{"id":765704,"date":"2026-02-21T01:03:35","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/765704\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T01:03:35","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:03:35","slug":"insider-floats-wild-steelers-trade-scenario","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/765704\/","title":{"rendered":"Insider Floats Wild Steelers Trade Scenario"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steelers News<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"SteelersHouston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud (7) during an NFL football game against the Indianapolis Colts, Sunday, Sep. 17, 2023, in Houston. (AP Photo\/Tyler Kaufman)\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Ian Connor of Sports Illustrated<\/a> floated a wild trade scenario recently, suggesting that the Pittsburgh Steelers should trade for Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud if Aaron Rodgers<\/a> decides not to return. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf Aaron Rodgers decides not to come back to Pittsburgh. You have a Steelers team with a late first-round draft pick, and this perpetual issue of not being good enough to trade up for a top-flight rookie,\u201d Orr said Tuesday on his MMQB podcast. \u201cIf you\u2019re the Steelers, and Mike McCarthy<\/a>, is that the phone call that you make? Where, C.J. Stroud is a classic drop-back passer, with just enough athleticism sprinkled in there that could make it work for me. I\u2019m like, man, that\u2019s the team where I\u2019m like, I wonder if they do it.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Steelers don\u2019t have many ideal options<\/a> at quarterback heading into 2026, but a trade for Stroud certainly would turn heads. Stroud has some upside but he was brutal in the playoffs this past season. Stroud fumbled the ball five times, losing two, against the Steelers in the Wild Card Round win. He also threw an interception against the Steelers. And then in the Divisional Round loss to the New England Patriots, he completed 42.6% of his passes and threw a whopping four interceptions.<\/p>\n

McCarthy has a long history of developing quarterbacks, however, most notably with Rodgers. So perhaps McCarthy would help fix some of Stroud\u2019s technical issues. Among what\u2019s available, Stroud would be the best option at quarterback for the Steelers, but it seems very unlikely that Houston would part ways with him. <\/p>\n

In his first three seasons in the NFL, Stroud has completed 63.8% of his passes for 10,876 yards with 62 touchdowns, 25 interceptions, and a passer rating of 93.5. Overall, Stroud has regressed since his breakout rookie season. <\/p>\n

ESPN NFL insider Jeremy Fowler dropped the latest on Rodgers\u2018 timeline to let the Steelers know whether he\u2019s returning or not in 2026. It turns out, the Steelers could be waiting for quite some time like last year, when the four-time NFL MVP didn\u2019t sign with the Steelers until June 5.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just checked on this. The Steelers remain open to a potential Aaron Rodgers reunion, but they gotta figure it out if he wants to play or not yet. That could take months, as you pointed out,\u201d Fowler said<\/a> Thursday morning on ESPN\u2019s Get Up.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMentioned In This Article: Aaron Rodgers<\/a> C.J. Stroud<\/a> Houston Texans<\/a> Mike McCarthy<\/a> Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> Steelers<\/a> Steelers News<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steelers News Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud (7) during an NFL football game against the Indianapolis Colts, Sunday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":765705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2056],"tags":[1586,1028,7,221,253,2368,7866,6,57,426,2395,222],"class_list":{"0":"post-765704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-aaron-rodgers","9":"tag-c-j-stroud","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-houston","12":"tag-houston-texans","13":"tag-houstontexans","14":"tag-mike-mccarthy","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","17":"tag-steelers","18":"tag-steelers-news","19":"tag-texans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116105939884640150","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765704","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=765704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/765705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}