The Pittsburgh Steelers stunned the NFL world following their decision to place a rare unrestricted free-agent tender on Aaron Rodgers, leaving many fans wondering if there was more to the situation than meets the eye. Well, Art Rooney II has explained why the Steelers decided to use the UFA tender in the first place.
Making a special appearance on The Insiders from NFL Network, Rooney attempted to make sense of the Steelers' decision to place the UFA tender on Rodgers — and it's all about compensatory draft picks.
"The main thing that the tender gives us is potential for a comp pick if Aaron would choose to go to another team," Rooney said. "We don't expect that, but by that same token, you never know. It's just something that we had an opportunity to protect, if needed. The deadline was Monday. So, if we were going to do it, we needed to pull the trigger on Monday. We alerted Aaron and his representative that we were going to do it. Not a real big deal."
Per the terms of the UFA tender, the Steelers will have exclusive rights to negotiate with Rodgers if he doesn't sign with another team by July 22. He would also be able to accept a 10% raise based on his 2025 salary, which would net him $15 million in 2026.
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This article originally appeared on Steelers Wire: Steelers’ Aaron Rodgers UFA tender explained by Art Rooney
