Feb. 21, 2026, 7:34 p.m. ET<\/p>\n
As the Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> prepare for the arrival of the new league year, concerning reports regarding Aaron Rodgers<\/a>‘ 2026 plans have left his future with the Steel City in doubt. But one insider has since dismissed the claims.<\/p>\n On Friday, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Ray Fittipaldo discussed a recent report that Rodgers was leaning toward retiring \u2014 and shot it down completely.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve actually heard pretty much the opposite,” Fittipaldo said via 93.7 The Fan.<\/a> “Things are trending in the direction where Rodgers likely would return. Now, that\u2019s not gonna be 100 percent until the Steelers<\/a> hear that from Aaron Rodgers himself. But there\u2019s been a line of communication there between Mike McCarthy and Aaron since Mike took the job.<\/p>\n “I have not heard that [Rodgers] is leaning in the other direction. You would think, with free agency starting in mid-March, that the Steelers would want an answer, say by March 12th, March 15th.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier in the week, Aditi Kinkhabwala of CBS Sports claimed Rodgers was closer to retiring than suiting up for the Steelers in 2026.<\/p>\n Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n While it remains to be seen what Rodgers will ultimately decide, ESPN insider Jeremy Fowler claimed his decision could ultimately take a few months, which puts the Steelers in an eerily similar situation to last year’s offseason.<\/p>\n For up-to-date\u00a0Steelers\u00a0coverage, including any offseason moves, follow us on X\u00a0@TheSteelersWire<\/a>\u00a0and give our\u00a0Facebook page<\/a>\u00a0a like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 21, 2026, 7:34 p.m. ET As the Pittsburgh Steelers prepare for the arrival of the new league…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":767982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[95878,7,6,520,57,2360,96718,96719,426,96675,95882,95892,95888,95895,95897,96720,96071,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-767981","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","13":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","14":"tag-sstssportsnflsteelers","15":"tag-sstsnsteelers","16":"tag-steelers","17":"tag-tagaaron-rodgers","18":"tag-tagamerican-football","19":"tag-tagespn-inc","20":"tag-tagnfl","21":"tag-tagnfl-hub","22":"tag-tagoverall-negative","23":"tag-tagpittsburgh-steelers","24":"tag-tagsmg-timely","25":"tag-tagsports-news","26":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116112041116400247","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767981","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=767981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}