Geoff Schwartz isn’t backing off the quarterback argument, and this time he’s putting Aaron Rodgers right in the middle of it.
The former Chiefs lineman pushed back after ESPN’s Ryan Clark made a strong case for Lamar Jackson on “First Take,” where the Ravens star’s rise in the 2026 NFL Top 100 was the focus. Jackson fell 67 spots to No. 69, but Clark still framed him as one of the league’s most accomplished active quarterbacks.
“Outside of Patrick Mahomes, there is no more accomplished quarterback in the entire NFL individually,” Clark said. “There's no quarterback who carries more than Lamar Jackson. And there's no quarterback who's asked to do more than Lamar Jackson.
“There's no quarterback who you have to have a game plan for in the run game. You have to have a game plan for in the pass game. And then you have to have a secondary game plan for when he does Lamar Jackson-type stuff.
Schwartz didn’t buy the idea that Jackson stands alone behind Mahomes. Quoting Clark’s comments on X, he argued Rodgers belongs in that conversation, and maybe at the top of it.
“In his peer group it’s worth a discussion. However Rodgers has 3 MVPs, a SB and SB MVP. He’s more accomplished than anyone who’s not Mahomes,” Schwartz wrote on X.
The Rodgers discussion didn’t stop there. Colin Cowherd also weighed in, saying the Steelers quarterback is being underrated as he heads into another season in Pittsburgh.
On “The Herd,” Cowherd said Rodgers was once viewed too highly, but now the pendulum has swung too far the other way.
“I always thought he was a little overvalued in his prime, where people were saying he's better than Brady,” Cowherd said. "I'm like, ‘Brady is stacking trophies; what are we doing here?
This is not baseball, where we care about your stats; it's football. Show me your Lombardis.’
But now, I think Aaron is actually massively undervalued.
“I want to remind everybody, especially the media that keeps telling me he's washed. He did win the AFC North last year over a stacked roster in Baltimore and Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow. … By the way, at 41, he almost threw as many touchdown passes as Bo Nix, Josh Allen, and Sam Darnold with an awful receiving core.”
Rodgers is set for another year with the Steelers, and many around the league expect it to be his final NFL season. He’ll do it with Mike McCarthy, his first coach in the league with the Green Bay Packers, back on the sideline with him. Pittsburgh is already buzzing about what the two might still have left together.
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For a team that has long lived on Patrick Mahomes ability to stress defenses in space, that kind of early-down balance is worth watching as the season unfolds. The bigger question is whether the Chiefs keep leaning into those opening-script runs and the heavier first-down structure, or whether the offense trims back some of the run-pass option work early while adjusting to what this version of the roster can and cannot do. [Read more 🡒]
Chiefs Fans Will Get A Kick Out Of Clark Hunt Here
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Then came Clark Hunt, the Chiefs chairman and CEO, who was among the suited figures caught up in the scene and made clear he was enjoying the spectacle. For Chiefs fans, it is the kind of cameo that lands with a grin, a reminder that Hunt can show up in some pretty unexpected places when a major sports moment is unfolding. [Read more 🡒]