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Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers (8) leaves the field after an NFL wild-card playoff football game against the Houston Texans in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo\/Gene J. Puskar,File)<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPITTSBURGH (AP) \u2014 Aaron Rodgers is still weighing whether he wants to play in 2026. The Pittsburgh Steelers are still willing to give him plenty of latitude to decide.
\nPittsburgh general manager Omar Khan said Monday the team remains in regular communication with the four-time MVP, who guided the Steelers to the AFC North title in 2025.
\n\u201cNothing\u2019s changed,\u201d Khan said. \u201cIt\u2019s all been positive and good. He knows how we feel about him and we know how he feels about us.\u201d
\nIt just hasn\u2019t rendered any definitive answer from Rodgers, and none appears to be coming before the NFL draft descends on Pittsburgh on Thursday. The 42-year-old quarterback didn\u2019t sign with Pittsburgh until just before the start of mandatory minicamp last June. Rodgers\u2019 uncertain status, however, is unlikely to play a factor in what the Steelers plan to do with their 12 selections that begin with the 21st overall pick.
\n\u201cThat doesn\u2019t change our evaluation process,\u201d Khan said. \u201cWe\u2019re still putting the guys up where they need to be and we\u2019ll just see how it shakes out.\u201d
\nWhat was once considered a quarterback-rich draft a year ago looks far different now, with no safe bets outside of Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza of Indiana going No. 1 to Las Vegas.
\nThe Steelers currently only have two quarterbacks under contract in last year\u2019s sixth-round pick Will Howard \u2014 whose rookie season a year ago was marred by a hand injury sustained early in training camp \u2014 and longtime backup Mason Rudolph.
\nPittsburgh will almost certainly add to that depth in the draft. Penn State\u2019s Drew Allar, Miami\u2019s Carson Beck and North Dakota State\u2019s Cole Payton have all been in for pre-draft visits, though all figure to be later-round selections whenever they hear their name called.
\nMike McCarthy, a Pittsburgh native hired to replace Mike Tomlin in January, has a lengthy resume as quarterback whisperer of sorts. The list of players McCarthy has worked with in the past include Rodgers, Dallas\u2019 Dak Prescott and former No. 1 overall pick Alex Smith, who spent a year with McCarthy in San Francisco in 2005.
\n\u201cWe speak on it as being the most important position in football,\u201d McCarthy said. \u201cAnd I think it\u2019s important to always try to add to it if you can (but) it has to fit.\u201d
\nThe Steelers do have several needs outside of a young quarterback, including a versatile receiver to team with veterans DK Metcalf and Michael Pittman Jr., and at offensive tackle, a position that\u2019s in a state of flux as left tackle Broderick Jones \u2014 their first-round pick in 2023 \u2014 recovers from a neck injury that forced him to miss the last seven games of 2025.
\nThere is no timetable on when Jones might be ready, though he was with his teammates on Monday as part of the \u201cmedical group\u201d as the Steelers held informal workouts.
\nKhan said Jones was still \u201cearly in the process\u201d and the injury means Pittsburgh will almost certainly decline Jones\u2019 fifth-year option for 2027, meaning they might head into the draft eyeing a longer-term solution to protect whoever might end up being the franchise quarterback the club has been searching for since Ben Roethlisberger\u2019s retirement in early 2022.
\nPittsburgh\u2019s dozen picks give Khan the option to use some of them as collateral if the team decides to trade up. There\u2019s also the chance he could trade down early in the draft to accumulate more capital.
\nMcCarthy seems fine either way. While he called the current roster a \u201cnice mix\u201d of older and younger players, the chance to add quality depth is never a bad thing.
\n\u201cBeing above 10 (picks) I think would be awesome personally,\u201d McCarthy said. \u201cI\u2019ve always felt that the more players you have to develop, I think it definitely is, for the long term, a good process.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers (8) leaves the field after an NFL wild-card playoff football game against the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":871724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[7,6,520,57,2360,426,118134,7448],"class_list":{"0":"post-871723","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-nfl","10":"tag-pittsburgh","11":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","12":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","13":"tag-steelers","14":"tag-steelers-waiting-to-hear-from-rodgers","15":"tag-uncategorized"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116447270683742709","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871723","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=871723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}