Will Cincinnati Bengals Face Aaron Rodgers This Season? Latest Update on Four-Time MVP

CINCINNATI — Don't look now, but the Bengals may have to deal with Aaron Rodgers in the AFC North this season.

Rodgers' biographer Ian O’Connor believes the four-time league MVP will sign with the Steelers by the end of the month.

“Talking to a couple of people close to Aaron, I have a sense of what it might be. I’m not comfortable reporting it right now, but I don’t think it would prevent him from playing football with the Steelers," O'Connor said on 93.7 The Fan in Pittsburgh. "I just think verbally, behind the scenes, not that he guaranteed it, but he’s told (the Steelers), ‘Listen I’m gonna play for you. I just don’t want to go there and then miss part of mandatory minicamp because of my personal issues. I’m pretty sure they’re gonna be solved by the end of May, at least in my satisfaction where I can give you my all.’ I think that’s where he is.”

Rodgers spent the past two seasons in New York. He suffered a season-ending Achilles injury in 2023, but bounced back to play in all 17 games last year. The 41-year-old completed 63% of his passes for 3,897 yards, 28 touchdowns and 11 interceptions, but the Jets finished with a 5-12 record.

“He knows it was an embarrassment in New York largely, and he’s the face of that embarrassment,” O’Connor continued. “Whether that’s fair or not, that’s the case. It may be me as an optimist, but I think this is gonna work out. Do I think the Steelers will win the Super Bowl next year? No. But if you told me 11-6 with at least one playoff victory . . . I think that’s realistic.”

Rodgers visited the Steelers in March. The Bengals play Pittsburgh at home on Thursday Night Football on Oct. 16. Then they play the Steelers on the road on Nov. 16.

Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow praised Rodgers in January.

"He revolutionized how quarterbacks throw the football. I think the way that high-level quarterbacks coach it now, quarterback coaches coach it now, is because of how he did it," Burrow said. "I would love to sit down and talk to him about his journey of his throwing motion, how he figured that out. I think also he's a really good person to look up to as far as just being yourself and how to handle this whole fame, football thing. It's not easy. We go through a lot of things and adversity, and he's seemed to stay the same through it all, and that's something that I aspire to. You don't have to agree with everything that everybody says or does to have admiration for how they do it."