Veteran quarterback Aaron Rodgers was in Pittsburgh last weekend while the Steelers were running their rookie minicamp a few miles away at their South Side facility. A new coaching staff, new quarterbacks getting reps, it was the kind of week where a veteran presence in the building carries weight. But Rodgers didn’t show up. He let his agent handle calls with the team and let the weekend pass. When Steelers GM Omar Khan was asked about it all on a podcast, he chose to speak about everything other than Rodgers.

Khan appeared on the Deebo & Joe podcast and confirmed the team had been in contact. His answer said more about what isn’t happening than what is.

“We’ve had communications with him and his agent,” Khan said, before changing tracks. “One thing I’ll say is this time of the year, it’s great for these young guys. We have a new coaching staff here, and they just got off the field a little bit ago. The time they’re spending knowing each other and allowing our coaches to develop and grow, not just the quarterbacks but all these guys, it’s very precious.”

Khan spent time talking about the camp and his rookies. Rodgers just got a single sentence. ESPN’s Adam Schefter had already confirmed on the Pat McAfee Show that the weekend had passed without any direct interaction between Rodgers and the team.

This is the same playbook Pittsburgh ran last offseason. Before Rodgers signed his one-year, $13.65 million deal on June 9, 2025, he made a covert facility visit in late March and spent months engaged in low-level dialogue with the organization.

To avoid last year’s disaster, the Steelers placed a UFA tender on Rodgers this offseason, blocking him from signing elsewhere after July 22 and earning Pittsburgh a compensatory pick if he walks. But Rodgers hasn’t given them anything in writing. Steelers Owner/President Art Rooney II had told reporters on April 29 that he expected a resolution soon. His words made it seem like almost a given.

“We’ve been in contact with Aaron on a regular basis,” Rooney said. “He’s been keeping us up to date on his plans. And even though I thought it probably would have been concluded by now, I think we will come to a conclusion here in the next few weeks.”

But that statement was from two weeks ago, and the Steelers’ OTAs begin on May 18th. What’s more, Pittsburgh’s patience seems to have run out at last.

Pittsburgh radio host Andrew Fillipponi floated a version of the theory on social media – that the Steelers are quietly engineering Rodgers’ exit the same way they handled Ben Roethlisberger’s final season, letting circumstances pressure him into walking away rather than cutting him directly.

Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk went a step further, suggesting head coach Mike McCarthy himself may not want Rodgers back, and that the UFA tender was structured to give the organization plausible deniability.

“Is it possible Mike McCarthy doesn’t want him to come back, and that this is a message, this is something that they can always deny – ‘We didn’t try to push him away’ – but they know this is the kind of thing that will push him away,” Florio noted. “[I think] the Steelers don’t want him back, but they can’t do what the Jets did last year because then he’ll put you on blast on McAfee’s show, so we have to act like we want him.”

Florio’s warning about the New York Jets’ playbook isn’t abstract. In April 2025, Rodgers went on the Pat McAfee Show and described the meeting that ended his time with the Jets. He had flown cross-country from California to New Jersey at his own expense to discuss his future with new head coach Aaron Glenn. But the meeting lasted barely 15 minutes.

“I think we’re going to have this long conversation, I’ve flown across the country,” Rodgers recalled. “And 20 seconds in … I’m talking to [Mougey] about something and [Glenn] leans to the edge of his seat and goes, ‘You sure you want to play football?’ I was like, ‘yeah, I’m interested.” And [Glenn] said, ‘We’re going in a different direction at quarterback.’”

Rodgers called it “a little rogue by the head coach.” And the NFL saw exactly what happened when a franchise tried to manage Aaron Rodgers out the back door without a real conversation. He used the biggest microphone in football to say exactly what he thought about it. The Steelers know this, too. And that’s why, if they want out at all, they will need Rodgers to walk away on his own terms.

The front office maintains that the communications between Rodgers’ camp and the team have been good. But the Steelers’ quarterback situation has reached a melting point once more, and the people watching from outside aren’t holding back anymore.

The Steelers may not get much from Aaron Rodgers

ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky has been consistent on this point. Last week, on the Pat McAfee Show, he drew a direct line between what’s good for the team and what’s good for the franchise.

“What’s best for the team is that Aaron Rodgers is the quarterback,” Orlovsky said. “What’s best for the organization is that anybody but Rodgers is the quarterback.”

Orlovsky called the Steelers a “nine-win team” with Rodgers leading the fray. Going up against teams like the Buffalo Bills, New England Patriots, Baltimore Ravens, etc., even a four-time NFL MVP can only do so much.

That nine-win ceiling is very real, too. But the counterargument – handing the offense to rookie QB Drew Allar or Will Howard, and watching their veterans start behind an unproven quarterback – isn’t a clean break either. So, Pittsburgh is stuck between two bad options, and the one they’ve chosen keeps the contention window cracked while sacrificing the draft position they’d need to actually fix the roster long-term.

Go Long’s Tyler Dunne added a different dimension on 93.7 The Fan recently. A source with firsthand knowledge of both Rodgers and McCarthy told Dunne the pairing was going to fracture.

“[The source said] they’ll be at each other’s throats and fighting in no time,” Dunne said. “And he saw this up close, so I’m sure they’ll say all the right things if they are rejoining forces here, and who knows, there will be good times. But the season is a marathon. Look across the AFC, look in your own division. It’s hard to see this ending well for any party involved.”

Whatever the case, Omar Khan maintains that the talks have been positive, but there’s no sign of Rodgers. Orlovsky says the ceiling is nine wins, and Dunne’s source says the locker room is a lit fuse. But Aaron Rodgers was in Pittsburgh for days without setting foot in the building that gave him a shot last season. The Steelers are still committed. What they haven’t gotten back is any sign that Rodgers is committed, too.