retirement remained a \u201cpossibility\u201d<\/a> and offered no timeline on making a decision. He cited a focus on his personal life coming before figuring out his football future. Still, Rodgers would push back on Tucker\u2019s assertion, chewing out the media for their speculation in his conversation with Pat McAfee.<\/p>\nPittsburgh has gone all-in on waiting on Rodgers. If he retires, the team will either stick with Mason Rudolph or explore a Kirk Cousins trade. Neither move would make the Steelers a playoff-winning team.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Tucker thinks Rodgers will suit up. But with his heart not in it, the results won\u2019t be what Pittsburgh expects.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe doesn\u2019t wanna play,\u201d he said. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t really want to play. I think he wants to stay relevant. So I think he will play for the Steelers, but this doesn\u2019t make any sense either short-term or long-term for Pittsburgh in my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Getting into Aaron Rodgers\u2019 mind is impossible. There\u2019s a case to be made for why he\u2019d want to play again, not wanting to end his career on the disaster that was the 2024 New York Jets season. A five-win campaign full of drama, media headlines, and a coaching staff and front office turned over.<\/p>\n
But that alone can\u2019t be the motivation. If Rodgers is to play, he has to be 100 percent committed and locked in on the season. Even skipping voluntary OTAs, fast approaching later this month, would be a sign he isn\u2019t fully committed. Art Rooney II\u2019s recent comments suggested a \u201csoft deadline\u201d of OTAs. If Rodgers still hasn\u2019t committed by then, the Steelers should prepare to go into the season without him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To former NFL offensive lineman and current analyst Ross Tucker, Aaron Rodgers just wants the football world to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[1586,7,6,520,57,2360,8478,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-16036","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-aaron-rodgers","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","13":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","14":"tag-ross-tucker","15":"tag-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114434342069440014","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}