The NFL has set up for an Aaron Rodgers grudge match between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New York Jets. The only question now is if Rodgers will be involved.
Mike North, the NFL’s vice president of broadcast planning and scheduling, confirmed Thursday that the league’s schedule-makers had been influenced by the widespread expectation that Rodgers will eventually sign with the Steelers, per ESPN’s Brooke Pryor. However, he denied his office had any inside information about a deal.
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From ESPN:
“We don’t know anything more than anybody else,” North said on a conference call. “The schedule was built for Coach [Mike] Tomlin and for the Steelers, and if Aaron decides to play it probably just makes many, if not all, the Steelers games a little more interesting.”
The NFL also scheduled a Steelers game against the Green Bay Packers for a primetime “Sunday Night Football” slot in Week 8. Two years after leaving the Packers for the Jets, Rodgers still has yet to face his former team of 18 seasons.
The Steelers appear to be betting their season on Aaron Rodgers not retiring, to say nothing of him actually still being good at football. (Kara Durrette/Getty Images)
(Kara Durrette via Getty Images)
North said his office also considered Rodgers in that decision, but noted NBC will, at worst, get a Super Bowl XLV rematch. He also acknowledged that the Steelers-Jets game might have received another primetime slot had Rodgers already signed on the dotted line:
“If we knew for certain that Aaron was going to be the quarterback of the Steelers, we might’ve done something a little different in Week 1 with the Steelers game,” he said.
The current state of the Rodgers-Steelers relationship is the team seems to be doing his bidding while not lining up any sort of alternative, which would be hard at this point with the 2025 NFL Draft and the meat of free agency behind us. The team’s quarterback room is currently Mason Rudolph, Will Howard and Skylar Thompson — not a group that screams contender — but it has also brought in veteran wide receivers DK Metcalf and Roberts Woods this offseason.
So the Steelers likely still expect (and at the very least need) Rodgers to sign. Which he might do any day now.
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