DK's Daily Shot of Steelers: Not beholden to Rodgers

[Music] Omar Khan says there's no deadline. Aaron Rogers confirmed yesterday that there's no deadline. To which I say okay fine, then just do whatever is best for the quarterback position. Both for the now and into the future. Good morning to you. Good Thursday morning. I'm Dan Kovacchi, which of DK Pittsburgh sports. This is Daily Shot of Steelers presented by the Fandals Sportsbook. It comes your way bright and early every weekday. If you're into hockey and/or baseball, I also offer daily shots of the other two teams in town that I cover. Penguins and pirates. Hope you'll check those out as well. Rogers in appearing on ESPN yesterday initially played a little coy when he was asked about the Steelers. But without the Steelers being named, he said which team which I kind of gathered was his way of either suggesting or hoping that there'd be more than one suitor for his services this spring. He then said among other things quote anyone on here expecting me to make some big decision just turn it off right now. And quote he also said quote there hasn't been any contract floated in front of me. And quote proceeded to say how much he's enjoying life with his wife and ski trips and other stuff and that he's still open to playing in 2026. I've made my stance on this stuff clear. I have no use for it. And I say that principally from the Steelers perspective. Let me be playing about this. Right now it's March 5th. The NFL's free agency season opens March 9. But there's all kinds of other little stuff that happens between now and then that nobody talks about that still has to go on. Or else what occurs is you get to March 9 you get to the window opening and at 12.01 players and teams have magically instantly agreed to these monstrous multi mega million dollar contracts. When do you think those were arranged? So whatever it is that you or I or anybody else hopes that Omar can achieve this offseason related to the quarterback position. I would imagine we all can agree that we wouldn't want his hands tied by waiting for Rogers one split second longer than they need to. And I don't think they need to at all. So here's what I do if I'm them. I don't feel like I owe Rogers anything. He hasn't even told me is the person running the Steelers in this mythical scenario that he even wants to play. If I do happen to chat with him or his representation in the interim, I can tell them, you know what Aaron go enjoy that sand between your toes on the beach or the snow between your toes on the ski trips, I guess. And we the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to do everything every day in our power to address our franchise's singular top priority. And that's defined our quarterback. And the two paths don't have to intersect in any way. So scenario here free agency opens or again secretly stuff happens behind the scenes before free agency. And again, I'm Omar and I'm getting a good vibe from Malik Willis and or his representation and or whoever it is that dares to have this illegal communication with me. We talk about a lot of different things. We talk about money. Of course we talk about money. We talk about what's available here in Pittsburgh at that position. What kind of opportunity exists? We talk about our plans not just for the position but for the offense as a whole. We talk about Mike McCarthy being here and everything just kind of starts to click. You know, you're feeling good about this. There's some guaranteed money issues. There's never going to be anything that you could put onto paper that promises someone a starting job for X amount of time. But you can bring it up like adults and be real about it. And then it starts to look like there's going to be something there. I'm not calling anybody else, meaning I'm not calling Rogers. I'm not calling his representation. I'm not explaining anything. I don't know anything. I don't owe anything to Rogers me as Omar. Not out of any spite or anything like that. But if and when the Willis deal occurs, Rogers can find out about it just like all the rest of us are going to find out about it. Because Rogers is the one who decided that he doesn't want a deadline. Rogers is the one who my goodness, even before the playoff game against the Texans, if you listen carefully to some of the things that he was saying about his season in Pittsburgh and everything else. He was already speaking of everything in the past tense. He was already preparing for his I just got to be me time. Well, he can go ahead and be him. The Steelers need to get a quarterback and they can't screw around with it. I'll go further here. The Steelers need to get a quarterback in this way and I believe in the NFL draft, at least as an option. If you do that, you're increasing your chances of somebody, whether it's Willis, whether it's a Thai Simpson, whether it's Will Howard, somebody can rise up if you've got three of them under your roof, three of them in Latrobe, three of them in preseason games. I don't think you're going to swing and miss on all three. You're going to see at least something that you like and like enough to continue nurturing it. None of that happens with Rogers here. None of it. Now, in a perfect world, would I like to keep Mason Rudolph around? I'll add parenthetically to course, consummate professional. Great dude. Underappreciated quarterback talent. But for the last time, you've got to start moving on with the bigger picture. When we come back to you. This segment of Daily Shot is brought to you by our good friends at Mike's Beer Bar. They're located on Federal Street directly across from PNC Park. Mike has more than 500 beers on tap, including from more than 50 local breweries. Stop in and say hello, tell Mike we sent you. Mike's Beer Bar. Yeah, the NFL season's done, but is it ever really? You can still bet online with America's best sports betting site, the Fandall Sportsbook. That includes all current sports, all of this summer's coming sports. And hey, for what it's worth, you can get in on NFL action toward the 2026 season already. Never a dull moment, never an inactive moment, the best place to bet on sports, play online games, build your fantasy team. Is it Fandall? Today's J1Q comes from Coach Benny who says, "DK, I keep hearing about possible overpayment." For Malik Willis, what is overpaid? For Willis, he's a budding star. And the NFL salary cap is going way up again. Steelers have plenty of money and they haven't paid a quarter back in years. Benny, I'm with you, man. I am. I'm not going to say that somebody couldn't overpay. For Willis, I know there were people who were floored by the amount that the other jets committed to Justin Fields around this time last year, in two years and 40 million. If memory serves all but 10 million of that was guaranteed, that was the number that really leaped out. And by the way, it got the Steelers the heck out of there. So can you do something similar with Willis, the trajectories aren't exactly like Fields had done a lot more starting between Chicago and Pittsburgh. So there's more of a record on what he could do. But Fields also didn't really put all that much onto tape that would match what we saw from Willis at the end there with the Packers. Look, it's not perfect. And no matter what Willis gets, there's a risk that he'd be overpaid. There just is. But to me, there are risks worth taking. That's how I'm looking at this. It's been more than a half a decade now. As you put it yourself here, I'm okay with a gamble that takes up cap space when you have tons of cap space. That doesn't cost me football assets. That doesn't cost me draft picks or players off my roster. And where guaranteed money is concerned, I really don't care because that's just out of the figurative Art Rooney wallet. So if you sign Willis, you can just let everybody continue sharing five Johns at the practice facility. Now, in hearing the way you worded your J1Q there, I'm going to guess that more than a few of our listeners would bulk at the characterization of Willis as a budding star. But you saw it. I'm going to presume anyway that you saw it. You watched those final two games that he played in Green Bay. You watched him do things that other people can't do with his arm, with his legs, with his reads, with his voice. It was legitimately special. And it more than drowns out anything that we could be talking about related to the NFL combiner, the draft or anything else. He did what we saw for real in real settings. Now, I'm not quite ready to go pounding a table over Willis. I might sound like it at times. I'm not. And the reason for that is I don't think you can get insane with the cap commitment. I really don't. I would do something like what happened between the other jets and fields. I would do that. But to know that Willis' representation has already found ways to float out there that he's looking for 30 a year. No, man, you're not going to get 30 a year. And if you do, you and that team can go and enjoy it because 30 a year is going to end up being a 60 commitment and probably 35 to 40 guaranteed. No, no, that is when you start impacting the remainder of your roster and you're over committing to somebody who has not proven himself over any significant stretch of time. To me, the field's figures represent the sweet spot. Not going to lie to you guys. That night in a Cleveland hotel. That was the night before the Steelers played the Browns up there when it was Willis against the Ravens. And he just, he went wild. And it was just a joy to watch. And I was obviously aware of his situation. Then he's the backup behind Jordan Love. He's not taking Love's job. He's about to become a free agent. The whole thing. And I'd sit there thinking, you know, this dude could play for Pittsburgh and become part of the future right now. Well, right now is right now. I appreciate the question. I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Steelers. Don't forget that we have a double shot of Steelers coming your way today. That's it 4 p.m. Eastern. It's live on our YouTube channel. And man, we'd love to have you there for that one as well.