By NICK FARABAUGH

pennlive.com

(TNS) — Aaron Rodgers played no factor in crafting the Pittsburgh Steelers’ schedule, NFL VP of Broadcast Planning and Scheduling Mike North said in a conference call on Thursday.

North says the NFL knows nothing about the situation more than anyone else does, and as a result, the schedule reflects that. Instead of the schedule being built around Rodgers, it is built around Mike Tomlin and the Steelers’ dependability to be playoff-relevant late into the season.

“We don’t know anything more than anybody else,” North said. “The schedule was built for Coach [Mike] Tomlin and for the Steelers, and if Aaron decides to play it probably just makes many, if not all, the Steelers games a little more interesting.”

The Steelers have never had a losing season under Tomlin and have made the playoffs four of the last five seasons. That reputation, along with their national brand as a team, has earned the Steelers consistent primetime consideration regardless of the personnel they have on the roster.

“Their sustained success for over a decade here — Coach Tomlin’s never had a losing season,” North said. “The Steelers are always playoff-relevant late down the stretch, and they have a national fan base, so their body of work is what warranted the national television exposure for them, same as probably in previous years.”

The reasoning is consistent with the Steelers’ brand over the years. Even when they had Mitch Trubisky in 2022, the Steelers were awarded five primetime games. They went 9-8 and were playoff-relevant down to the end.

North adds that the Green Bay Packers against the Steelers is a ‘football game’ in any sense and has plenty of storylines regardless. On top of that, if Rodgers had signed, the Jets game would be in a more naturally relevant window.

“If you put that game in a window where it does become something even bigger, we wouldn’t want to unbalance maybe one of the partners,” North said. If it fell on a Sunday afternoon for instance, it becomes a dominant story of the day. Aaron’s first game against his old team. So put it in a national window. If Aaron’s the quarterback, it’s a great story. If Aaron’s not the quarterback, it’s still Packers-Steelers Sunday Night Football in Week 8. We tried to play it down the middle. If we knew for certain that Aaron was going to be the quarterback of the Steelers, we might’ve done something a little different in Week 1 with the Steelers game.”

The Steelers have three quarterbacks on the roster, but general manager Omar Khan said they would have four on their training camp roster, with the last one likely being a veteran. Rodgers is the top candidate for that, and Pittsburgh remains confident he will sign.

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Rodgers has yet to decide, though many expect him to land with the Steelers as their starting quarterback. However, that waiting game continued, and with just two weeks until OTAs, the team still had no certain answer from Rodgers.