Decades from now, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Aaron Rodgers will be regarded as two all-time brands: the Steelers as the winners of six Super Bowls and one of the NFL’s earliest dynasties, and Rodgers as a four-time MVP and one of the five most talented quarterbacks in NFL history. The idea of the two joining forces might seem like a partnership custom designed for postseason glory and dominance.
“There’s a few iconic franchises in the NFL,” Rodgers said in his Tuesday press conference after joining the Steelers. “I played for one of them for 18 years. This is another one of those.”
But in the immediate aftermath of Rodgers signing with the Steelers on June 7, the move has all the fanfare of a Las Vegas residency announcement. Rodgers is 41 years old and has not surpassed 4,000 yards or eight wins since 2021, while Pittsburgh has failed to win a single playoff game in its last five appearances and last won in the playoffs in the 2016 season, against a pre-Patrick Mahomes Kansas City Chiefs squad.
There is no question about Rodgers’ Hall of Fame resume and the Steelers’ status as one of the NFL’s most iconic and successful franchises. Placing an emphasis on recent history, rather than Rodgers’ and the Steelers’ entire histories, provides a more accurate gauge of what to expect in 2025. With that context and Pittsburgh’s competition in the AFC, chances of a storybook ending in a potential one-and-done year seem slim at best.
The deal makes sense for both sides at this point in the offseason, but only because of how the Steelers and Rodgers have approached the past five months. Pittsburgh entered the offseason with a choice between 2024 quarterbacks Russell Wilson and Justin Fields; the Steelers leaned towards Fields but lost him to the New York Jets and struck out in their attempt to land the Rams’ Matthew Stafford. Rodgers met with his employer, the New York Jets, who swiftly informed him that he would not be a part of their 2025 plans. Neither the Steelers nor Rodgers accomplished much in the first weeks of the offseason to improve their situations. Pittsburgh waited until the sixth round to draft a quarterback and passed on Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders, while Rodgers found that his market dried up and saw one potential fit, the Vikings, instead choose to commit to their second-year quarterback, J.J. McCarthy.
Both sides became the best option available for the other, though the dance lasted until June. Rodgers signed a one-year, $13.6 million contract with the Steelers, according to NFL Network. The deal can reach up to $19.5 million, with $10 million guaranteed, and gives Rodgers the keys to an offense that previously pitted veteran quarterbacks Mason Rudolph and Skylar Thompson and rookie Will Howard against each other for practice reps. The move is low-risk for both sides: the Steelers gain an experienced, Super Bowl-winning quarterback on a one-year contract (read: limited financial and long-term commitment) and can claim they are all-in on title contention, while Rodgers gets a chance to start for a 2024 playoff team and gets to delay his retirement another year.
“I don’t need it for my ego, I don’t need to keep playing,” Rodgers said. “This was a decision that was best for my soul. I felt like being here with Coach T and the guys they got here and the opportunity here was the best for me, and I’m excited to be here.”
Just because the partnership makes sense as each side’s preferred option doesn’t guarantee postseason or regular season success, though. Internally and externally, 2025 will be a challenging year for both Rodgers and his new team.
For Rodgers, his track record the past three seasons suggests a quarterback in sharp decline. After posting a QB rating higher than 50 for 14 consecutive seasons as Green Bay’s starter, Rodgers took a step back in 2022 and finished the year with a 41.6 QBR, while the talented Packers missed the playoffs with an 8-9 record. That led to Rodgers’ trade to New York, but his hyped 2023 season lasted just four snaps. If fans still clung to the notion that 2022 was a fluke and a healthy Rodgers was a top-five NFL quarterback heading into last season, the disaster of a season the Jets endured proved otherwise. Rodgers played in all of the Jets’ games but finished 25th in QBR (48.0) and 20th in passer rating (90.5) and won five of 17 starts. By midseason, New York fired head coach Robert Saleh, and even Rodgers’ efforts to get Davante Adams on the team couldn’t reverse the Jets’ course in the second half of the season.
“I’m 41, so my body feels different than it did at 25,” Rodgers said. “I felt good last year. I worked really hard. It was a tough couple years, getting hurt and then rehabbing to get back. But I feel good.”
Now, Rodgers will have to prove that his relatively healthy 2022 and 2024 seasons were off-years and not indications of time taking a toll on his historically great game. He’ll have to accomplish that with less resources at his disposal, too. Wide receiver DK Metcalf, the Steelers’ marquee offseason acquisition, is still in his prime, but he’s coming off arguably his rockiest season as a pro, and the Steelers don’t have a strong no. 2 receiver to match with Metcalf and rival the Jets’ 2024 pairing of Adams and Garrett Wilson. In terms of running game, Steelers starter Jaylen Warren is a sizable downgrade from the Jets’ Breece Hall. Pittsburgh’s coaching staff, led by head coach Mike Tomlin and a capable offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, will be less dysfunctional than the Saleh-Nate Hackett pairing that floundered in New York, but on paper, Pittsburgh lacks the firepower to keep up with division rivals Baltimore and Cincinnati.
Stingy competition in the AFC is another daunting obstacle standing in the way of the Rodgers-Steelers partnership and their ultimate goals. As a wild card team in 2024 that has most of its core in the prime years of their careers, the Steelers’ bar for success in 2025 is forward progress and a playoff win. To simply return to the playoffs, the Steelers will almost certainly have to knock the Ravens off the AFC North throne or outpace Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals. Good luck on those. Once in the playoff bracket, Pittsburgh would likely face either of those divisional opponents or a juggernaut like Kansas City or Buffalo. Barring a major trade, the Steelers are behind the Chiefs, Bills, Ravens, Texans, Chargers, Broncos and possibly Bengals and Dolphins in the AFC. A playoff win in that field, with an uninspiring offensive depth chart and new pieces across the board, would be quite the accomplishment.
A more probable forecast is that Rodgers has a couple vintage moments in the Steelers’ black and yellow and contends for most of the season but ultimately struggles to jolt Pittsburgh out of its playoff rut — or even return the Steelers to the playoff field. In that case, the Rodgers era in Pittsburgh would be an unfulfilling, one-year experiment, one that invites the excitement of an all-time quarterback joining an all-time team but ends up as a footnote in both sides’ journeys. Ultimately, neither legacy is at stake, but any result short of the Steelers’ or Rodgers’ standard is a disappointment.
Pittsburgh will need Rodgers to turn back time and relive his greatest hits in order to make a serious run in the talented AFC. Falling short would squander another year of contention for Pittsburgh’s core and the final opportunity for Rodgers to culminate his career on a winning note.
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