By WILL GRAVES AP Sports Writer
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Aaron Rodgers took his time before deciding he wanted to come back for a 22nd season. The Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback already has made up his mind about a 23rd: There won’t be one.
“This is it,” Rodgers said Wednesday when the four-time NFL MVP was asked if this would be his final year.
The 42-year-old did not expand on why he came to that conclusion. Maybe because there was no need.
Rodgers acknowledged that he thought his time in Pittsburgh — and perhaps the league — was over when Steelers coach Mike Tomlin stepped down the day after a blowout first-round playoff loss to Houston in January.
Things changed when Pittsburgh hired Mike McCarthy a few weeks later, a decision that Rodgers said he may have played a small role in when he encouraged Steelers general manager Omar Khan to talk to McCarthy. Rodgers and McCarthy spent 13 years together in Green Bay, winning a Super Bowl while becoming a playoff fixture.
McCarthy and Rodgers stayed in constant communication in recent months as Rodgers weighed whether to run it back one last time. While there was no one tipping point, the relative health of his 42-year-old body and the chance to have his career come “full circle” with a team that spent the offseason upgrading the offense in hopes of ending a lengthy playoff victory drought led to a reunion he called “surreal.”
“It is like a (bunch of) ‘pinch me’ moments that have happened in the last few days,” Rodgers said following the second day of Pittsburgh’s voluntary organized team activities.
Perhaps because McCarthy hardly came back to his hometown alone.
The familiar faces from Rodgers’ time in Green Bay are everywhere inside the Steelers’ facility, from defensive coordinator Patrick Graham to offensive line coach James Campen. There are “getting the band back together” vibes everywhere Rodgers looks.
When Rodgers plopped into a chair for a meeting on Monday, in many ways it felt like it was 2006, when he was entering his second year in Green Bay as Brett Favre’s backup and McCarthy was a first-year head coach still finding his way.
“Took me back to being a 22-year-old kid,” Rodgers said with a smile.
Only he’s hardly that anymore. While the oldest player in the NFL turned back the clock enough last season to throw for 24 touchdowns against seven interceptions and guide the Steelers to the AFC North title, he also missed a game after breaking several bones in his left wrist and looked very much his age during the second half of what became a blowout loss to the Texans that ended both Pittsburgh’s season and Tomlin’s largely successful 19-year run as head coach.
Still, Rodgers believes he has enough left to attempt the rarest of exits for players of his stature: the ability to go out on his own terms.
McCarthy said Rodgers “can still throw it with anybody,” though the time of year when Rodgers will be asked to really cut it loose is still months away. Perhaps Rodgers’ most important job through OTAs, minicamp and training camp is helping the Steelers prepare for life without him.
While McCarthy and Rodgers stayed in constant communication as Rodgers hung out in Malibu, California, with his wife and weighed his options for 2026, the Steelers selected Penn State quarterback Drew Allar in the third round of the draft, and McCarthy has talked up 2025 sixth-round choice Will Howard at every turn since taking over.
Allar and Howard figure to be in the mix this time next year when the Steelers restart their quest to find a long-term solution at the game’s most important position, a search that’s been ongoing since Ben Roethlisberger’s retirement in January 2022.
Rodgers’ presence offers a cheat code of sorts. He knows all the answers to the test, particularly when the test is offered by McCarthy. Allar and Howard will get to spend the next seven or so months soaking up what they can from Rodgers about what McCarthy wants and perhaps more importantly, how he wants it.
McCarthy called Rodgers “a tremendous resource” who also happens to be a future Hall of Famer, giving him a certain cachet that might make him a better conduit for what McCarthy is trying to teach than the coach himself.
“It’s like parenting,” McCarthy said. “I could sit there and tell my kids something, and then, like if he’d walk in and tell my son George something, he’d jump out the window and do it.”
While Rodgers took a friendly jab at Favre — whom he sat behind during the first three years of his career — by borrowing a phrase from Favre that mentoring is “not in my job description,” the reality is it’s a role he relishes.
Just not as much as the chance to win. When Rodgers signed with the Steelers a year ago, he called the decision “best for my soul.” It’s much the same this time around.
He likes what the team has done by trading for wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr., signing running back Rico Dowdle and drafting wideout Germie Bernard. The offensive line could be better with Troy Fautanu moving over to left tackle. The defense still has a pair of franchise icons in defensive lineman Cam Heyward and outside linebacker TJ Watt.
And now it has a quarterback eager to soak up every last bit of the final chapter of a career that will end with a gold jacket and a bust in the Hall of Fame. Just not quite yet.
“I am excited about these guys,” he said. “I’m excited about the team.”
___
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL