Aaron Rodgers is flying into Pittsburgh to sign his one-year contract today. How much that deal will be worth isn’t completely clear but echoing what the PPG’s Gerry Dulac tweeted last night, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport believes the money won’t be huge compared to what most starting quarterbacks make.
“I actually would expect the base to be somewhere around [$10 million] with some incentives to get a little higher,” Rapoport told Good Morning Football Friday morning. “It’s not going to be a big-money deal. That is not what it’s about. It is about finishing Rodgers’ career right, for the Pittsburgh Steelers to go deeper into the playoffs.”
In his lone offseason interview dedicated to his football future, Rodgers told The Pat McAfee Show he would be willing to play for “10 ms,” citing money wasn’t the issue in his months-long decision delay. That seems to be truthful, and Rodgers will play for a relatively small salary compared to other veteran starters. Should his base salary even come in at, say, $15 million, it would make him the 21st-highest paid quarterback in football.
His average yearly value would be even less of Justin Fields, who signed a two-year, $40 million deal to play for Rodgers’ former team, the New York Jets. Rodgers’ contract would be comparable to the one-year deal Russell Wilson signed with the New York Giants, a contract filled to the hilt with incentives.
Normally, the Steelers agrees to contracts without incentives. But they have made exceptions for quarterbacks before. In 2022, Mitch Trubisky signed a two-year deal that contained various incentives. For a 41-year-old quarterback like Rodgers coming off a five-win season, it’s a situation where adding incentives makes sense.
Those incentives could be tied to individual and team play and depending on their structure, could be “likely to be earned’ and count against the cap in 2025 or “not likely to be earned” and count against the cap in 2026. The NFL considers goals that were achieved last season in the former camp and ones that weren’t in the latter. Meaning, if Rodgers has an incentive for throwing for 3,000 yards, it will be “likely to be earned” because he did so last season. If the incentive is make the playoffs, it is “not likely to be earned” because he didn’t last year with the Jets.
Full contract details should be revealed within the coming days. No matter the structure, it’s a one-year deal that isn’t worth massive money, meaning Rodgers was true to his word when he dismissed the idea of playing for the highest bidder.
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