We're now officially deep into the month of March, and the Aaron Rodgers free agency saga remains ongoing, which given all we know about the peculiar 41-year-old quarterback, shouldn't come as a surprise. Rodgers has at least flirted with the idea of joining the New York Giants, Minnesota Vikings, and Las Vegas Raiders, but now it seems as if the Pittsburgh Steelers are the most likely landing spot for the former New York Jets quarterback.
Before Rodgers' miserable two-year tenure with the Jets, he spent 15 years as the starting quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, and even though his time with Green Bay ended on shaky terms, it now seems as though Rodgers is looking back on those years with the Packers more fondly, and even using those memories as a guide to where he'll spend the 2025 season and beyond.
“I’ve heard Rodgers is looking for a culture such as the one in Green Bay,” writes Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer. “I get it if that sounds a little strange after the drama of the four-time MVP’s final years as a Packer. But over the past few months, Rodgers has been open with people around him on his renewed appreciation for what he had for 18 seasons in Wisconsin. Call it a grass-is-greener dynamic if you want, but it definitely has felt, to some of those around him, like spending a couple years as a New York Jet made Rodgers view the situation he had more favorably.”
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This, according to Breer, gives the Steelers a leg up on the New York Giants and any other team that could possibly force their way into the Aaron Rodgers Sweepstakes.
“That’s also one area where the Steelers have an edge—Pittsburgh has a long-established culture, a family-business feel, and stability, just like Green Bay. It also helps, I’d think, that the roster is stocked with decorated veterans such as T.J. Watt, Cam Heyward, Minkah Fitzpatrick and now DK Metcalf, who are deep into their careers and presumably would carry a similar win-now urgency to Rodgers.”
What everyone in Pittsburgh needs to wonder about here is whether Rodgers is actually the right quarterback for a team with a win-now mindset. The Jets were in win-now mode in each of Rodgers' two seasons in New York. In the first season, he tore his achilles five plays into the season, which some would say was a fluke, but we can't dismiss Rodgers' age as a potential factor there. In the second season, Rodgers and the Jets went 5-12 and came nowhere close to competing for a postseason berth.