Steelers owner Art Rooney II says Aaron Rodgers appears to be 'headed in our direction'

Gerry Dulac, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Apr 1, 2025

Published in Football

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PALM BEACH, Fla. — While his coach and general manager were reluctant to say too much about Aaron Rodgers, team president Art Rooney II had no problem saying he feels "pretty good" about the four-time league MVP signing with the Steelers.

"We keep hearing that he's headed in our direction," Rooney said Tuesday at the NFL owners meetings at The Breakers resort. "I'd say we feel pretty good about it at this time."

The Steelers have been courting Rodgers for nearly three weeks, and Rooney said he is not willing to wait "forever" for the former Green Bay Packers and New York Jets quarterback to make a decision. However, he said the team is willing to wait "a little longer" to see if Rodgers, 41, will accept their one-year offer.

"I didn't envision it taking this long," Rooney said.

Rooney said he thought it was a good sign Rodgers reportedly had a throwing session last week with new Steelers receiver DK Metcalf.

"All signs are positive so far," he said.

It was a departure from the limited comments made the previous two days by coach Mike Tomlin and general manager Omar Khan. They acknowledged meeting with Rodgers when he came to the Steelers facility on March 21 but offered nothing more about the progress of their discussion or the possibility of him joining the team.

Rooney was out of town when Rodgers visited the team's offices, but he had a chance to talk on the phone with the league's seventh all-time leading passer that day.

"We talked about Pittsburgh and all the Pittsburgh coaches he's had over the years," Rooney said. "And we've talked about Greenfield and how much he knows about Greenfield [from former Packers coach Mike McCarthy, a Greenfield native]. And so we had a good conversation."

While the Steelers are willing to wait for Rodgers, it is still unclear how long they will continue to do so. Even if Rodgers doesn't sign with the Steelers, Khan said it's "a safe assumption" the team will sign another veteran quarterback to back up Mason Rudolph.

"Hopefully we'll know something soon," Rooney said.

Rules thoughts

Meantime, Rooney said the league owners decided to table a proposal to ban the controversial "Tush Push" because of potential injury concerns, even though there were no reported injuries because of the play in 2024.

Part of the discussion centered on the proposal targeting just two teams: the Philadelphia Eagles and Buffalo Bills.

"It also got into a discussion about other similar kinds of plays where we have these scrums downfield, where guys are pushing the pile, and why aren't we addressing that while we're addressing this?" Rooney said. "So it got into a number of different things that came up that, I guess, just seemed like it was better off tabling it and coming back and talking about it more later."

Also, the league voted to use the postseason overtime rules in the regular season, as well, meaning both teams will get at least one possession in the extra period.

The owners also amended a major portion of the kickoff rule, moving the ball to the 35-yard line instead of the 30 on touchbacks. Rich McKay, the co-chairman of the league's competition committee, said the rate of kick returns will rise to between 60% and 70% because of the move.

Rooney said he is not "100 percent sure I'm in love" with the rule but is willing to see how it goes. The owners tabled the portion of the proposal that wanted to allow teams to declare for an onside kick other than just in the fourth quarter.

In addition, owners also approved a proposal to expand the replay-assist system that will permit an on-site replay official to reverse penalties for hits on defenseless players, facemasks, illegal tackles and roughing/running into the kicker. The replay official will not be allowed to call a penalty if no flag is thrown.

As always, owners were concerned about pace of play when expanding replay in any form.

"As long as it doesn't keep slowing the game down too much, we're in favor of it," Rooney said.

The Steelers voted to reject a proposal by the Detroit Lions that would have allowed wild card teams to be seeded higher than division winners if they had a better record.

"We think that divisional rivalries are one of the more important parts of the competition and we just don't want to do anything to upset that," Rooney said.