Steelers Now
Former NFL general manager Mike Tannenbaum did not hold back on Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers on Tuesday’s episode of Get Up. Tannenbaum believes the four-time NFL MVP’s tenure with the Steelers will be an absolute disaster.
“I think Aaron Rodgers could be irrelevant by Thanksgiving,” Tannenbaum said. “A non-playoff team with a 42-year-old quarterback who’s a legend that’s going off into the sunset.”
Tannenbaum hints that the Steelers will have their first losing season since 2003.
“They’re the third-best team in the division,” Tannenbaum said. “They’re going to have to find out about Will Howard, who they drafted from Ohio State, who I think is very intriguing. I don’t think they could really win this division, and I think by the end of this season we’re going to be talking about a massive transition.”
Despite signing Rodgers, the Steelers’ Super Bowl odds did not change at most sportsbooks. In fact, the Steelers’ Super Bowl odds went unchanged at BETMGM (+4500). The Steelers (22-1) have the eighth-best odds to win the AFC and third-best odds (+600) to win the AFC North. Pittsburgh’s win total for the 2025 season is set at 8.5.
Tannenbaum’s colleague at ESPN Dan Orlovsky also believes the Steelers’ signing of Rodgers will keep them in the middle of the pack, which won’t bode well for the franchise in the 2026 NFL Draft.
“Worst place they could be in,” Orlovsky said Monday on ESPN’s Get Up. “He’s good enough, they’re [the Steelers} good enough. They’re gonna go 9-8, 10-7. They don’t matter in the playoffs and we all known that. And then they’re not bad enough to get a top-eight pick and finally find the quarterback of the future. This still is a subpar offensive line. They only really have DK Metcalf on the perimeter. Great, we’re gonna be a contending team. Are we really gonna matter? No.”
No matter what happens in 2025 with Rodgers, the Steelers have more than enough ammunition to make a big splash in the 2026 NFL Draft. They’re projected to have 12 picks. The Kansas City Chiefs traded up 17 spots to select Patrick Mahomes at 10th overall in the 2017 NFL Draft, so there are other avenues of landing a franchise quarterback instead of bottoming out.
ESPN insider Adam Schefter believes that will make the Steelers the most intriguing team in next year’s draft.
“The Pittsburgh Steelers, right now, have an enormous amount of draft capital for the 2026 draft. After this George Pickens trade, they are currently scheduled to have 12 picks in the 2026 draft,” Schefter said on The Adam Schefter Podcast in May. “ … So when you’ve got all these draft picks and you’ve got a great quarterback draft and the draft is in your city, all of a sudden it starts to get a little interesting to see where Pittsburgh’s going to decide to allocate its draft capital to see if it can make an aggressive push up the board to go get a quarterback,...
