"We're Excited About The Future": Pittsburgh Steelers Prioritize Aaron Rodgers’ Successor Over Trade Deadline Deals

The Steelers are keeping their draft picks as they prepare for life after Aaron Rodgers.© Image via X/@nfl

Pittsburgh is 6-2, has won four straight and leads the AFC North. Teams in that spot usually go shopping. The Steelers only browsed. General manager Omar Khan looked into receivers Josh Downs, Brian Thomas Jr. and Calvin Ridley, then let the NFL trade deadline pass without a deal. His reasoning has little to do with this season's roster. It has everything to do with the quarterback he has not found yet, and draft picks are how teams find one. So Khan kept them.

Steelers Trade Deadline: Why Pittsburgh Stayed Put

Only two AFC teams with six or more wins stood pat, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, and the Bengals reportedly backed out of a deal.

ESPN's Brooke Pryor says the Steelers' position has been steady: "PIT has maintained that it doesn't want to give up significant draft capital until it has a clear future QB plan," Pryor wrote.

The picks Pittsburgh holds explain the caution. A trade with Dallas in August cost the Steelers their 2027 fourth-rounder but brought back a third and a sixth.

They now own two third-rounders and their first. Compare that with Kansas City, which landed Downs by sending Indianapolis a fourth and a fifth in 2027 and receiving a seventh. Pittsburgh had no fourth to offer, so a comparable deal would have meant dipping into a third or higher. That is the price of a quarterback move later.

Steelers Quarterback Future After Aaron Rodgers

Khan did have reasons to look. Michael Pittman Jr. has played three games because of a foot injury, and Roman Wilson has been out with a hand injury. Coach Mike McCarthy says Pittman is "getting close" to returning. Wilson could follow later this month.

Rodgers is 42 and has called this his final NFL season. Mason Rudolph, Will Howard and rookie Drew Allar are behind him, and no one holds the job of the future. Khan, for his part, likes the group. "We're excited about the future with those guys, so glad we have them," he said, according to Steelers.com's Brian Batko.

Pryor's deadline preview struck a firmer note. "Don't mortgage the future for the present," Pryor wrote, adding that Pittsburgh's "top priority remains finding their next franchise quarterback."

Khan took this route last year too, and the offense sputtered in a playoff loss to Houston. This year's team is winning, which buys the plan some patience. Still, a healthy Pittman and Wilson would help more than any trade the Steelers skipped.