Two years ago, after the Pittsburgh Steelers had traded Kenny Pickett to the Philadelphia Eagles and jettisoned Mitchell Trubisky, I spent some time with a senior level decision-maker in the franchise when we broached the topic of the quarterback shakeup.
The coaching staff and front office had grown frustrated with the offensive limitations experienced with Pickett and Trubisky, watching that tandem — along with a few starts from veteran Mason Rudolph — fail to deliver the breakthrough the organization badly needed. Over a two-year span, nobody from the quarterback room had thrown more than seven touchdown passes in a season, creating more questions than answers about then-offensive coordinator Matt Canada, along with creeping worries about scheme and talent limitations. The response from the Steelers was to reach for a three-pronged stab at a permanent fix: Canada was fired and replaced by Arthur Smith; Russell Wilson was signed to a one-year bargain basement veteran minimum contract; and Justin Fields was acquired from the Chicago Bears for a conditional sixth-round draft pick.
The belief was that one of the two quarterbacks would click with Smith and provide the long-term solution the Steelers desperately wanted to find. So much so, this particular member of Pittsburgh’s brain trust confidently declared that the Steelers’ 2025 starter was already in the 2024 quarterback room. All that was left to do was sort out whether it was Fields or Wilson.
As the source put it at the time, “We know what we don’t want to be.”
What exactly was that? In a word: limited.
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For various reasons, that’s exactly what Pickett, Trubisky and Rudolph were. It’s why the 2024 offseason became the start of a reboot that is still in motion — even with the return of Aaron Rodgers for his “this is it” final season in 2026.
What the 2024 Steelers didn’t know at the time was that “limited” would continue to define the team’s answers at quarterback. Limited by Wilson’s declining skills. Limited by Fields’ ceiling as a passer. Limited by Rodgers’ age and overall plateauing as an athlete. Limited by dwindling options after not signing Sam Darnold as a free agent or selecting Jaxson Dart or Tyler Shough when the opportunity presented itself in the 2025 NFL Draft.
This is how you end up with a 2026 quarterback room that’s hitting replay on the uninspiring trio of Rodgers, Rudolph and Will Howard — along with the addition of rookie third-round pick Drew Allar, whose mechanics are so undisciplined that Steelers head coach Mike McCarthy is attempting to erase Allar’s college years and reformat him as a passer.
Heading into the third season since figuring out what they didn’t want to be with Pickett and Trubisky, this is certainly not the great progress that was planned. Neither Wilson or Fields made good on the brain trust’s belief that one of them would be the 2025 starter. And while Rodgers played just well enough to lead Pittsburgh to 10 wins and a playoff game (which ended with a rough 30-6 home loss to the Houston Texans), a quarterback turning point still feels as uncertain and out of reach as ever.
So what are the options ahead, now that Pittsburgh knows 2026 is being embraced by Rodgers as his final planned season?
Here they are, in a nutshell …
An unexpected and aggressive ‘big’ swing
I’m going to put Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby squarely in this category because I can’t rule out that the Steelers have it in them to do something bolder than anyone expects. Of course, it comes with a lot of variables and qualifications, given that Sorsby is currently under investigation by the NCAA for gambling and trying to get a temporary court injunction that would allow him to play his senior season of college football. If Sorsby can’t secure that injunction, he is expected to apply for the NFL’s supplemental draft by the league’s June 22 deadline. And if that is what unfolds, it could open up a sizable — if not extremely cautious — opportunity for the Steelers now that they know they’ll need a new starting quarterback in 2027.
Sorsby’s situation is fraught with questions about his sports wagering, which has resulted in him checking into an in-patient treatment center for gambling addiction at the end of April. Thus far, NFL teams that have spoken to Yahoo Sports describe a vast expanse of unknowns about the risks associated with Sorsby as a prospect. But his skill level while playing at Cincinnati (and potentially continuing at Texas Tech) is of such high regard that his 2026 college season could have elevated him to one of the most coveted quarterbacks in what is expected to be a deep class of prospects. I also firmly believe if he’d entered last April’s draft, the Steelers would have been one of the NFL franchises that already looked at him as a potential first-round pick.
The question now is whether Sorsby’s gambling addiction has entirely poisoned how the Steelers view him as a draftable player. Or how much the risk versus upside assessment would change if Sorsby were granted entry to the supplemental draft and then fell into middle- or even late-round territory. Knowing Rodgers — so long as he’s healthy — would eliminate any chance of Sorsby playing in 2026, would the Steelers roll the dice on taking Sorsby with a middle-round supplemental pick and attempt to take three bites at the apple with a trio of young QBs? Essentially making the decision to weigh Allar, Sorsby and Howard behind the scenes in 2026 and then set up a quarterback competition between at least two of them next offseason?
If the Steelers were to do a deep dive on Sorsby’s gambling and come away feeling solid on his character, I can’t say no. Especially knowing how badly Pittsburgh’s front office and ownership want to resolve a quarterback conundrum that began in the waning years of Ben Roethlisberger. Again, I believe the Steelers had a high opinion of Sorsby as a player last season at Cincinnati. While all of that might be canceled out permanently with his current mess, I still think there is room for more assessment in Pittsburgh if Sorsby lands in the supplemental draft. And I don’t believe spending a third-round pick on Allar in a weak quarterback draft automatically cancels it out.
Trying to find a QB answer between the options that are already in house
Allar and Howard are squarely in the conversation to take over after Rodgers departs. Rudolph represents nothing more than an experienced veteran stopgap. He’s gotten opportunities to start in the past and not materialized as a long-term solution. Howard is a player whom McCarthy has continued to express optimism about since taking over the job — but it’s very hard to ignore the Steelers spending a third-round pick on Allar just months into McCarthy’s tenure. It’s absolutely suggestive that Howard is nothing more than a developmental project right now. And adding Allar puts another similar player into that category.
If there’s been a positive to Rodgers signing his one-year deal so late into the offseason, it’s that his delayed arrival allowed McCarthy to get a good sense of the other quarterbacks who were already in the building. And it bodes well for Howard that there appears to be some considerable reprogramming necessary for Allar, who has high-end arm talent but has always lacked consistency on the field and in his overall development. Between the two, Allar strikes as the moderate third-round swing toward a player’s tool set and potential ceiling, while Howard cuts the figure as a patient deep-rostered developmental piece from the sixth round of the 2025 draft. More often than not in the NFL, neither of these two types of players make it. The league isn’t exactly littered with third- or sixth-round quarterbacks who eventually hit it big. Even when the head coach is a teacher like McCarthy, who is known to have developed quarterbacks in his past. It doesn’t mean that neither Allar or Howard can be the answer in 2027 and beyond. It just means either player becoming a meaningful long-term starter would be against the odds. And if either become a true franchise quarterback? That would be like winning the lottery. It’s unlikely.
Hoping to snag a good veteran next offseason
This option was already there with Sam Darnold last offseason and the Steelers instead went their own way with Rodgers. So I’m not sure there’s a lot of faith in getting a second shot that materializes into a long-term answer. Many of the veterans who are expected to be available are nothing more than aging stopgaps or players with concerns — including the Las Vegas Raiders’ Kirk Cousins, New York Jets’ Geno Smith, Arizona Cardinals’ Jacoby Brissett, Kansas City Chiefs’ Justin Fields and Cleveland Browns’ Deshaun Watson. There is another tier of potentially available players if they don’t find extensions with their current teams, with the Minnesota Vikings’ Kyler Murray and Atlanta Falcons’ Tua Tagovailoa playing for new deals next season and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Baker Mayfield also entering the final year of his deal. But these all feel like some kind of variation of the most recent gambles taken on banged-up veteran assets, similar to the Steelers’ signings of Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers.
San Francisco 49ers backup Mac Jones is also expected to be a popular name in the free-agent mix, after he put together a solid eight starts last season under Kyle Shanahan. But Jones’ game also comes with arm and athletic limitations, making him feel familiar to some versions of Pickett and Trubisky If the Steelers knew what they didn’t want to be after trying to find a starter between Pickett and Trubisky, a commitment to Jones feels like it would be another step back into a repetitive cycle of disappointment. While it might extend the window of an aging roster another year or two, it doesn’t feel like it’s a meaningful resolution.
The one wild card could be a pair of players who could simply be in need of a fresh start after running into injuries and struggles in their second seasons: the Falcons’ Michael Penix Jr. and Vikings’ J.J. McCarthy. Both are entering the 2026 season in quarterback battles that they seem destined to lose — but both also still have enough talent to get mulled over as players who lost their chance to develop through bad injury circumstances or frustration over expectations that exceeded the reality of needed growth. There was a time that both Darnold and Mayfield fell into that pair of categories, and each found a path to being productive starters. McCarthy could be young enough to turn it around, while Penix may be talented enough to get at least one fresh start before he’s relegated to the scrap heap as a starter.
Committing to another first-round quarterback and pressing the rebuild button
The Steelers had their chance to do this a year ago with either Jaxson Dart or Tyler Shough, two players who showcased flashes last season with the New York Giants and New Orleans Saints, respectively. There’s a reason the Giants and Saints feel a sense of optimism moving into the 2026 season. And it’s because they committed to a pair of rookie starters who appear capable of moving the franchises forward if they stay on their current trajectories. The Steelers could have been one of those two teams. But they went with Rodgers instead and created the current middling plateau.
We still don’t know for certain who will be in the 2027 draft, but the quarterback class is consistently whispered in personnel circles as having the chance to be a blockbuster. Among those who could be first-round picks: Oregon’s Dante Moore, Texas’ Arch Manning, Notre Dame’s CJ Carr, Oklahoma State’s Drew Mestemaker, Ohio State’s Julian Sayin and South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers. Sorsby was once considered in this first-round class as well — and still might end up there if he ends up playing for Texas Tech this season or is unable to gain entry to the supplemental draft. There’s also typically a wild card or two among college quarterbacks who surface out of the ether to become part of the first-round conversation. So much so that the last two No. 1 overall picks, Cam Ward and Fernando Mendoza, were not universally considered first-round locks when they entered their final college seasons, then ended up playing themselves to the top of the heap.
All of this is to say that if Pittsburgh is left to go the more traditional route of actually drafting its next franchise quarterback, this is stacking up to be the kind of draft to make that happen. Make no mistake, this isn’t anything near the lackluster 2022 quarterback class that left the Steelers taking Pickett in the first round. If anything, it looks closer to the 2004 class that positioned Pittsburgh to take Roethlisberger 11th overall. Lest anyone forget, that draft also produced Eli Manning, Philip Rivers and Matt Schaub — who played for 16 years and had a handful of quality seasons as a Houston Texans starter before injuries changed the trajectory of his career.
Across the board, the Steelers don’t entirely lack options. But most of them will be influenced by how this 2026 campaign plays out. If the season craters and the Steelers end up positioned in the top end of the 2027 draft, it could force the reboot that ownership seems to want to avoid. Conversely, if Rodgers and the veteran-laden roster play well, it could open the door to either Allar or Howard as the best path forward — or having to look afield for a mid-to-late 20s veteran player looking for a fresh start.
One thing it can’t be is another continuation of the Pickett-Trubisky-Fields-Wilson-Rodgers assembly line to the middle. If the Steelers truly continue to know what they don’t want to be, the evidence of the last four seasons of mediocre quarterback play should scream it more loudly than ever.