Aaron Rodgers is officially playing his final NFL season in 2026. The 42-year-old quarterback told reporters this week that his return to the Pittsburgh Steelers will be his 22nd and last in the league. The phrase he used was “This is it.”
The Steelers signed Rodgers to a one-year, $22 million guaranteed deal with $25 million in incentives. New head coach Mike McCarthy was the reason Rodgers came back. McCarthy and Rodgers spent 13 years together in Green Bay from 2006 to 2018, and the two of them have unfinished business after the Packers years ended badly.
This is the closure tour. Rodgers is going to spend one final season in the NFL, playing for his old coach in a city that desperately wants a quarterback who has been there before. The Steelers have not had a quarterback finish in the top 15 in QBR since Ben Roethlisberger was healthy in 2018. That is the bar Rodgers is being asked to clear.
The Steelers have actually built a competitive roster around Rodgers. They have Nick Herbig and T.J. Watt on the edge. Rico Dowdle is the new running back. Michael Pittman Jr. is the No. 1 receiver, traded in to give Rodgers a possession target who can win on slants and crossing routes. Max Iheanachor is the new starting right tackle out of the draft. The Steelers are not the same team they were three years ago.
The McCarthy hire is the bigger story. Pittsburgh fired Mike Tomlin after 19 seasons. That decision shocked the league. The Steelers had not made a coaching change since 2007. The choice to bring in McCarthy made it clear that the franchise was prioritizing the offensive side of the ball for the first time in a long time.
The offense is going to look different. McCarthy runs a more pre-snap motion-heavy version of the West Coast offense than the Steelers have run in recent years. Pittman is going to get force-fed targets. Rodgers is going to throw the ball 35 times a game. The pass rush is going to have to keep games close.
Rodgers is going to be a story all season. Every loss is going to feel like the end. Every win is going to feel like a final flicker of greatness. Every interception is going to feel like proof that he should have stayed retired. The Steelers know this. They signed up for it. The reward is one season of Aaron Rodgers running an offense McCarthy designed for him.
What this means for the AFC North is the division just got really interesting. The Bengals have Joe Burrow. The Ravens have Lamar Jackson. The Browns are in full rebuild mode after trading Myles Garrett. The Steelers, with Rodgers at QB, are competitive. The division is wide open in a way it has not been in years.
The expectations should be measured. Rodgers is 42. His arm strength was clearly down last season. He had a hard time with deep balls and threw too many interceptions trying to make plays that were not there. The Steelers offense will live or die based on whether McCarthy can scheme around the parts of Rodgers’ game that have declined.
The Steelers want one playoff run. Rodgers wants one final shot at a second Lombardi Trophy. Both of those goals are achievable. Both of those goals also require a level of health that Rodgers has not had since 2022. The closing year of his career is going to be defined by whether his body holds up long enough to give Pittsburgh the season they paid for.
This is it. Rodgers said so himself. Now he gets to ride into the sunset in black and gold.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
