{"id":850952,"date":"2026-04-03T07:08:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T07:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/850952\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T07:08:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T07:08:27","slug":"eisen-raiders-signing-cousins-means-steelers-have-to-wait-for-rodgers-no-matter-how-long-that-takes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/850952\/","title":{"rendered":"Eisen: Raiders Signing Cousins Means Steelers ‘Have To Wait For’ Rodgers, No Matter How Long That Takes"},"content":{"rendered":"

There were reports that Kirk Cousins was the Pittsburgh Steelers\u2019 Plan B if Aaron Rodgers didn\u2019t re-sign with them. If that was true, it\u2019s no longer an option, as Cousins has joined the Las Vegas Raiders. The free-agent quarterback market is barren outside of Rodgers now. Art Rooney II said he expects an answer<\/a> from Rodgers by the draft, but Rich Eisen thinks the Cousins news could change that.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, this means, in my mind, the Steelers are 100-percent waiting for Aaron Rodgers, and now, have to wait for Aaron Rodgers,\u201d Eisen said Thursday on his show.<\/a> \u201c[Kirk] Cousins is now off the chess board, going to Vegas\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cHe either thought Pittsburgh\u2019s not an option, or maybe it wasn\u2019t an option for him\u2026 Maybe there\u2019s a money aspect to it\u2026 Now, this means, even though Art Rooney\u2019s [II] like, \u2018I would expect an answer before the draft,\u2019 they might have to change their expectation goalpost potentially.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eisen might not be wrong. Earlier reports indicated that the<\/a> Steelers expected an answer from Rodgers by March, which clearly didn\u2019t happen. Now, they\u2019re preparing to hear from him by the draft, but they might have to wait longer than that.<\/p>\n

At this point, there\u2019s little point in the Steelers abandoning their pursuit of Rodgers. Their starting quarterback situation likely won\u2019t change much if he doesn\u2019t return. Mike McCarthy and Omar Khan have spoken highly of Will Howard, so maybe they\u2019ll feel comfortable giving him a crack at the job. That might be better than taking a swing at any available free agent besides Rodgers.<\/p>\n

The Steelers waited until June last year for Rodgers to sign with them. That seems like the final deadline for him to decide this year.<\/p>\n

For what it\u2019s worth, McCarthy has regular communication with Rodgers, which seems to indicate he\u2019ll play this season. However, nothing is official until a deal is signed. Rodgers is a unique individual, so trying to predict what he\u2019s going to do is tough.<\/p>\n

While this waiting game is frustrating, it worked well enough for the Steelers last year. Rodgers played alright, and they made the playoffs. Pittsburgh has improved at other positions, too. The team could improve on last season if Rodgers re-signs. It\u2019ll take some patience to see if that happens, though.<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There were reports that Kirk Cousins was the Pittsburgh Steelers\u2019 Plan B if Aaron Rodgers didn\u2019t re-sign with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":850953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[1586,7,294,6,520,57,2360,2397,426,20202],"class_list":{"0":"post-850952","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-kirk-cousins","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-pittsburgh","13":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","14":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","15":"tag-rich-eisen","16":"tag-steelers","17":"tag-the-rich-eisen-show"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116339520687405541","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850952","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=850952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/850953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=850952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=850952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=850952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}