MIAMI — NFL free agency is an amorphous blob as teams spend what salary-cap limits will allow to try to get better (or slightly less worse) ahead of the April draft.

I’ll focus here by homing in on the Miami Dolphins’ dispiriting offseason thus far, and on the biggest remaining national storyline — the future of an incredibly available yet still-unsigned Aaron Rodgers. Turns out, it’s a tale of two ex-Jets.

Fins can wait a minute. Let’s start with Rodgers, a 41-year-old man coming off a spectacularly unsuccessful two-year run with the New York Jets, who aborted the failed experiment and decided the youthful potential of Justin Fields was a better plan at quarterback. A good idea — something rarely said of the Jets the past 55 years or so.

Some are still intoxicated by whatever perfume is left of Rodgers’ Hall of Fame career. They would note he was pretty good in the second half of last season for the Jets.

I would note he turned the Jets into taxiing Planes at 5-12 and finished 25th in QBR, 28th in yards per attempt and 30th in completion percentage. (I mentioned he’s 41, right?)

That Canton, Ohio, will be Rodgers’ last career stop is beyond doubt or debate. But it also is fair to point out that one Super Bowl victory across 20 seasons is bottom-line career underachievement for a player of his skills and accomplishment — that one title coming in ever-distant 2011.

The lingering fumes of attention and magical aura somehow still surround the oddball Rodgers like the cloud of dirt around Pig-Pen in the Peanuts comic strip. Yet what the team that signs him will be getting is this:

A one-ring circus.

That team will earn the hot lights of national attention as its fans bathe for a minute in the glow and hope-bump that always comes with a “name” signing. But will it amount to anything as a big career fades by degrees and wheezes to the finish?

The QB-desperate Pittsburgh Steelers hope to sign Rodgers because marginal backup Skylar Thompson, the ex-Dolphin, and retread Mason Rudolph are the only arms on Mike Tomlin’s roster.

Doug Whaley, general manager of the Buffalo Bills from 2013 to 2017, appearing on Pittsburgh’s 93.7 The Fan this week, said, “Aaron Rodgers is holding the entire Steelers organization hostage.”

I would argue the Steelers volunteered themselves for that by letting both Russell Wilson and Fields go and resorting to hoping a fading 41-year-old picks them.

Rodgers is waiting to see if the New York Giants, with only Tommy DeVito on the roster, also are an option — although NYG, drafting third overall, will be in position to select Miami’s Cam Ward or Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders, the two first-round-stamped college QBs.

I would nominate the Minnesota Vikings as another team that should maybe be interested. With J.J. McCarthy having missed his entire rookie season injured, I could see Rodgers as a stopgap veteran for one year while McCarthy’s game matures.

For sure the choices are few and getting fewer as Rodgers and his ego will sign to start somewhere, and be nobody’s backup.

Let’s see which town the one-ring circus will be heading to.

Onto the Dolphins now, and a free-agency period also dominated by a quarterback ... and another Jets reject.

Zach Wilson!?

Zach bleepin’ Wilson!?

Upon seeing the headline, ‘Dolphins sign QB Wilson,’ I was instantly impressed ... because Russell Wilson came to mind first.

The Dolphins needed — need — a proven veteran QB as a backup because starter Tua Tagovailoa is made of porcelain and prone to concussions. What about that does general manager Chris Grier not understand? R. Wilson would have been that guy precisely. Thompson was not. Tyler Huntley was not. And Z. Wilson is not.

Zach Wilson is a draft bust who in three NFL years has thrown more interceptions than touchdowns. The fact Miami signed him to only a one-year economy deal at $6 million tells you even the Fins don’t truly think he’s the answer but rather a one-year Band-Aid.

In fairness, it has been a low-spending offseason thus far because the GM Grier’s hands are roped by the salary-cap situation. The Dolphins rank 25th of 32 teams in available spending money, based on Spotrac.com figures as of Thursday.

The Dolphins have signed one starter-caliber free agent, at least, in guard James Daniels, but lost a bigger talent when free agent safety Jevon Holland followed the money to the Giants.

Losing Holland along with the head-scratching signing of Zach Wilson amount to a net-loss offseason so far a franchise mired behind the Buffalo Bills in the AFC East and now watching as the cap-rich New England Patriots are invigorated by new coach Mike Vrabel and a lauded free agency haul.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago that the heat will be on Grier and coach Mike McDaniel in 2025 to finally end the franchise’s NFL-long streak of no playoff wins.

Free agency this spring has seen the heat on them inch a little higher, and a little hotter.

©2025 Miami Herald. Visit miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.