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While Aaron Rodgers has yet to sign with a team for the 2025 season, there are reportedly numerous interesting in acquiring him, such as the Minnesota Vikings, Pittsburgh Steelers, and New York Giants. All of those teams, however, appear to be on Rodgers’ time, not theirs.
Similar to the way in which he held the Green Bay Packers and New York Jets in limbo with his decision-making process about his future, 41-year-old Aaron Rodgers appears to be going back to his old bag of tricks, or as NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport put it, “history could repeat itself.”
Appearing on NFL Network on Monday, March 17 — a week after the NFL’s free agency period began on March 10 — Rapoport reported that he does not believe the mercurial future Hall of Fame QB is in a “hurry” to make a decision and could wait until after the NFL Draft, which is being held in Green Bay from April 24 to April 26.
“Usually, if you’re a free agent, you would say, ‘Alright, I’ve got to sign by maybe Monday or Tuesday, otherwise the money’s going to be dried up. One: it’s not like that at the quarterback position. The other thing is, he doesn’t have to decide by any time. He sort of controls this thing. So if you’re [the interested teams], then you’d like it [his decision] now, but the next point is, do you draft someone?” Rapoport said.
“I don’t get the sense that Rodgers is in any kind of hurry at all. And there’s no deadline for him to be. Could it drag out all the way to the draft like it did two years ago? Maybe it could.”
From The Insiders on @NFLNetwork: Two years ago, we all were still talking about Aaron Rodgers during NFL Draft week. Could history repeat itself? pic.twitter.com/Wg932uKNOv
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 17, 2025
If Aaron Rodgers truly had his potential team’s best interest in mind, it wouldn’t even be up for debate: he’d sign before the draft so the team, whether that be the Vikings, Steelers, Giants, or otherwise, could plan and draft accordingly.
For a team like the Vikings, for example, there’s a huge difference in building around Rodgers versus second-year pro J.J. McCarthy. The Steelers, meanwhile, have already lost Justin Fields to free agency and could see Russell Wilson go, too, leaving them with a massive hole to fill at the QB position. The Giants are in a similarly dire state.
During the 2024 season with the New York Jets, his first and only as the starting signal-caller for Gang Green, Rodgers completed 63% of his passes for 3,897 yards, 28 touchdowns and 11 interceptions in 17 starts, leading the team to a third-place finish in the AFC East with a 5-12 record.