields’. Even with incentives, he has no chance of getting paid more than Fields. There is more long-term upside with Fields, but the Steelers got the better quarterback for 2025 at a cheaper price.
The pro personnel department would’ve had an internal valuation on all available or potentially available QB options. When it became clear the market was higher than their internal valuations, they moved on. Stafford falls into that camp, but so does Sam Darnold and maybe others. According to Kaboly, it was Fields and then a number of other options (in no particular order) that the Steelers looked at.
