As a quartet of teams in need of veteran quarterbacks consider options that include a couple of Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks who were once the highest-paid players in the NFL, a third one who checks the same two boxes could end up being a prime fallback option for one of them.
Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson are getting the headlines. Joe Flacco is waiting patiently to see how it plays out.
Flacco recently visited the Giants. He’s in play, we’re told, for jobs with the Steelers, Browns, and Vikings.
The Super Bowl XLVII MVP with the Ravens, Flacco secured the best quarterback contract in league history in 2013. (The deal was later renegotiated to give Flacco that title a second time.)
Since his time with the Ravens ended, following the arrival of Lamar Jackson in 2018, Flacco has taken whatever he can get. He played for the Broncos in 2019 (eight starts), the Jets from 2020 through 2022 (nine total starts), the Browns in late 2023 (he won Comeback Player of the Year and pushed the team to the playoffs), and the Colts in 2024 (six starts).
Flacco is now 40, but he can still throw it. And since he was never a mobile quarterback, the aging of the legs (which always go before the arm) has been a non-issue.
He has shown that he loves football. He fully intends to take a job this season, somewhere. And he likely won’t be expensive; he made $4.5 million last year.
So while Rodgers stares into the ocean to carefully contemplate his options (at a time when dozens of players are making snap decisions) and while Wilson tries to convince the likes of the Browns and Giants that his repertoire consists of more than moonball left and moonball right, Flacco is content to wait.
Eventually, he’ll get an offer. Maybe more than one. And if the Steelers are looking to go cheaper than Rodgers at the position, Flacco could be their best move.
It also would bring Flacco back to the place where his college career began. Yes, Flacco was at Pitt until Tyler Palko arrived. He then parlayed three years at Delaware into a first-round pedigree and had a very good run with the Ravens.
Now, the Ravens could be seeing him twice in 2025, as the quarterback of their most hated rival.
Executives across the NFL can’t always be right.
In December, the reported belief throughout the league was that the Falcons would release quarterback Kirk Cousins before a $10 million roster bonus due in 2026 shifted from guaranteed for injury to fully guaranteed.
ESPN, which reported nearly three months ago that Cousins was expected to be released before the fifth day of the 2025 league year, now reports that the Falcons will allow today’s 4:00 p.m. ET deadline for cutting Cousins to pass.
There had been a misconception in some circles that the Falcons would immediately owe Cousins $10 million. That’s not the case. They owe it next year. And, if they cut him before it comes due in March 2026, they’d be entitled to offsets. And there’s no reason to think he’d make less than $10 million as a free agent. Which meant the Falcons weren’t worried about it.
In other words, the supposedly very meaningful guarantee ultimately meant jack squat. They paid him $62.5 million last year. They owe him $27.5 million this year. They’re not sweating the final $10 million of his $100 million in guarantees.
They can still trade him, if he’ll waive his no-trade clause. And while it was smart for him to take the position that he wouldn’t waive it, if he prefers to make $27.5 million this year and play (as opposed to making $27.5 million this year and not playing), he’ll possibly if not probably waive it if/when an opportunity comes along to be traded to a team where he’ll be the starter.
At this point, Cousins should wait until after the draft. If he’s traded to a team with a hole at QB1 (Steelers, Browns, Giants) before the incoming quarterbacks are selected, he could have the same thing happen with his new team that happened to him in Atlanta last April.
Earlier this week, the 49ers had lost 11 of their 22 starters from Super Bowl LVIII. That number is back down to 10.
Fullback Kyle Juszczyk has returned, with a two-year deal.
Per a source with knowledge of the terms, the contract has $7 million fully guaranteed. It includes an annual $250,000 annual Pro Bowl incentive as part of the $8 million total package. He’s made it every year since 2016. He’ll likely continue the streak. Primarily since few can name many/any other NFC fullbacks.
He ultimately took a relatively small pay cut but emerged with two guaranteed years.
The 49ers made that move at a time when the Steelers were, we’re told, hot on his trail. The Raiders and Lions also had interest, but it came down to Pittsburgh or San Francisco. In the end, the 49ers came through.
When cornerback Darius Slay was drafted by the Lions in 2013, his agent introduced him to Rod Woodson, the Hall of Fame cornerback who played most of his career with the Steelers. Woodson invited Slay to stay at his home while the two of them worked out together and talked about life in the NFL.
Now Slay is a Steeler, and he says he’s eager to work with young players the same way that Woodson worked with him.
“Rod Woodson, that was my mentor coming in when I got drafted,” Slay said. “When I got drafted I stayed at his house for about a month and a half, learned football from him.
Slay said Woodson taught him about taking care of his body, Xs and Os, and approaching the game like a professional.
“He was telling me to always be healthy, stay out of the tub, basically make sure you’ll be able to play,” Slay said. “He taught me a lot of formations, route recognitions, and mostly he had me on the track a lot. Other than that he just coached me ball and just taught me about life.”
The 34-year-old Slay thinks a big part of his role in Pittsburgh will be helping young defensive backs get better.
“That’s the best part of my job,” Slay said. “That’s one of the biggest roles I like to take, is mentoring young guys, because a guy did it for me. . . . I’m here to always help them get better. You ask me about any DB in the game, I can tell you what their weakness is and what their strength is, because that’s how much tape I watch of DBs. It’s going to be fun.”
It will be fun for the Steelers if Slay can have the kind of success he had in Philadelphia, where he won a Super Bowl ring in his final game, giving him an experience he can share with younger players in Pittsburgh.
Two days, two visits, zero contracts.
Veteran quarterback Russell Wilson, a free agent for the first time in his career, went to Cleveland on Thursday and New York on Friday. He signed with neither team.
The Giants are, by all appearances, waiting to see what Aaron Rodgers does. When he reached out to the Giants during the week of the Scouting Combine, he had nothing else going on. Now, he does; the Steelers have reportedly made an offer, and the Vikings are still lurking.
For Wilson, it looks to be (for now) the Browns, the Giants, the Steelers, or nothing. It’s possible the Steelers have already moved on. He has no other visits scheduled.
The other issue will be money. How much does Wilson want? How much will an interested team offer?
If Wilson ultimately has no clear starting job in 2025, the question becomes whether he’d accept a position as a backup, or whether he’d not play. He also could wait to see whether a starter suffers a season-ending injury.
Running back Najee Harris signed with the Chargers this week, after four years in Pittsburgh. It wasn’t a difficult decision for him to leave the Steelers.
Meeting with reporters on Friday, Harris said he knew halfway through the 2024 season that he wouldn’t be returning.
“I didn’t plan on doing it,” Harris said, via Kris Rhim of ESPN.com, regarding his departure from the NFL team that drafted him in 2021. “It wasn’t something that was in the plan or anything, but it is a business.”
He said that coach Mike Tomlin was honest with him throughout the process.
Now, Harris will be playing for Jim Harbaugh. Harris said Harbaugh recruited him to Michigan in 2017. The effort included Harbaugh showing up at Harris’s homecoming game, wearing Harris’s high-school colors, and announcing the school’s homecoming queen.
“I was just like, what the heck?” Harris said. “I mean, this dude is calling out just doing everything, but that showed how much of a down-to-earth cool guy he is.”
Eight years later, what does Harris think of Harbaugh?
“He’s the same guy, man,” Harris said. “He’s always energetic, man. He’s always the life of the party, so he’s just a good guy to be around, down to earth, and he makes you feel comfortable.”
Now, they’re finally joining forces.
“When we played against them,” Harris said, “I saw the type of team that they’re on the rise to be and I wanted to be a part of that.”
Harris will get a chance to see the Steelers right away; Pittsburgh visits L.A. during the 2025 season.
Six years after he made news during free-agency week by signing a significant contract with the Jets, former NFL running back Le’Veon Bell is making news during free-agency week for different reasons.
Earlier, TMZ.com reported that Bell had a $25 million verdict entered against him in a civil case alleging rape, after he failed to respond to the lawsuit and a default judgment was entered. Now, Bell’s former high school has removed his name from the field at its football stadium.
Via WCMH in Columbus, Groveport Madison Schools has eliminated Bell’s name from the facility. The move was attributed both to the recent verdict and to his alleged failure to honor a commitment to donate $750,000 to the school.
“While he initially made four payments of $75,000 each, totaling $300,000, his last payment was received on December 9, 2020,” the school district said in a statement. “Despite attempts to address the delinquent payments, Mr. Bell has discontinued further payments, resulting in a breach of contract. As a result, the district has moved forward [on March 13, 2025] with removing his name from the stadium entrance, scoreboard, and field turf.”
The district also based its decision to terminate the contract on a clause permitting the move in the event of “any offense . . . involving moral turpitude.”
“In light of a civil suit that found Mr. Bell liable for over $25 million for serious misconduct involving a minor, the district determined that continuing to honor the naming rights agreement was no longer appropriate or aligned with the values of Groveport Madison Schools,” the district said.
Bell’s lawyer has denied the allegations of the rape lawsuit filed by his cousin, and the lawyer has said he plans to challenge the default judgment.
Now that Myles Garrett is firmly in the fold moving forward with the Browns, the defensive end was on hand to do a little recruiting this week.
Garrett was in the building on Thursday during quarterback Russell Wilson’s visit. Garrett said in his Friday press conference that he felt like Wilson’s visit went well.
“I mean him and I had a little bit of conversation at the Pro Bowl as well as here and I definitely think he’d be a valuable asset as a leader, as a mentor to those young guys,” Garrett said. “Veteran leadership can’t be understated. And I think he has definitely has some juice left at the position. He’s got plenty of arm left. He’s very smart and he knows what he’s capable of. So he’d be a valuable asset.”
And what is his recruiting pitch for Wilson?
“I won’t take him to the ground three or four times a year,” Garrett said with a chuckle.
After completing his visit with the Browns, Wilson headed out of town to meet with the Giants on Friday.
Last Friday, when the Seahawks agreed to trade quarterback Geno Smith to the Raiders, there’s no way the Seahawks didn’t know that they’d be signing quarterback Sam Darnold — tampering rules be damned.
On Sunday, when the Steelers agreed to trade for Seahawks receiver D.K. Metcalf, the Steelers apparently didn’t make similar advance arrangements.
And that they’ve now committed to Metcalf on a multi-year deal with a total average at signing of $30 million annually, they still don’t know who’ll be throwing passes to Metcalf.
They should have done it in advance. While it would have been tampering (the NFL doesn’t care, except in that one case in 1,000 when it does) to strike an advance deal with a player due to become a free agent on Wednesday, they could have finalized something with the quarterbacks who were still on the roster: Justin Fields and Russell Wilson. They also could have finalized something with Aaron Rodgers, since he had permission from the Jets to talk to other teams.
The quarterback position is far too important to just wing it. Especially when the Steelers have done something they’ve never done before by paying close to top-of-market value to a player who has not previously played for the team.
And it’s clear that the Steelers are winging it. They’re currently waiting for Rodgers. If he goes to the Giants or Vikings, then what?
All teams have a list of potential targets, at every position. Need a receiver? Check the list. Inside linebacker? Check the list. Long snapper? Check the list.
It’s one thing to check the list for a backup quarterback, or if the starter suffers a season-ending injury in October. In March, when a team has no starter, there has to be a more focused plan than looking at the next name on the list.
Before trading for Metcalf, they needed to have a deal in place (even if it meant tampering to do it) with someone they were confident could implement the plan to get full value out of Metcalf.
They’re now playing a game that’s equal parts chicken and Russian Roulette with their quarterback prospects for 2025. And even if it all works out, Steelers fans have spent the past few days not waving their Terrible Towels but wiping the sweat from their brows with them.
But that’s what happens when a team does something it’s never done before. Certain details can get lost in the shuffle. Like nailing down a strategy at quarterback before making an investment in a receiver that has no chance of providing a solid return without a quarterback who can get the ball in his hands on a reliable and repeated basis.
Two weeks ago, Aaron Rodgers was on the precipice of pro football irrelevance. He has now returned to the center of the NFL’s radar screen.
On Saturday, he’ll be ditching the velvet blanket/Darth Vader cape and making his next public appearance.
Via Chris Smith of Sports Business Journal, Rodgers will be participating in the annual RX3 Growth Partners charity flag football game. And Rodgers will surely be asked a question or two about his plans for 2025.
He’s currently considering his options, with the Steelers and Giants the two biggest possibilities. The Vikings continue to lurk.
Rodgers co-founded RX3 in 2019, along with Josh Allen, Bryce Young, Sam Darnold, Joe Flacco, Daniel Jones, Marcus Mariota, and others. On Saturday, Rodgers will be the focal point.
It’s amazing how quickly things have changed. When he reached out to the Giants during the week of the Scouting Combine, the clear takeaway was that he had nothing else going on — and that if the Giants had traded for Stafford, Rodgers might have had nothing. Now, he has one (and maybe two) 2024 playoff teams on the line.
Is he milking it? Is he carefully deliberating his future? Is it some of both?
However it happened, chances are he’ll find a way to complain about the extra attention. Even if he relishes it.
