NFL offseason power rankings: No. 20 Pittsburgh Steelers find another stopgap QB in Aaron Rodgers

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Once a team is on the quarterback merry go round, it’s hard to get off it.

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Aaron Rodgers is almost assuredly not the exit ramp for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He has already said this is likely to be his final season. It would be understandable for the Steelers to see the value in Rodgers as a one-year fix if they had a promising young quarterback in the pipeline or were Super Bowl contenders, but the former is definitely not true and the latter is a stretch at best. It’s simply the best the Steelers (and Rodgers) could do.

It’s easy to be cynical about Rodgers, to wonder what took him so long to sign with the Steelers and how he’ll fit with a franchise that won’t kowtow to him and add his old cronies, as the Jets did. But there was no real reason for Rodgers to keep playing, other than his desire to see what he can accomplish with the Steelers.

Rodgers doesn’t need the money. He took $13.7 million to sign with the Steelers, which is far less than market value. Rodgers has made more in career earnings than any player in NFL history. He definitely doesn’t need to add to his legacy. He long ago clinched a spot as one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history.

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He wants to get in one (?) more season, and do so for Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin.

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“I don’t need it. For my ego, I don’t need it to keep playing,” Rodgers said. “A lot of decisions that I’ve made over my career and life from strictly the ego — even if they turn out well — are always unfulfilling.

“But the decisions made from the soul are usually pretty fulfilling. So this was a decision that was best for my soul. I felt like being here with coach and the guys they got here and the opportunity here was best for me. I’m excited to be here.”

On the Steelers’ side, it allows them to put off finding a permanent solution at quarterback for another year. We’ve seen Rodgers waffle on retirement before, but the most likely outcome is his stay in Pittsburgh will be for one year. In the post-Ben Roethlisberger era, the Steelers have settled into being a team that barely gets over .500, sneaks into the playoffs and gets blown out once they’re there. Then they go looking for another temporary fix at quarterback. Rodgers turns 42 in December and he’s unlikely to raise the Steelers’ ceiling to make them a championship contender or even the best team in the AFC North. But once the quarterback carousel stopped spinning, Rodgers was the last viable quarterback option left and the Steelers were the only team that needed a starter. There wasn’t another reasonable choice, from either side.

Maybe this works out like Brett Favre joining the Vikings after a season with the Jets, when he had maybe the best season of his career and nearly took Minnesota to a Super Bowl. The Steelers seem unlikely to completely collapse; we all know the history of Tomlin not having a losing season. The defense is still quite good, and the Steelers clearly thought cornerback Jalen Ramsey was an upgrade over safety Minkah Fitzpatrick when they swapped the two in an interesting midsummer trade. The offense might be better with the additions of star receiver DK Metcalf and tight end Jonnu Smith, drafting Kaleb Johnson could give a spark to the running game and perhaps a young offensive line will improve. The Steelers made the playoffs with Russell Wilson starting most of last season, and Rodgers is probably an upgrade even as he is about to turn 42.

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The Steelers are stuck in a rut. They’re cycling through unappealing options at quarterback, and that seems likely to continue next offseason. They have a coach with a Hall of Fame level résumé but many Steelers fans want him out because he hasn’t won a playoff game over the past eight seasons. The Steelers have not been bad enough to bottom out and draft a permanent answer at quarterback, and they haven’t been good enough to make a postseason run either. Rodgers doesn’t seem like he’ll make the Steelers that much worse or that much better. It’s just another season of the same, probably just creating a fuzzy memory for years down the road of “Oh right, Rodgers had that one season with the Steelers at the end.”

Maybe it will turn out better than that for Rodgers and the Steelers. Then, the Steelers can start looking for another quarterback again.

Offseason grade

Maybe the Steelers should have done more to land Sam Darnold, Geno Smith, Kirk Cousins or draft one of the quarterbacks they passed on in April. But for most of the offseason they seemed content with Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers will have a good alpha receiver to throw to, after the Steelers traded for DK Metcalf and signed him to a four-year, $132 million extension. The addition of Metcalf made George Pickens redundant, and the Steelers seemed tired of Pickens’ act, so he was traded to the Cowboys. Getting a No. 1 receiver has been an issue for the Steelers for a few seasons, and they did the right thing landing one. In late June, there was a surprising trade, with the Steelers acquiring cornerback Jalen Ramsey and tight end Jonnu Smith from the Dolphins for safety Minkah Fitzpatrick and a late-round draft pick swap. The Smith addition seemed a bit duplicitous because the Steelers were fine at tight end with Pat Freiermuth, and Ramsey for Fitzpatrick doesn’t seem like a huge upgrade either. But the Steelers obviously thought they got better. The other moves were not splashy. Cornerback Darius Slay Jr. and linebacker Malik Harrison were signed and should help the defense. There were no other expensive signings. The Steelers had two top-100 draft picks and used them on defensive tackle Derrick Harmon and running back Kaleb Johnson. Harmon can help a run defense that was shredded by the Ravens in the playoffs, and Johnson has a shot to beat out Jaylen Warren for lead back duties or get a significant share of a committee.

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Grade: B-

Quarterback report

There are four instances of a quarterback at 42 years or older attempting at least 100 passes and posting a passer rating above 76.6. All four of those seasons were by Tom Brady. Brady’s greatness in his mid-40s fooled everyone into thinking other aging quarterbacks could have success, but Brady is still the extreme outlier.

Rodgers wasn’t as bad as you remember last season. Over his last 10 games he had 18 touchdowns, four interceptions and a 97 rating. Yet, history says that any 42-year-old quarterback (he turns 42 on Dec. 2) is at extreme risk of falling off a cliff. Over the first 105 seasons of NFL football, one player has bucked that trend. Rodgers is perhaps the most talented quarterback in history, so perhaps he can be the second quarterback ever to have a decent season at his age, but the Steelers are playing a risky game.

BetMGM odds breakdown

From Yahoo’s Ben Fawkes: “Aaron Rodgers finally signed with Pittsburgh, but oddsmakers had already baked in his presence as a starter, and the Steelers’ Super Bowl odds didn’t budge after the news. Pittsburgh has gone over its win total in five straight seasons, and a win total of 8.5 at BetMGM seems doable if Rodgers can stay healthy and perform at a league-average level. Still, what is the realistic ceiling for this team with Rodgers under center? The Steelers are an underdog (-170) to make the postseason and have the third-best odds to win the AFC North (+550).”

Yahoo’s fantasy take

From Yahoo’s Scott Pianowski: “It’s not common for a non-injured player to lose a ton of fantasy value in early July, but that’s what happened to Jonnu Smith this week. The Dolphins featured him in a way that the Steelers likely will not, which means Smith probably returns to the useful-but-unspectacular player he was before 2024. Think back to the 50-582-3 line Smith produced with the 2023 Falcons — when Kyle Pitts was his teammate and Arthur Smith his OC — and that’s the neighborhood of what to expect this year. I had Smith as the TE7 before the trade; he’s now in the mid-teens. Smith and Pat Freiermuth are tight ends with different skill sets, but Freiermuth also loses with the trade — I’ve bumped him down to TE20.”

Stat to remember

There were seven NFL teams that had a PROE (pass rate over expectation) of less than -5.2% last season. Five of those teams had an elite running back (Ravens, Falcons, Packers, Colts, Eagles), and the Titans wanted to hide their quarterback. The Steelers were the other run-heavy team, at -6.3%. In 2023, the Falcons, coached by current Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, had by far the lowest PROE in the NFL at -9.7%, 3.2% lower than any other team. Atlanta, with Smith, was second-to-last in 2022.

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In other words, Smith wants to run the ball. He has never had a quarterback quite like Aaron Rodgers though. It will be an interesting dynamic to track. Rodgers has his preferences, such as little pre-snap motion and a very slow tempo. He has also never been a caretaker in a run-heavy offense (the Jets were fourth in PROE last season at 2.3%). Either Smith or Rodgers will have to evolve, and the relationship will be interesting to watch.

“We didn’t bring Aaron in here and sign DK for all that money to go run the wishbone,” Smith told the Pittsburgh media. “You try to play to the strengths of your team.”

Burning question

How much longer will the Steelers defense maintain its level?

As is the case with their quarterback, the Steelers might have to worry about an age cliff with some of their defensive stars. The Steelers had the fifth-oldest defense (27.7) in the NFL last season in terms of snap-weighted age, according to their team site. Some of the Steelers’ star defensive players are at an age in which some concern needs to creep in. Defensive lineman Cameron Heyward is 36 years old, new cornerback addition Darius Slay Jr. is 34, outside linebacker T.J. Watt and new cornerback Jalen Ramsey will both turn 31 this season. There aren’t many signs that any of those players are ready to fall off, but the Steelers probably couldn’t afford the hit if any of them do.

Best-case scenario

Nobody assumed Brett Favre would lead the Vikings to the brink of winning an NFC championship when he joined them in 2009 for his age-40 season. There are so many parallels between Favre and Aaron Rodgers, why not add one more? The Steelers don’t seem like a Super Bowl contender, but they did go 10-7 with mediocre quarterback play last season. If Rodgers can consistently play at his level from the second half of last season, maybe there’s some magic left. The Steelers aren’t built around Rodgers anyway. They can win games by running the ball and playing defense. Rodgers doesn’t need to carry the offense, just do his job. He’s probably capable of that, especially with DK Metcalf aboard. The Steelers aren’t the Jets; they’re a rock solid franchise that is used to winning. Maybe this Rodgers experiment works out pretty well. The Steelers haven’t won a playoff game since they beat the Chiefs at the end of the 2016 season, about three months before Patrick Mahomes was drafted. Breaking that streak would be a positive step, and perhaps end the annual offseason calls for Steelers ownership to replace Mike Tomlin.

Nightmare scenario

There’s a chance Aaron Rodgers adds his name to that list of great players who had a sad end in a strange jersey to end their careers. There is almost no history of non-Tom Brady quarterbacks being even passable at age 42. But Rodgers hitting rock bottom and the Steelers following him down the standings to Mike Tomlin’s first losing season isn’t even the worst outcome. If that happens, there are plenty of interesting quarterback prospects at the top of the 2026 NFL Draft and the Steelers definitely could use one. What might be worse is Rodgers being just below average and the Steelers falling off just a bit to 8-9, which would leave them out of the playoffs and out of the top 10 of the draft. Then, next offseason the Steelers go back to trolling the waters of past-their-prime quarterbacks to see who’s available as another short-term option. A 38-year-old Kirk Cousins for 2026 interest anyone?

The crystal ball says

For all the wait, hoopla and hype, Aaron Rodgers’ brief time in Pittsburgh might not be that interesting. The Steelers have established what they are since Ben Roethlisberger retired (and even in his last season), and that’s as a middle-of-the-road team hoping to get one of the final spots in the playoffs, with an uncompetitive one-and-done stay in the postseason. There’s probably no NFL team with a smaller gap between its ceiling and floor. Rodgers is very unlikely to have some throwback MVP-level season either. An average season from Rodgers — which would be better than every other quarterback his age aside from Tom Brady — seems like the most plausible outcome. When you put an average quarterback on an average team, you’re probably getting an average result. For all of the headlines that preceded Rodgers signing with the Steelers, we’ll be left wondering if it was all worth it.