Memo to the Arizona Cardinals: When you’re severely contemplating including quarterback Aaron Rodgers, do not. It is not price it.
Rodgers — who performed for the Pittsburgh Steelers final season — stays a free agent. The Steelers positioned the seldom-used unrestricted free-agent tender on Rodgers on April 28. Pittsburgh will obtain a compensatory draft choose if the four-time league MVP indicators with one other crew earlier than July 22 or the start of their coaching camp.
The Cardinals could also be one of many few groups that might be prepared to surrender that choose for Rodgers. Arizona huge receiver Kendrick Bourne supplied a recruiting pitch to the 42-year-old QB on X.
Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur, in the meantime, didn’t clarify if they’ll.
“Truthfully, Jim, proper now we’re targeted on the blokes we acquired coming in,” the coach informed Westwood One’s Jim Rome on Tuesday. “We acquired a room that we’re excited to work with, and that is solely the place my focus is.”
That is clearly coach-speak. A QB room that features journeyman Jacoby Brissett and rookie Carson Beck conjures up little pleasure. Rodgers, nevertheless, is not the man who will lead Arizona to its first playoff look since 2021.
Why Aaron Rodgers would not be a savior for Cardinals
Rodgers went 10-6 in 16 begins for the Steelers final season, tossing 24 landing passes and 7 interceptions. Within the playoffs, although, he wilted. Throughout a 30-6 loss to the Houston Texans within the AFC wild-card spherical, he accomplished 17-of-33 passes for zero touchdowns, and 146 yards, and he threw one choose.
Since leaving the Green Bay Packers following the 2022 season, Rodgers has appeared like a shell of a participant who was as soon as thought-about the very best QB within the league. Throughout this span, he has ranked nineteenth in passer score (92.4), twenty second in completion proportion (64.2 %) and nineteenth in passing yards per recreation (212.3), per StatMuse. The decline could also be tied to a left Achilles tear suffered in Week 1 of the 2023 season.
Considered one of his worst seasons got here with the New York Jets in 2024, by which he posted the bottom passer score (90.5) as a beginning QB of his profession. Nathaniel Hackett served because the offensive coordinator for the Jets that season. He is now the OC in Arizona. So, why would the Cardinals need to reunite the 2 after that calamitous season?
Arizona feels it wants a franchise QB after lacking out on Ty Simpson (now with the Los Angeles Rams) throughout the 2026 NFL Draft. It ought to look to the 2027 class as a substitute of Rodgers.
Tankathon has the Cardinals taking Oregon Ducks QB Dante Moore (6-foot-3, 206 kilos) with choose No. 2 in its newest mock draft. He tossed 30 TD passes final season, piloting his crew to the School Soccer Playoff.
QB is the Cardinals’ largest gap heading into the 2026 season. Signing Rodgers nonetheless will not plug it.
A crew that is rebuilding, like Arizona, should not signal Rodgers as a one-year rental. He could not even be the precise man for the crew if it had been a Tremendous Bowl contender.
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