Aaron Rodgers was fine for 2025 season, but Steelers need youth movement

If you listen to the Pittsburgh Steelers players, they wouldn’t mind Aaron Rodgers coming back. That includes DK Metcalf. However, while Rodgers was fine for the 2025 season, the Steelers need a youth movement.

And it needs to start at the position of quarterback.

The Steelers got humbled 30-6 at the hands of the Houston Texans in the Wild Card round on Monday night. It ended a season where the Steelers snuck into the playoffs, with Rodgers playing at a reasonable level but nothing special.

Steelers rolling with QB Aaron Rodgers made sense for 2025

Heading into the season, the Steelers seemed to believe they had all of the pieces needed to make a Super Bowl run. All they needed, they thought, was a steady presence at the quarterback position.

Because of Rodgers’ stellar career and his willingness to continue playing, the Steelers did the right thing. The bottom line is the Steelers made the playoffs. That was the main goal.

Yes, the Super Bowl was the pie in the sky thing. And they fell well short of that. But without Rodgers, it’s unlikely the Steelers would have made it to the postseason.

Granted, the seventh straight failure to win a playoff game hurts. But the Steelers remained a relevant team in the NFL playoff picture.

However, change needs to happen.

Steelers should part ways with QB Aaron Rodgers

It should be a mutual decision. And if Rodgers senses that the Steelers want to go another direction, it’s very unlikely he would fight that at this stage of his career. Rodgers will accept it and move on.

Whether the Steelers move on from Mike Tomlin is a completely separate issue. But they must address the quarterback position in the 2026 NFL Draft.

There is another direction the Steelers can go for the 2026 season. They could try to acquire Malik Willis. That may be a little less risk than a first-round draft pick.

Willis looked like a solid NFL quarterback in his small sample size with the Packers. But a small sample size doesn’t mean he could do that for a full season. So if the Steelers look that direction, they need to add a better young threat than Will Howard.

Where could the Steelers go in the draft?

They landed at spot No. 21 in the first round. And that’s the perfect spot to be in if the draft goes the way that some experts suggest. In fact, Pro Football Focus solved the issue in a recent mock draft. It has the Steelers grabbing Alabama’s Ty Simpson as their next franchise quarterback hopeful.

“The Steelers haven’t had a true franchise quarterback since prime Ben Roethlisberger and would be wise to take a shot on Simpson to sit behind Aaron Rodgers,” Max Chadwick wrote. “His 30 big-time throws are tied for the most among all quarterbacks in college football this season.”

Simpson’s value got depressed a bit because he didn’t finish as strongly as he started. But he has the makeup to be a successful NFL quarterback, even early in his career. He could hit the ground running, according to nfldraftbuzz.com.

“Simpson stands as one of the most fascinating quarterback prospects in recent memory — a first-year starter who displayed elite command through nine games before reality complicated the narrative,” NFL Draft Buzz wrote. “The tape doesn’t lie about what he showed early: this was a quarterback executing concepts and making reads that franchise quarterbacks take years to master, doing it without a running game to lean on while posting that absurd 21:1 touchdown-to-interception ratio.

“When evaluators watch those first nine games, they see someone redefining what’s possible for a first-year starter. Teams desperate for their next franchise quarterback will circle his name because what he lacks in prototypical measurables, he compensates for with rare quarterback intellect married to precise execution.”

Sounds like a good direction for the Steelers’ organization.

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