Aaron Rodgers is joining the Steelers. It is what it is. For the last six months, this has felt like an inevitability, except for those fun little two weeks when it looked like maybe they would go the Kirk Cousins route instead. That, of course, did not happen – enjoy Minny, Kirk – and now the Steelers have officially gotten on the ride. It is what it is.
RELATED: Aaron Rodgers signing with Steelers is catastrophic news for one player
And, if you can believe it, Steelers fans had to wait maybe three minutes for the first kinda-gossipy story about Rodgers to emerge. But I'm sure after this one, things will quiet down. Soon after the news broke that he intended to fly to Pittsburgh, sign a contract, and participate in Steelers minicamp next week, NFL Network's Tom Pelissero reported a ... curious? ... salary number that, uh, doesn't totally add up to what we've all been told this offseason.
Aaron Rodgers' reported contract details sure do raise some questions for the Steelers
"Contract parameters have been in place for months," he tweeted on Thursday afternoon. "Rodgers has said publicly he told teams that he’ll play for $20 million, and the sides need to finalize the contract. Once he signs, he’s expected to be on the field when minicamp begins Tuesday."
Normally, that'd seem fine – that's kinda the going rate for decent free agent QBs (more-or-less) and it's certainly not shocking to see Aaron Rodgers sign for that number. And yet! Something about the $20 million thing feels ... off? Surprising? Is that because Rodgers himself was out here literally telling people that he'd play for half that amount? [googles for 3 seconds] It is because Rodgers himself was out here literally telling people that he'd play for half that amount!
Back in April, he let Pat McAfee know that he "told every single one of the teams I talked to that it wasn't about the money and I would play for $10M." Really! He did! You can watch it right here!
Now before I jump to any conclusions, I should let you all know: I'm not a big math guy. Never have been, probably never will be. So you may need to double-check my process here, but: I think $20 million is twice as much as $10 million? Right? Like, it's double? So when Rodgers said he would play for a certain number (let's call it X), what he actually meant was that he'll play for twice that number? (2X).
I could be wrong; like I said, I'm not a math guy. But those numbers sure do seem far apart! Funny how that works.