The deadlines keep coming and going, meaning they never existed.
The calendar has passed over halfway through May now and there is still no final decision from Aaron Rodgers on his future. The former Green Bay Packers and New York Jets quarterback is a free agent with two choices in front of him.
He will either retire, ending a remarkable NFL career assuredly bound for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Or, Rodgers will choose to play one more season and join the Pittsburgh Steelers.
And maybe Door No. 1 has already been chosen.
All other teams have committed to or have a quarterback plan in place. While the Steelers technically have Mason Rudolph at the ready, they are banking on Rodgers to give them one year to bridge to their next franchise quarterback.
Rodgers has spent time working out with DK Metcalf this offseason, the Steelers have traded away their problem-making wideout and have a defense that can shoulder the load for the aged quarterback. But it would seem none of that matters.
Rodgers remains wildly unpredictable in these latter stages of his career and this decision has come on his terms entirely. The situation since free agency, the draft and even after Pittsburgh has their schedule for 2025 has not changed.
However, Rodgers' biographer, Ian O'Connor, believes that decision his coming and it may be to the benefit of the Steelers.
"I do think there will be a happy ending, at least for him and we will find out for the Steelers and their fan base," he said during an appearance on 93.7 The Fan in Pittsburgh. "If I had $100 to put down, my feeling is he will be in uniform June 10th, for the start of the mandatory minicamp."
That is certainly a positive for Steelers fans who want him on the team. There are concerns about Rodgers' current "personal issues'' that he mentioned on a recent appearance on "The Pat McAfee Show," but O'Connor does not think those will impact a return.
"I did reach out, and I think I have a good sense of what that is, and I don’t think it would prevent him from playing football with the Steelers."
O'Connor - who has a history with Rodgers and knows him better than most - even goes so far as to suggest that there is a sort of "verbal'' agreement here.
“I just think verbally, behind the scenes, not that he guaranteed it, but he’s told them, 'Listen, I'm gonna play for you. I just don’t want to go there and then miss part of mandatory minicamp because of my personal issues.''
Except for the "personal issues'' part? That sounds promising.
At the same time, Rodgers could also go in a completely different direction and dump on that assumption.
So maybe the Steelers know. But Steelers fans certainly do not.