Pittsburgh Steelers’ Backup QB Plans if Aaron Rodgers Doesn’t Return in 2026
Picture the silence in that Acrisure Stadium locker room on the night of January 12th. Mauled 30-6 by a rampant Houston Texans. Four sacks. One pick-six. A fumble returned for a touchdown for good measure. Aaron Rodgers—four MVPs, 21 seasons, a man who gave Pittsburgh an AFC North title for the first time in five years, 3,322 yards, and a 24-7 touchdown-to-interception ratio—sitting at his stall, still and diminished, having posted a 14.3 total QBR in what might have been the worst playoff performance of his career.
Will Rodgers Return in 2026?
Three months on and new head coach Mike McCarthy—taking the black and gold hot seat Mike Tomlin vacated after 19 years and six straight first-round exits—is running a franchise without a starting quarterback. He’s sat around waiting on a 42-year-old’s silence while the rest of the league moves without him. A-Rod told Pat McAfee he sets “no deadline.” Meanwhile, Pittsburgh was forced to watch on as the likes of Kyler Murray, Malik Willis, and Tua Tagovailoa all put pen to paper elsewhere.
The loyalty is admirable. It’s also maddening. And online betting sites have shown no mercy. The latest NFL odds from Ozoon sports betting site betting site currently make the Steelers a whopping +10000 outsider to win the Lombardi next season, with the Panthers, the Giants, and the Commanders all considered more likely. If that wasn’t bad enough, they’re also a +600 outside to retain their divisional crown, with the Ravens at -150 and the Bengals—a team that hasn’t reached the playoffs in each of the last three seasons—next at +275.
The expectation remains that Rodgers returns—Cameron Heyward believes it; Adam Schefter says Pittsburgh is “hopeful and optimistic.” But McCarthy can’t build a coherent 2026 roster on hope. The draft is five weeks away. The free agency pool is draining daily. So, should the worst happen, what is the Steelers’ backup plan? Let’s take a look at the options.
The Room They Already Have
Walk into the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex right now, and Pittsburgh’s quarterback room consists of Mason Rudolph and Will Howard. Sit with that for a moment.
Rudolph is a known quantity, which is part of the problem. A 2018 third rounder on his third Pittsburgh tour, carrying a deal that screams “depth insurance” with every clause; he is—let’s be honest—a quarterback who has never demonstrated the sustained capacity to win as a primary starter across a full NFL season. Howard is the more complicated story.
The Ohio State national champion—a sixth-round pick signed through 2028 at just over a million dollars — has generated genuine excitement in Pittsburgh circles. McCarthy’s praise has been unusually specific, unusually warm. Somewhere inside Acrisure, Howard is probably working out three times a day this offseason, knowing the coaching staff loves him and knowing with equal clarity that a coaching staff loving a developmental prospect and trusting him with a playoff campaign in a narrowing window are two profoundly different things.
What should McCarthy do? Keep them both. But don’t kid yourself about what they represent.
The Pivot
The trade-and-free-agency route is where Pittsburgh’s organizational philosophy gets tested. Two options. Radically different risk profiles.
Kirk Cousins is available. The Falcons released him on March 11 after a two-year experiment that cost $180 million and produced 21 interceptions, 28 touchdowns, and an 87.2 passer rating across 24 games. NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero confirmed Pittsburgh called Atlanta about him last year, the last time Rodgers made them twitchy, and they promptly got rebuffed. Now there’s nobody to rebuff.
The veteran gunslinger turns 38 during the 2026 season. Admittedly, his best football is behind him, but he was never a mobile QB, and the advancing years shouldn’t cause too much harm. But here’s the genuinely difficult sell: Pittsburgh just watched a 42-year-old get torched on the biggest stage—and the proposed solution is a 38-year-old who played only 10 games in 2025.
How does McCarthy sell that to Steelers Nation? How does Cousins, who has spent an entire career chasing playoff relevance, convince himself that Pittsburgh is the right proving ground after Atlanta’s experiment collapsed around him? The tension between Pittsburgh’s desperation and Cousins’ remaining pride is real. And yet, his floor is higher than anything currently on Pittsburgh’s depth chart.
Anthony Richardson is the gamble. A fourth-overall selection who lost his starting job to Daniel Jones last year. He’s 23. His arm talent is legitimate. His highlight reel is obscene. And his body has absorbed more unavoidable punishment across 15 NFL starts than most quarterbacks absorb in three full seasons. The fifth-year option decision looms at $23.55 million—fully guaranteed, non-negotiable, a massive commitment for a player who has never sustained a winning run as a starter.
Can Richardson silence his doubters? The physical tools say emphatically yes. The injury report and the 15-start résumé say ask again after a full season of actual evidence. Pittsburgh’s “win-now” framing and Richardson’s “massive upside” framing are almost philosophically incompatible—which is precisely what makes him fascinating and dangerous in equal measure.
The Ty Simpson Question
The draft path requires intellectual honesty about what Pittsburgh is doing: not fixing 2026, but betting on 2027 and beyond. It only works paired with a bridge starter. And the window is genuinely narrow.
Ty Simpson—Alabama’s consensus QB2, 3,561 yards, 28 touchdowns, 5 interceptions, a 91.3 clean-pocket PFF grade — is the target at pick 21. The Cardinals likely pass at three. The Browns likely pass at six. Simpson slides. But Arizona is circling with pick 34, and Pittsburgh’s scouting staff knows it.
The clean-pocket grade doesn’t lie; the 58.7% raw accuracy absolutely starts arguments in the scouting room. Is Simpson a Brock Purdy-lite franchise cornerstone or an expensive projection of a system quarterback who thrived in Alabama’s carefully constructed environment? That debate is unresolved—which is exactly why he’s available at 21 rather than gone by six.
McCarthy’s run-first, physical identity under Pittsburgh’s supporting cast is a legitimate fit case. Missing him because another team blinked first, and settling for Carson Beck’s pre-draft visit charm, Garrett Nussmeier’s injury-interrupted LSU intrigue, or Drew Allar’s local pedigree would simply paper over a wound that requires a braver solution.
