Aaron Rodgers has delayed his free agency decision so long that his options were somewhat chosen for him. The Pittsburgh Steelers, the New York Giants, and the Cleveland Browns are the only teams without a clear strategy for their QB room. The last of those teams has shown zero interest in Rodgers, but the first two have been waiting for a reply on the offers they submitted to the QB for days now.
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The Giants and Steelers—one holds the No. 3 pick, the other just signed Mason Rudolph—both have another option at QB for 2025. But they clearly prefer Rodgers. He just doesn’t prefer them. Reports suggested he thought he could weasel his way onto the Minnesota Vikings. Apparently, he was ready to wait for the Vikings to say something before he said something. Well, the Vikings said something, and it was that they don’t want Rodgers.
So now, Rodgers has to turn to his fallback options. And the funny thing is, he’s also the fallback option for New York and Pittsburgh. The latter tried for Matthew Stafford, while the former had hoped to re-sign Justin Fields. Now, all parties will simply have to be happy with a compromise. However, there’s no question that, as Colin Cowherd put it, Rodgers’ “best option” has fallen by the wayside.
“It’s official. It is official. The Minnesota Vikings, the best option for Aaron Rodgers. It’s over. They said, ‘Not interested, we’re gonna go with J.J. McCarthy.’ So now, Aaron Rodgers is left to the offensively tone-deaf Pittsburgh Steelers… or the New York Giants, who have been in like, an 8-9-10-year rebuild. That’s what he’s left with,” the analyst plainly put it.
While Cowherd’s opinions sometimes take him off the deep end, he’s a veteran in this sports talk show game. And every once in a while, he shows that he’s still got his fastball.
That’s exactly what he did when making an analogy between this Rodgers situation and a Nicolas Cage flop. And while we love Nic Cage and take exception with the insult, we must admit that the man has made a lot of stinkers in his day, despite all those classics.
“It’s got a Nicolas Cage feel. Big production, big personality, big revenue. Once it dips, movie studios and NFL teams are like, ‘Yeah, you’re a little quirky for us.’ His best option: more walks on the beach in Malibu. Hey, the JFK files were released, maybe that will be it.”
One ESPN reporter has suggested that there is the possibility that the Vikings revisit talks with Rodgers. However, that would only happen if McCarthy is injured again or is believed to need more time to develop than initially thought. The move would only come prior to training camp if Rodgers hasn’t signed elsewhere by then.
In the meantime, Steelers and Giants brass wait patiently while Aaron Rodgers saunters back out onto the beach to ponder his next career move, why the Vikings don’t like him, and, of course, those JFK files.
Maybe once he gets through all 63,000 pages, he can give his old buddy Brett Favre the synopsis he’s been looking for in exchange for some advice on how a 40-year-old QB can woo the Vikings.
