Mike Florio ,
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The long and winding road of Marquez Valdes-Scantling’s NFL journey has finally brought him back to Aaron Rodgers.
Now a member of the Steelers’ practice squad, Valdes-Scantling told reporters on Wednesday that he picked his latest team for one reason.
“This guy next to me got me here,” Valdes-Scantling said, referring to Rodgers, via Brooke Pryor of ESPN.com. “You’ve been trying to get me around since we left Green Bay. . . . He is the reason .”
They spent four years together in Green Bay, from 2018 through 2021. Since then, Valdes-Scantling has been everywhere, man , from Kansas City to Buffalo to New Orleans to Seattle to San Francisco to Pittsburgh.
“He’s the best that ever played this game, man,” Valdes-Scantling said. “So it’s pretty easy when you got that guy under center and just being on the same page. We built a great rapport over the four years that we got to play together, and he’s one of my closest friends in this NFL thing that I’ve ever made. He’s taught me a lot, so just being able to be around him again and get some more knowledge four years later, I’m excited about it.”
The feeling is mutual. “I love MVS,” Rodgers said on Wednesday.
It’s the first friends-and-former-teammate signing the Steelers have made since Rodgers arrived in June. That approach didn’t work very well for the Jets, especially when they wasted a third-round pick for a half-season with Davante Adams/Aaron Rodgers reunion that did nothing to help the team win enough football games.
The Steelers still have plenty of questions in their receiving corps beyond DK Metcalf, who has 29 catches in eight games. Calvin Austin III has 19, Roman Wilson has nine, Ben Skowronek has two.
It remains to be seen whether Valdes-Scantling will be activated for Sunday night’s game at the Chargers. If Rodgers has a say in the matter, he’ll want MVS to be among the options available to him in Week 10.
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