It’s been a long time coming. Common sense suggests that an answer is coming, sooner than later.
Aaron Rodgers will, or won’t, sign a contract with the Steelers. Or, at a minimum, he’ll announce his intention to do so.
Pittsburgh’s OTAs begin on May 27. That’s only 16 days away. If he’s serious about being as ready as he can be for the looming football season, it makes sense to show up and get to know his teammates, coaches, etc.
And if the goal at this point is to delay the process long enough to keep the Steelers from being loaded up with extra early-season short-week and/or prime-time games (obviously, they can be flexed into more standalone games later in the year), the schedule hay presumably is in the barn. If he announces, say, today that he’ll be a Steeler, it will be difficult for the NFL’s scheduling gurus to retreat to the bat cave and spit out a brand new configuration of 272 regular-season games. (Then again, AI can do anything. Supposedly.)
Or maybe, as Colin Cowherd has suggested, the Steelers’ official schedule will be the last factor in Rodgers’s decision as to whether to accept the longstanding offer to don black and gold for 2025.
There’s one other possibility that would be hilarious if it happens. We’ve caught wind of the chance (and we have no idea how realistic it is) that Rodgers could announce or leak his plans at 7:45 p.m. ET or so on Wednesday, upstaging the schedule release planned for 15 minutes later.
And it would. The arrangement of games would take a back seat to the Rodgers news. He’d become the Shedeur Sanders of the schedule release.
It would be a surprise if he did it, because he’s smart enough to know many would see through the gesture and accuse him (rightfully) of making it all about him.
Regardless, in Pittsburgh, it’s been all about him. For weeks. Mrs. PFT and I were in Pittsburgh on Friday and Saturday, and the first question from the few who recognized me was this, every time: “Are we getting Rodgers?”
One of these days, we’ll know for sure. And perhaps the news will be coming as soon as this week.
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