On Friday, the Pittsburgh Steelers officially agreed to terms with Aaron Rodgers for the 2025 season. For this year, Rodgers is certainly an improvement over other options that the Steelers currently have at the position. However, after the season ends, Pittsburgh will be left in a familiar spot, looking for an answer at the position yet again.
Dan Patrick thinks Rodgers is an upgrade, but he doesn’t believe the Steelers have a plan for the future.
“Is he an upgrade? Yes. How much of an upgrade?” Patrick asked on his Dan Patrick Show on Friday. “And really, this just kind of prolongs your quarterback situation. This doesn’t solve it. This is one year… It just kicks the can down the road. You didn’t really address the quarterback situation, bigger picture.”
"Are we doing this for now and then what happens next year? It just kicks the can down the road of. You didn't really address the QB situation, bigger picture."
-Dan on the #Steelers signing Aaron Rodgers pic.twitter.com/v1hvNd62mu
— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) June 6, 2025
Opinions are all over the place regarding Rodgers and the Steelers, and Patrick’s isn’t a new one. For the 2025 season, Patrick does admit that Rodgers is an upgrade, albeit not a large one. When trying to predict how this year might go for the Steelers, there are a ton of variables.
First and foremost, what version of Aaron Rodgers will the Steelers get? For the first half of last season, Rodgers looked stiff while recovering from his Achilles injury. As the year went on, though, he looked much better, although the Jets were only able to win five games. For what it’s worth, the Steelers seem encouraged with Rodgers’ current fitness, so there’s reason to believe his 2025 season might resemble the impressive back-half of his 2024 campaign more than anything else.
While the quarterback is important, it takes more than just that to win football games. If Rodgers plays better than Russell Wilson did down the stretch last year, the Steelers might be in better shape and could even contend for the division. However, there were plenty of other issues, aside from Wilson, that haunted the Steelers during that five-game slide. If the defense plays poorly again to end the year, Rodgers’ performance might not even matter.
Still, the Steelers feel like a better team than they were on Wednesday. Yet, they don’t feel like Super Bowl contenders, either.
It’s fair to wonder about the Steelers’ long-term plan at the position. After all, this will be yet another offseason in which the Steelers are looking for a new quarterback. With that said, next offseason looks a little more encouraging in terms of finding a quarterback through the draft. The 2026 QB class is shaping up to be much more promising than 2025’s. And the Steelers have a boatload of picks to work with next April.
Aaron Rodgers is only a one-year answer, so Patrick isn’t wrong to say the Steelers are prolonging their issue. Steelers fans would probably feel better if the team acquired a quarterback more promising towards the future. However, Rodgers still does improve the team this year. And if there’s any offseason for the Steelers to have a shot to land their quarterback of the future, it would be next year. All things considered, there are worse situations to be in.
Recommended for you