Did Aaron Rodgers wait for the schedule to be released to return to Steelers?

For whatever reason, quarterback Aaron Rodgers kept everyone in the dark as to his plans for 2026, until he signed with the Steelers over the weekend. And despite the claims that Rodgers was always returning to Pittsburgh, the team’s decision to use the unrestricted free agent tender on Rodgers proves that the Steelers truly didn’t know what he was going to do.

Here’s a possibility as to why he returned when he did. Rodgers may have been waiting for the 2026 schedule to be finalized before making it known to the league office that he’ll be playing this year.

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The idea has merit in the NFL’s past practices. After Rodgers missed all but four snaps of the 2023 season due to a torn Achilles tendon, the league justified its decision to give the Jets six primetime games in the first 11 weeks of the 2024 season by saying that the Jets “kind of owe us one.”

Last year’s schedule was set before Rodgers committed to Pittsburgh. NFL V.P. of broadcast planning Mike North later said that, if the league had known Rodgers would be signing with the Steelers, the Steelers-Jets game from Week 1 would have landed in a national window.

Other tweaks to the schedule would have possibly been made, if Rodgers or the Steelers had shared with the world before the release of the 2025 schedule what they apparently knew. So it would have been very easy for the league to say, this year, that the Steelers and Rodgers “kind of owe us one” in setting the standalone games for 2026.

As it stands, the Steelers have one prime-time game before Week 10, and three thereafter. Surely, that decision wasn’t made to showcase Mason Rudolph, Will Howard, or Drew Allar. And the later games can be flexed, if 2026 doesn’t go well for the Steelers.

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Would they have gotten more standalone games if the league had known Rodgers was returning? Maybe, maybe not. But there was no reason for Rodgers (who has a tendency to hold a grudge) to do the league any favors, not after what happened in 2024.

And the timeline worked out perfectly. The schedule release happened days before the start of the Steelers’ OTAs. He signed in the perfect window for both participating in the full slate of OTAs and keeping the schedule makers in the dark.