{"id":149660,"date":"2026-03-27T01:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T01:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/149660\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T01:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T01:50:07","slug":"this-saints-steelers-trade-gives-pittsburgh-an-aaron-rodgers-backup-plan-without-the-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/149660\/","title":{"rendered":"This Saints-Steelers trade gives Pittsburgh an Aaron Rodgers backup plan without the risk"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> are going to need a quarterback to start the 2026 NFL season, and it sounds like they really want it to be Aaron Rodgers again<\/a>. But predicting what the 42-year-old will want days from now, much less months, is a dicey proposition. And if Rodgers decides it’s time to hang his cleats up, new head coach Mike McCarthy needs a backup plan in order to avoid being stuck with Mason Rudolph, Will Howard and not a whole lot else.<\/p>\n

The former has some starting experience, but with a 9-9-1 record and a career total of 4,925 passing yards, 30 touchdowns and 22 interceptions, Pittsburgh has to know that he isn’t any sort of solution. Howard won a national title at Ohio State before the Steelers took him in the sixth round, but he missed 2025 with a broken bone in his throwing hand, making him a completely unknown commodity.<\/p>\n

General manager Omar Khan should consider calling a team with a veteran option who still has enough treads on their tires to give Rudolph and Howard competition in training camp. Luckily, just such a fit exists.<\/p>\n

Saints can offload failed QB experiment to desperate Steelers<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh missed out on a lot of solid free agent options, and now the pickings are slim ahead of April’s draft. Unless Khan is planning on spending a first-round pick on Alabama’s Ty Simpson (which he shouldn’t<\/a>), then utilizing the trade market is his only other option to build viable depth regardless of Rodgers’ decision.<\/p>\n

The New Orleans Saints signed Zach Wilson on Wednesday<\/a>, which is the team’s clearest signal yet that QB1 Tyler Shough’s backup, Spencer Rattler, probably won’t make it to Week 1 on the roster. Rattler, a fifth-round pick in 2024, started New Orleans’ first eight games last season but was benched for Shough after a disappointing performance.<\/p>\n

He threw for just 1,586 yards, eight touchdowns and five interceptions with a 50.3 passer rating. Less than stellar for the guy who was for a brief time penciled in as the successor Derek Carr. The Saints look ready to move on from the 25-year-old while he still has potential as a reclamation project for another franchise. They’d save just over $1.1 million against the salary cap this season with two years left on Rattler’s contract.<\/p>\n

The Steelers should be that franchise, because there is little risk to trying Rattler out. If Rodgers is in, Rattler is a perfectly fine backup. If Rodgers is out, Pittsburgh has screwed itself no matter what, and Rattler is as good a flier for a year as any while waiting until 2027. Either way, this roster deserves better than what it has at the most important position right now.<\/p>\n

Trade proposal: Spencer Rattler in exchange for a 2026 fifth-round pick<\/p>\n

Giving up a fifth-rounder this year isn’t going to rob Pittsburgh of a stud prospect, especially when they have extra third- and fourth-round picks (and especially when the alternative to Rattler actually yielding success in the absence of Rodgers is winding up with a top-10 pick in a loaded QB class in 2027).<\/p>\n

Roll the dice, Steelers. If anything, it’s the perfect cover for a soft tank in the event Rodgers doesn’t return. Khan needs to get creative and give McCarthy time to establish a system before the team’s true QB of the future arrives next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Steelers are going to need a quarterback to start the 2026 NFL season, and it sounds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-149660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-pittsburgh","9":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","10":"tag-pittsburgh-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}