Before Pittsburgh's 2025 offseason officially opened, journalist Dejan Kovacevic had already published the organization's verdict on Russell Wilson. Not a quiet non-renewal. A specific, pointed pushback against what the Steelers expected Wilson's camp to do next. They'd seen the Denver playbook before. Exit badly, blame the coaching staff publicly, protect your market value for the next contract. Pittsburgh's OC Arthur Smith was named in that reporting as the anticipated target. The organization got ahead of it, and the bet in-play football markets that now price Pittsburgh's 2026 futures are sitting on everything that followed from that decision. The Rodgers wait, Tomlin's exit, a new coaching era with no settled quarterback at its center.
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What Wilson's 2024 Season Actually Left
Denver's dead money covered the real cost. Pittsburgh signed Wilson for $1.21 million base salary and took on almost no financial risk. What they took on was a 36-year-old quarterback whose pocket mobility had dropped far enough that 33 sacks across 11 starts read as a structural description of how opposing defenses had learned to play him. Hold the rush lane. Wait.
He went 4-0 in his first four starts after taking over from Justin Fields in Week 7, then lost five of his last seven regular-season games with the offense managing 14 points per game across those losses. A 28-14 wild-card exit to the Ravens followed. Reports out of the building described Wilson going off-script when the pocket moved, holding past pressure windows, and doing neither with the athleticism that had made those habits survivable in Seattle. Kovacevic's sourcing said the internal verdict was settled well before the postseason.
The Rodgers Wait and What It Cost Pittsburgh
The Jets released Rodgers in March 2025. Pittsburgh needed a quarterback. What actually happened across the following three months tells you something about how the organization read its own leverage.
No free-agent QB signed at all
Will Howard taken at pick 185 in the sixth round, the only draft addition at the position
Mason Rudolph brought back on another short-term deal
Rodgers signed in June for $13.65 million guaranteed, later than any serious free-agent QB movement that offseason. He won 10 regular-season games, took the AFC North title on a Week 18 win that required a Baltimore missed field goal to hold the lead, and lost a first-round playoff game to the Texans in which he completed just over half his attempts for 146 yards and threw a pick-six. Tomlin stepped down when it ended, closing 19 seasons in Pittsburgh without a losing record.
What the 2026 Odds Reflect
FanDuel has the Steelers at +10000 for Super Bowl LXI, ninth-worst in the NFL, with the Ravens sitting at +1200 in the same market. Sharp Football Analysis prices Pittsburgh at +425 to win the AFC North, behind a Ravens line of -115. The Bengals, carrying Joe Burrow's injury history into another offseason, still price ahead of Pittsburgh in both. Rodgers is an unrestricted free agent. No contract offer from Pittsburgh, no deadline, no public commitment. He told the Pat McAfee Show he's been enjoying time away from football, and that conversations with the club haven't progressed beyond general contact. McCarthy, who coached him in Green Bay for 13 seasons, now runs Pittsburgh's sideline and counts as a pull. GM Omar Khan said the door is open. Rodgers also said, toward the end of 2025, that he was "pretty sure this is it."
The Bengals, dealing with Joe Burrow's recurring injury history, still price ahead of Pittsburgh in both markets. Rodgers returning at 42 on another one-year deal doesn't move those numbers. The analysts flagging +425 as a value entry are building a case around Pittsburgh's defensive floor with T.J. Watt; the offense doesn't factor into that argument. Will Howard got genuine investment from Rodgers during the season and could develop faster than a sixth-round pick's trajectory normally allows. Nothing from his 2025 exposure puts him anywhere near ready to start without a veteran ahead of him.
The Steelers' Super Bowl price is ninth-worst in the NFL. Watt didn't change