Mike Florio

3 days ago | nbcsports.com | Mike Florio

The uncertain status of quarterback Aaron Rodgers has hovered over the Steelers for nearly two months. There’s a very good chance the situation will be resolved soon, with Rodgers finally inking a deal to play in Pittsburgh. So why the delay? As one source who knows Rodgers (but who has no specific knowledge of this situation) recently explained it, Rodgers may have chosen the lesser of two distractions. Yes, it’s a distraction to have Rodgers linked to the Steelers without signing a contract.

3 days ago | nbcsports.com | Mike Florio

The University of North Carolina football program has struggled in the P.R. department over the past few weeks. It has now hired a new P.R. executive. Via Albert Breer of SI.com, former Bears P.R. director Brandon Faber has joined the UNC program. Breer explains that Faber will work directly for North Carolina, not Belichick. Still, this is a Belichick hire. And it’s possible that Faber will work separately for Belichick, when it comes to non-UNC issues.

4 days ago | nbcsports.com | Mike Florio

The Steelers’ official position on receiver George Pickens is that both sides needed a “fresh start.” That’s a nice way of saying, “Get lost.”Ponder the situation for a second. What team concludes after three seasons that it, and the player, would benefit from a “fresh start”? A team for which the relationship has quickly gotten stale. For Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, it took 20 years for Brady to decide he’d had enough of an always-grumpy curmudgeon.

4 days ago | nbcsports.com | Mike Florio

Officially, the Week 1 schedule is one-for-one in division games (Cowboys at Eagles). Unofficially (for now), it’s two-for-two (Chargers vs. Chiefs in Brazil). So here’s the question: Will division games predominate in Week 1? Since 2010, the regular season has ended with a weekend of division games only. It was driven by competitive integrity concerns. Fifteen years later, it’s still not clear how or why that matters.

4 days ago | nbcsports.com | Mike Florio

The Chargers could have kept their “home” game against the Chiefs at home. They decided not to. The league reportedly has picked the Chiefs to be the Week 1 Friday night opponent for the Chargers in Brazil. The Chiefs game was not one of the two home games that Chargers chose to protect. As recently explained by Ben Fischer and Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal, teams exporting home games to the international series can protect up to two games.