What is Rodgers’ future after Allar selection?
Mike Florio and Chris Simms react to the Pittsburgh Steelers drafting Penn State's Drew Allar amid the team's ongoing situation with Aaron Rodgers and question what's next for the veteran quarterback.
Video Transcript
What the Steelers did on Friday night, they selected Penn State quarterback Drew Aller in round three.
And this is a very simple assessment, okay?
If Aaron Rodgers comes back, Will Howard or Mason Rudolph will be gone, and everything they've said about those two guys is baloney.
Yeah.
That's what Drew Aller means if Rodgers is there.
If Rodgers isn't there, then it's gonna be Aller, Rudolph, and Howard, and I don't know how much of this is a hedge against the possibility that Rodgers chooses not to play.
It could be both.
It could be, we need to develop somebody young, that we're really not as smitten with Rudolph- Yeah and Howard as we claim.
Mm-hmm.
or it could be And it could be, you know, if Aaron doesn't come here, we can't just go forward with Rudolph and Howard.
Yeah.
I think it could be both.
I, I think you're right.
I think it's, it Both can be true there, right?
Aaron Rodgers is there, I would probably expect Mason Rudolph maybe to be expendable, and they, maybe they make Will Howard maybe the second guy, and then you got time to develop Drew Aller.
I, I think if, okay, Aaron Rodgers doesn't come, yeah, Mason Rudolph's the starter, Will Howard's the backup, and we develop Drew Aller.
Drew Aller needs some time to develop.
He's raw.
He was in a horrible offense at Penn State, so he hasn't been taught a whole lot.
And then he's got some mechanical things as far as how he throws to, to fix a little bit.
But he's big, he has played in some big games, and he does have a powerful arm, and I can see the, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Mike McCarthy liking that aspect certainly, and they're gonna work with that.
There's something there to mold, and let's see if they can refine him and, and make him into a, a polished pocket-passing quarterback, which was, you know, a little in between at times in Penn State, not all it was doing because they weren't that great on the offensive side of the ball either.
And, I'm gonna stick up for him in that department.
Tom Arth, the Steelers quarterbacks coach, and Mike McCarthy, the head coach, like any time anyone has addressed the Aller situation since Friday night, it has been clear it has nothing to do with Aaron Rodgers.
Yeah.
They, they are tiptoeing around the Rodgers issue.
They don't want Rodgers to think that Drew Aller is there to threaten Aaron Rodgers.
And obviously, if Rodgers plays Now, if they had drafted Ty Simpson 13th overall, it's a different dynamic.
But if Rodgers plays, he's not gonna be threatened by Drew Aller- Of course not or Mason Rudolph- Right or Will Howard.
Right.
He's gonna be the starter week in and week out.
It's his team for 2026, period.
They just have to.
You know, and again, I If I had I mean, I think he's gonna play.
Don't you think he's gonna play?
I do.
Yes, I do.
I think it's, you know- So do you feel as strongly as you felt about it last year?
I, I feel like w- maybe a little stronger last year, but I'm still pretty strong this year, too.
I feel like it's, like something maybe, like, what you've alluded to.
Maybe it's him just not wanting to go through the off-season program.
Maybe it's an understandment, a little bit of like, "Hey, you know, I'm not gonna be there and let's not have the distraction of me not being there, even though I said I was gonna play."
I, I don't know.
I'm shocked that we're still at this point and we have nothing definitive.
I think that's what I'm shocked.
But yeah, I'm with you in that I'm expecting Aaron Rodgers to play.
Understandment is generally not considered- a standard English word- Yeah and is not found in major dictionaries.
I'm just making sure.
Thank you.
I never know when it's gonna be an accidental scholar moment.
I Yeah, no.
But you got understanding and understatement that got slapped together.
It did.
And you know, when I got done with the sentence, I was like, "Wait, something didn't sound right there," and I couldn't figure out what word I said wrong until you said it, and I was like, "Oh, that's what I said wrong."
so look, the one thing that we need to keep in mind is that Aaron Rodgers went to Pittsburgh last year in large part because of Mike Tomlin.
Remember the GIF?
Yeah.
The- Yeah you know, the- Yeah.
The old, like, the wink- The knowing- Like, "Yeah, you thought you were gonna get me?"
the knowing nods.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right, right.
Yeah.
They had always respected each other from afar, and that became a draw for Aaron Rodgers, who was looking to put two disastrous years with the Jets behind him.
And I can't blame him.
I think it was smart.
But then when Tomlin goes and Mike McCarthy gets the job, and you do any research about the final years of the McCarthy-Rodgers relationship, as chronicled by Tyler Dunne, who was at Bleacher Report at the time, I wrote about it from the get-go.
It's like, I don't know that Aaron Rodgers Unless he's feeling, like, very, very nostalgic and he sees some cosmic symmetry to this idea of finishing where he started, the perfect blend, my final team with my original coach, and I can set aside all my concerns for one year and think about the good, not the things I didn't like.
I mean, there's some quotes, there's some thoughts attributed to Rodgers- Yeah from that Tyler Dunne article that if you look at it- Yeah, they're crazy you say there's no way in hell he wants to work for Mike McCarthy again.
Yeah.
I, I Li- listen, when it, when it first happened, I, I honestly thought that would, that would be it.
I would be I was like, "Oh, I, I can't imagine.
McCarthy's the head coach.
Rodgers isn't gonna wanna deal with that."
I, I That's what I thought.
You're I mean, it You're right.
I mean, again, some of that stuff and the way it went down, and just the rumors we heard at the end of the McCarthy-Rodgers era, yeah, it, it seemed odd.
And now, I mean, we've had years here of Rodgers, it feels like, trying to, you know, put the toothpaste back in the bottle and, and kinda rehabilitate the relationship and, and make sure that those rumors are squashed a little bit.
But yeah, it's, it's a crazy situation, and it's one that, yeah, I, I'm, I'm gonna be excited to see it when it does happen and see how that relationship goes.
And again, it's Mike McCarthy who's coaching a, a, his third football team, and he's gonna want things done his way, but then he's gonna bring Rodgers back, and Rodgers is gonna go, "Uh, I want 'em done this way.
I'm You, you guys brought me back.
I, I want 'em check to this, check to that.
Four yard throw, three yard throw, two yard throw, one yard throw, two yard throw, three yard throw.
Check, check, check, check."
Right?
I mean, so that's what's gonna happen, and I can't wait to see that.
Get your popcorn ready.
I wonder if, you know, a little truth serum, a little peppermint schnapps for Mike McCarthy.
I wonder if he really wants Aaron to come back, and he's just saying what he has to say.
I wonder if deep down- I, I- He can watch the film.
He knows it's not the same guy.
Right.
Right.
And, and so the player's not as good, but he's still as big of a pain in my ass- as he was back then.
Do you really think Mike McCarthy wants Aaron Rodgers?
I'd never really thought about that until just now, 'cause we think of it all in terms of what Rodgers wants.
Yeah, totally.
I bet- Yeah I bet.
Uh-huh.
I'd, I'd take a sawbuck, and I'd put it on the truth being, if we could attach Mike McCarthy to a polygraph test, the truth being that he will be very happy if Aaron Rodgers decides that he has cured his addiction to the process.
I don't, I don't disagree with you there.
I've thought about that a lot.
And, and, you know, for the reasons I kinda just, you know, playfully stated, I, I, I would think that Mike McCarthy would have some trepidation about that as well.
I'd put a sawbuck on it, too.
I don't know what that is, daggone it, but I'm gonna put- $10 the sawbuck on it.
It's $10.
That's sawbuck?
Okay there, old-timer.
$10.
Thanks for that.
I didn't know that one.
Sawbuck.
Wow.
That's the first time I feel like I've heard that one.
You can, you can, you can, you can put the sawbuck in your toothpaste bottle and/or shove it up your butt.
