Steelers Gave Rodgers A 60% Raise After Their Own Analysts Said ‘Plan For Life After Him’

Somewhere in Pittsburgh, a front office looked at a 42-year-old quarterback coming off a wild-card loss, checked the advanced metrics that ranked him among the weakest passers in the entire playoff field, and decided the move was to hand him a massive raise. Aaron Rodgers’ new one-year deal guarantees $22 million and can reach $25 million with incentives. His 2025 contract paid roughly $13.65 million. That jump lands somewhere around 60 to 70 percent. The Steelers didn’t just bring him back. They doubled down.

The Warning Nobody Heard

Before the ink dried, Steelers-focused analysts at Sharp Football Analysis had already published their verdict. Quarterback topped Pittsburgh’s long-term needs list. The exact sentiment: the Steelers must plan for life after Aaron Rodgers. This wasn’t vague concern from a national talking head. It was a team-specific draft roadmap telling the franchise its biggest investment was a bridge, not a destination. Pittsburgh went 10–7 in 2025, won the AFC North, then lost in the wild-card round to Houston. Seven straight Mike Tomlin-era playoff losses now. The streak kept growing while the warnings kept landing.

The Middling Machine

The assumption was always that Rodgers plus Mike McCarthy would equal instant offensive firepower. The reality was more modest. Rodgers finished the 2025 season completing 65.7% of his attempts for 3,322 yards with 24 touchdowns and seven interceptions. Meanwhile, the Steelers defense ranked 28th in total yards allowed in 2025 while still finishing among the league leaders in takeaways. Pittsburgh was winning on turnovers and reputation, not dominance. That gap between perception and production is where expensive assumptions go to die.

Brady’s Praise Meets Cold Math

Tom Brady spent much of 2025 talking up Rodgers’ return on FOX broadcasts. One legend blessing another. By season’s end, the picture was more complicated: even Rodgers’ best completion percentage since 2021 (65.7%) wasn’t enough to lift Pittsburgh past the first round of the playoffs. ESPN’s Ben Solak openly argued the Steelers should have moved on, suggesting Kyler Murray as a better fit than a Rodgers return. Stephen A. Smith was similarly unenthused on First Take. Brady saw magic. The spreadsheets saw decline. Pittsburgh chose the broadcast booth over the balance sheet, and it cost $22 million guaranteed.

Indianapolis Built the Opposite

While Pittsburgh paid for mythology, the Colts invested in machinery. Indianapolis hired Lou Anarumo from the Bengals as defensive coordinator before the 2025 season, betting on his disguise-heavy, pressure-based scheme. His group dealt with significant 2025 injuries at cornerback (Sauce Gardner, Charvarius Ward) and on the defensive line (DeForest Buckner). Even so, the Colts led the NFL in takeaway games, ranked seventh against the run, and finished 10th in opponent passer rating. With those defenders returning healthy, that defense is built like a trap for exactly the kind of quarterback Pittsburgh just overpaid.

The Quiet Quarterback

Daniel Jones posted 3,101 passing yards for the Colts in 2025, completing 68.0% of his passes at 8.1 yards per attempt with a 100.2 passer rating and 19 touchdowns against eight interceptions. He ranked eighth in ESPN’s Total QBR among qualified quarterbacks. Indianapolis built around him rather than chasing a marquee name. Nobody put Jones on magazine covers. Nobody called him a savior. The Colts just found a quarterback who produced at a high level for a fraction of Rodgers’ price.

Week 5 Becomes a Referendum

The Colts visit Acrisure Stadium in 2026 with a roster that looks nothing like the ones that historically struggled in Pittsburgh. A decisive Colts win, especially one where Anarumo’s pressure forces turnovers or a visibly conservative game plan, would accelerate the conversation Sharp Football started months earlier. Pittsburgh’s schedule includes a Paris trip and four prime-time windows, leaving little room for early stumbles. The margin for early losses barely exists.

The New Rule in the AFC

The Steelers extended the NFL’s longest active non-losing streak with their 10-7 finish in 2025, a run that now stretches more than two decades and is regularly cited as the league’s longest active streak. That record now rides on a rental quarterback entering his 22nd NFL season. Once you see the pattern, the early Colts matchup stops looking like a single game. It starts looking like a referendum on whether quarterback mythology still pays off in a conference stacked with younger, cheaper arms and complex pressure-based defenses. A visible failure would add to a growing dataset of teams that chose last-dance narratives over retooling.

The Colts’ Own Ghosts

Indianapolis carries its own cautionary tale. The Colts started 8–2 in 2025, then collapsed by losing their remaining seven games — becoming the first team in NFL history to finish with a losing record after an 8–2 start. The talent was real. The consistency was not. If that volatility resurfaces in Pittsburgh, the rebuilt defense means nothing. Anarumo’s scheme is a weapon, but the Colts have to prove they can sustain what they build past October.

The Expensive Bet Nobody Can Walk Back

The NFL handed Pittsburgh four prime-time games and a Paris showcase against the Saints in Week 7 — the league’s first regular-season game in France, set for Oct. 25 at the Stade de France. The schedule, the marketing, the broadcast windows all orbit around Rodgers. That gravitational pull is the hidden engine here. Owners, networks, and schedule-makers reinforce the myth that a legendary name sells wins, even when analysts and betting markets argue otherwise. If the Colts expose that gap between billboard and scoreboard, the next losers are young Steelers quarterbacks inheriting a rebuild behind a still-evolving offensive line. Did Pittsburgh just hand Rodgers the most expensive farewell tour in franchise history, or is the noise around this contract overblown? Tell us in the comments who wins Week 5 — and whether the Steelers should already be drafting his replacement.