The Pittsburgh Steelers have a bit of a quarterback conundrum on their hands. It’s clear that Aaron Rodgers is their first priority, if he ever officially joins the team. However, there are also two young options on the roster in Will Howard and Drew Allar.
If Pittsburgh gets off to a bad start, that could be a tough situation to balance. While he admits it’s a difficult choice, former Steelers running back Jerome Bettis thinks the Steelers might have to be willing to take Rodgers out of the starting lineup if the team clearly isn’t in playoff position.
“I’ve got to give them the best chance to win right now. Aaron Rodgers provides that. But I am going to keep my eye on the future and have some young guys in the queue ready to go at the quarterback position and give them an opportunity. And if the Aaron Rodgers experiment does not work, then midseason, we’ve got to go in a different direction,” Bettis said Friday on the Yahoo Sports Daily show. “If we’re not in playoff position by midseason, we may have to pull the plug on this plan…. Who wants to sit Aaron Rodgers? That’s the tough part.”
For what it’s worth, the Steelers don’t have a brutal start to the season. Up until the bye week in Week 9, Pittsburgh will only play one team who made the playoffs last year, the New England Patriots. Obviously, anything can happen on any given Sunday, but it would take an ugly start for the Steelers to be well out of contention by then.
However, if they are, it’s something to consider. Playing Rodgers in meaningless games won’t help the team for the future. And with the reality that the Steelers may end up taking a quarterback in the 2027 draft, it would help to see what they have in Howard or Allar. But it also may be hard to convince someone like Rodgers, in what might be his final season, to sit.
Maybe the Steelers could ship him somewhere else in that scenario. You never know what injuries or quarterback spots may open up as the year goes on. Even last year, we saw Philip Rivers make a surprise return late in the season. That could be a way for the Steelers to move on from Rodgers and still give him a chance to play.
The Steelers will hope they don’t find themselves in that situation. But if they do, taking Aaron Rodgers out of the starting lineup is something Bettis thinks the Steelers would have to consider.
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