There are some NFL teams you just expect to reek of desperation in their desire to get better. The Pittsburgh Steelers should not be one of them. We’re almost three months into a back-and-forth saga with Aaron Rodgers which has led to one of the league’s proudest, most storied teams turn into a fawning teenager with a crush.
It was sad before, but it’s even worse now Terry Bradshaw is on the wagon of slamming his former team for their desperation when it comes to Rodgers.
“That’s a joke. That to me is just a joke,” Bradshaw said. “What are you going to do? Bring him in for one year, are you kidding me? That guy needs to stay in California. Go somewhere and chew on bark and whisper to the gods out there.”
Bradshaw is right, well, kind of. We can appreciate wanting Rodgers to disappear into the California wilderness to eat bark without taking a shot at a non-Judeo-Christian religions. Nevertheless, Bradshaw’s frustrations echo everything that’s been wrong with this entire process for Pittsburgh, namely that they’re so desperate it’s dragging everything down.
The Steelers woeful quarterback problems are one of the greatest unforced errors in the NFL. Drafting Kenny Pickett was certainly bad, but following that up by trading for Justin Fields and signing Russell Wilson, watching them both play perfectly fine football — then letting both walk in free agency is beyond the pale. This was a franchise that had two birds in the hand, and let them both go to chase the one in the bush, one that’s listening to audio recordings of penguin orgies on a Microsoft Zune.
Desperation by Pittsburgh has led to Rodgers’ favorite thing in the entire world: Being in the headlines. As much as Rodgers likes to pretend he hates being the center of attention, he absolutely loves getting on a Zoom call with Pat McAfee every week and get asked about his future, while A.J. Hawk sits frozen, showing as much emotion as Olmec the stone statue in Legends of the Hidden Temple. Rodgers is a man who lives for this, and dominating the NFL news cycle at the slowest part of the calendar play exactly into his hands. This is a man who enjoys breaking things for fun, like a bored house cat batting a vase off a shelf. He wants to see things break into pieces, then the second you look at him for acting up he’ll turn his head as if nothing ever happened.
The Steelers are better than this, or at least they should be. This franchise should have GM Omar Khan front and center saying the team has no interest in Rodgers. Shut this whole stupidity down. It doesn’t help when team president Art Rooney II is making it so clear the team is desperate for Rodgers to return their calls.
#Steelers president Art Rooney II — who said April 1 that the Steelers will wait “not forever, but a little while longer” for Aaron Rodgers — delivered a similar line on his way out of Wednesday’s owners meetings.
“A little while longer. I’ll say the same thing,” he said.
— Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerESPN) May 22, 2025
We’re talking about the starting quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers here, not haggling on Facebook marketplace over the price of a used air fryer. Forget the legacy for a second, this is a damn back-to-back playoff team. The entire reason Rodgers won’t commit is because he’s scared. He’s terrified about showing the world what he already knows: He just doesn’t have it anymore. With the Jets he could wave it off as issues with the offensive line, injuries to Breece Hall — forget that he hand picked the entire offense around him, it was always going to be their fault.
In Pittsburgh he can’t do that. Rodgers doesn’t have those arguments to fall back on, because this team made it to the playoffs with a Fields/Wilson tandem a year ago. If he can’t at least meet that level of success it will be an abject failure, an indictment on his legacy, and prove that he isn’t Tom Brady or Matthew Stafford who can win a ring as the missing piece, but rather that he limped into obscurity like Joe Montana in a Chiefs’ jersey.
There’s a very clear path forward for the Steelers if they have the guts to take it: Make a damn deal with Atlanta for Kirk Cousins. If you’re this desperate to get a veteran QB who might be an upgrade, might as well get a guy with a big enough arm left to take advantage of D.K. Metcalf. Lest we forget that prior to getting injured in Week 10, Cousins had thrown 17 touchdowns and only 7 interceptions. He was playing damn good football and led Atlanta to a 6-3 record.
Pittsburgh has $28M in effective cap space, Cousins has a $40M cap figure. Make a deal, have the Falcons eat half a chunk of the money this season to get under the cap, and boom, done. No more hand wringing, no more desperation, no more oxygen in the room for Rodgers to swallow.
That’s what the Steelers should do, but there’s no sign they will. Instead they’ll keep saying their prayers every night that Aaron might call tomorrow. The biggest issue isn’t that Pittsburgh doesn’t have a quarterback, it’s that they lack a spine.