It took nearly three months, but the Pittsburgh Steelers finally wrangled legendary QB Aaron Rodgers last week. The two sides agreed to a one-year deal worth $13.65 million ($10 million guaranteed), which could rise to just under $20 million through incentives.
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As most already knew, this wasn’t the ideal situation for either party. Rodgers wanted to work with Kevin O’Connell in Minnesota, while the Steelers aimed to bring back either Justin Fields or Russell Wilson, or trade for Matthew Stafford, before having to settle on Rodgers.
Clearly, neither side could do better than the other. While that could create animosity, it might also foster chemistry. No one really wanted to come to Pittsburgh, and no one was eager to sign Rodgers. They could certainly bond over an “us against the world” mentality. However, FS1 pundit Colin Cowherd believes the partnership simply won’t work, arguing that QBs “can’t be weird.”
“Quarterbacks can be a lot of things … but they can’t be weird,” Cowherd said on an episode of The Herd. The analyst then launched into a rant explaining why he thinks that way.
“Head coaches and quarterbacks can’t be weird. Even if you’re quirky, uhhh, go be a kicker… So all these secret marriages, and ayahuasca, and darkness retreats, and passive-aggressive nonsense, and conspiracy theories. Weird, doesn’t work. Because weird is unpredictable. And you want your coach to be predictable.”
"Weird doesn't work… You're not sure what you get with Aaron."@ColinCowherd says Aaron Rodgers' star power isn't what it used to be. pic.twitter.com/0D6VtFgK4n
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) June 9, 2025
Rodgers could certainly be called weird, but he’s been that way for a long time. Cowherd, however, claimed on his show that the QB wasn’t weird during his prime, and that is far from accurate. Rodgers has been a proponent of conspiracy theories, unpopular opinions, and spontaneous trips to frats since at least 2010, when he won his only Super Bowl.
It seems like that “weirdness” didn’t really matter when he was in his physical prime. It’s only now that he’s struggled on the field that the “weirdness” is considered a problem.
And what does “weird” really even mean? Is Tom Brady not weird for his obsessive nature when it came to his TB12 method? Is Kyler Murray not weird for necessitating clauses in his contract related to the amount of time he played video games? Was Phillip Rivers’ mix of aggressive, clean trash talk and religious zeal not as weird as it gets?
Terry Bradshaw, Ken “The Snake” Stabler, Brett Favre, Jim McMahon, Eli Manning, Joe Namath. The list goes on. There have been tons of successful QBs in the league that would be considered a lot more than just “weird” by Cowherd today.
The unique eccentricities of Aaron Rodgers’ personality that make him “weird” are far from the most worrying thing about his fit with the Steelers. The bigger worries should be about whether there will be any animosity between Rodgers and the brass, considering neither side really wanted the other that bad.
That, and of course, how he will perform when he straps on his Steelers helmet for the first time in Week 1 against his former team, the New York Jets, on September 7.
