The Pittsburgh Steelers have placed a right-of-first-refusal tender on Aaron Rodgers, giving the team the right to match any offer he gets from another club while he remains free to sign elsewhere. The move was sent to NFL clubs, and Rodgers still has not signed with Pittsburgh as May approaches.
Under the tender, Rodgers could accept a 10% raise on last year’s $13.65 million salary, which would put him at about $15 million this season with the Steelers. If he does not sign with another team before July 22, or before the first scheduled day of training camp, whichever comes later, Pittsburgh would get the exclusive right to sign him. Rodgers did not sign until June last year, just in time for mandatory minicamp.
That makes this offseason look more formal than the one before it. Team chairman Art Rooney II and general manager Omar Khan both said they expected Rodgers’s decision to come much quicker this year than it did last year, but the calendar has already pushed toward May without a deal. The right-of-first-refusal tender is also a rare contract tool, underscoring how businesslike Pittsburgh’s approach has become even as the sides have kept their talks behind closed doors.
Rodgers has not said whether he is considering a move to another team now or during the season, and he has not laid out the details of his conversations with the Steelers. After a year in which he arrived late and still ended up in Pittsburgh in time for minicamp, the new tender gives the team leverage, but it does not end the uncertainty around one of the NFL’s most watched offseason decisions.