For a bit revealed late Sunday night time, ESPN’s Brooke Pryor made be aware of the Pittsburgh Steelers “passing on a quarterback 4 occasions earlier than lastly choosing 24-year-old developmental prospect Will Howard out of Ohio State within the sixth spherical” of the 2025 NFL Draft.
She wrote that the transfer recommended that, for people related to the Steelers, comparable to staff proprietor and president Artwork Rooney II, “(Aaron) Rodgers was very a lot current of their decision-making course of.”
Throughout a Monday morning look on Pittsburgh sports activities radio station 102.5 WDVE, Steelers reporter Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Submit-Gazette provided an replace on the Rodgers saga which may be nearing its conclusion.
“The Steelers firmly consider that he’ll signal with them,” Dulac mentioned about Rodgers, per Ross McCorkle of Steelers Depot. “It is much less possible that he will not be their quarterback.”
Whereas talking on the Steelers’ flagship radio program this previous Friday, Rooney mentioned that “we’re nonetheless type of getting the identical alerts” that Rodgers “does wish to come right here, so I do suppose we could get phrase quickly.”
After Pittsburgh drafted Oregon defensive sort out Derrick Harmon at total choose No. 21 this previous Thursday night time, NFL insider Josina Anderson reported that the Steelers “communicated with Aaron Rodgers at the start of [last] week that they wish to obtain a solution from him” concerning his intentions for the 2025 season “not less than 48 hours” earlier than the beginning of the player-selection course of.
Anderson added that the Steelers knew “the end result of that dialog.”
The group handed on drafting a big-name quarterback prospect comparable to Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders, Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart, Louisville’s Tyler Shough and Alabama’s Jalen Milroe.
On Friday, ESPN “Unsportsmanlike” co-host and analyst Evan Cohen revealed {that a} dialog with “any individual who’s near Rodgers” left Cohen believing that “it is virtually as if” the longer term Corridor of Famer “needs the Steelers to make a transfer so he would not need to say no to them.” The Athletic’s Zak Keefer subsequently identified that the Steelers misplaced some “leverage” in talks with Rodgers as a result of they at the moment must begin both longtime backup Mason Rudolph or potential QB3 Skylar Thompson over Howard this coming September.
That mentioned, Josh Kendall of The Athletic famous that the Cleveland Browns, Minnesota Vikings and New Orleans Saints ended the draft on monitor to start out quarterbacks apart from Rodgers.
Until the Vikings quickly change their minds about turning to 2024 first-round draft choose J.J. McCarthy, it seems the Steelers and Rodgers will want one another if the 41-year-old decides he isn’t but able to journey off into the sundown of retirement.
