Future Hall of Fame QB Aaron Rodgers to join Pittsburgh Steelers

For the majority of his two-decade career, quarterback Aaron Rodgers was one of the most valuable players in the NFL. But this offseason, when the 41-year-old was let go by one team, it was unclear if another team would want him.

The four-time NFL MVP and the league’s oldest active player appeared to provide resolution to one of the most intriguing offseason storylines on Thursday by agreeing to sign with the Pittsburgh Steelers as a free agent, the team announced Thursday.

It is a union of two sides that need each other. 

Pittsburgh used both Justin Fields and Russell Wilson last season to moderate success but both quarterbacks departed earlier this offseason. After a 4-2 record with Fields as the starter, Pittsburgh gave the starting job to Wilson, a Super Bowl champion more than a decade earlier with Seattle, once the veteran recovered from an injury suffered during training camp. Wilson made an early splash with his ability to throw deep balls but couldn’t sustain the offensive progress as the Steelers lost six of their last eight games and their season ended in the playoffs’ first round. The Steelers have not won a playoff game since 2017.

Rodgers needed a team that believes he can look like his old self after two highly underwhelming seasons with the New York Jets. Rodgers tore the Achilles tendon in his first game in 2023 and missed the rest of the season. The Jets cleaned house after going 5-12 last season, a reset that included informing Rodgers on Feb. 13 that he would no longer be a Jet. Rodgers was noncommittal about his future as the final weeks of the season, and potentially his career, approached.

“I just need a break to refresh, put my feet in the sand and see where I’m at after that,” Rodgers said Jan. 1.

Rodgers was also reportedly considering Minnesota and the New York Giants, but both had pivoted to other plans during the offseason as Rodgers' decision dragged on and he weighed whether he wanted to retire or play in 2025. When he still had not made a choice more than one month after free agency began in March, Rodgers said he was "not holding anybody hostage" during an appearance on "The Pat McAfee Show."

"I've been straight-up with these teams from the start about where I was at, starting with the money thing," Rodgers said.

"I told every single one of the teams I talked to it ain't about the money. I'll play for $10 (million). I never once said I need a multiyear deal."

As part of his decision-making process, Rodgers met with the Steelers in March.

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Rodgers ranks fifth in NFL history with 503 passing touchdowns and his 62,952 yards rank seventh. Few players in NFL history have reached the highs Rodgers has during a career that has not been without controversy.

After sitting his first three seasons as a backup to Brett Favre in Green Bay, Rodgers became the Packers starter in 2008 and within three seasons won a Super Bowl. Rodgers spent the next decade becoming one of the most-decorated quarterbacks in league history, winning NFL Most Valuable Player honors four times in 2011, 2014, 2020 and 2021; only Peyton Manning, with five, has won the award more times.

At his peak Rodgers possessed the devastating combination of one of the league’s strongest arms and pinpoint accuracy. Just 1.4% of his 8,245 career attempts have resulted in an interception, the lowest interception rate in NFL history. Rodgers even had an uncanny ability to connect on Hail Mary throws. His career quarterback rating, a formula created to judge overall quarterback success, also stands an all-time record. His most prolific season came in 2011, when Rodgers threw for 45 touchdowns — three off his single-season career-high from 2020 — against just six interceptions, while amassing a career-high 4,643 yards and averaging a career-high 9.2 yards per attempt.

The Packers, however, never returned to the Super Bowl again, and the relationship between the quarterback and the team began to fray in 2020, when Green Bay opted against drafting receivers to instead select quarterback Jordan Love and begin a long-term succession plan reminiscent of Rodgers’ own entry into the league that saw him watch and learned behind a Hall of Fame incumbent. By the end of the following season Rodgers, coming off an MVP season, termed his future with the team a “beautiful mystery.”

In recent years, Rodgers has become a lightning rod for his opinions on non-football topics. In 2021, Rodgers left the status of his vaccination against Covid a mystery, only to later test positive for the virus and be fined by the NFL for violating the league’s protocols for unvaccinated players. Rodgers has openly discussed his use of the psychedelic ayahuasca, including during his consecutive-MVP seasons of 2020 and 2021. While the NFL was preparing for free agency to begin in 2023, Rodgers went on a retreat in Oregon where he spent four days isolated in darkness. A documentary about Rodgers that was released in the final weeks of the 2024 NFL season was titled, simply, “Enigma.”

But by then, his time with the Jets appeared unofficially over after two seasons that never lived up to the Super Bowl expectations Rodgers himself set. During his introduction as a Jet in 2023, he said he wanted “to be part of a team that can win it all.” They never came close.