The Steelers are hoping to have an answer about Aaron Rodgers’ future with the franchise figured out “in the next month or so.”
That was the message from owner Art Rooney II, who stated in comments to the team’s website that left the door open for Rodgers to play another season in Pittsburgh.
Rodgers, 42, has not given any sort of indication about what he is going to do next season, and with the Steelers naming Mike McCarthy their new head coach, further questions have arisen about whether the future Hall of Fame quarterback would want to play for the man who once coached him in Green Bay.
“We don’t know what Aaron’s plans are right now, and that did not weigh heavily in the decision,” Rooney told the team’s in-house media about the impact Rodgers had on the decision to hire McCarthy.
“We’ll see where Aaron is, and we’ve left the door open, but obviously we all have to sit down and see if that makes sense. So that’ll happen sometime in the next month or so. But the decision was made based on Mike being the coach we want, and it really had very little to do with whether Aaron is going to be back or not.”
Rooney had also mentioned that McCarthy liked what could come from developing 2025 sixth-round pick Will Howard at QB.
The Steelers owner said that McCarthy thought Howard “has tremendous upside” while also mentioning Mason Rudolph and adding that “we’ll have to sit down and discuss where Aaron is, if he decides to come back, and whether that all makes sense.”
Reports earlier in the month seemed to indicate that the Steelers are not expecting Rodgers to return following the departure of former head coach Mike Tomlin.
There’s also the possibility that Rodgers will end up retiring altogether instead of just leaving the Steelers.
Rodgers declined to say what his future held after the Steelers were eliminated from the postseason in the wild-card round by the Texans.
“I’m not going to make any emotional decisions,” Rodgers said. “At this point, obviously such a fun year. A lot of adversity, but a lot of fun. Been a great year overall in my life in the last year, and this is a really good part of that, coming here and being part of this team. So, it’s disappointing to be sitting here with the season over.”
