Aaron Rodgers has confirmed that he is going to retire after the 2026 season with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The legendary quarterback, 42, announced the decision on Wednesday in his first media appearance days after signing a $25million contract to play on for one more season with the Steelers.
‘Yes, this is it,’ he told reporters when asked if 2026 is his final year.
Rodgers, one of the all-time greats of the game, said that his wife, who is not publicly known and he has only referred to as ‘Brittani’, convinced him to have one last go at winning another Super Bowl.
The four-time NFL MVP admitted he thought he would call it a day when the 2025 campaign ended with a playoff loss to the Houston Texans and Mike Tomlin stepped down as Pittsburgh’s head coach.
‘When he said he was stepping away, that was an emotional moment just because we all love him so much and care about him, and I thought that was probably it for me in Pittsburgh,’ Rodgers said.
Quarterback Aaron Rodgers has confirmed that 2026 will be his final season in the NFL
The 42-year-old was at Steelers practice this week after signing a deal for one more year
But another reason he was convinced to continue was the arrival of Mike McCarthy as Tomlin’s successor – the head coach Rodgers won his only Super Bowl with while at the Green Bay Packers.
‘There’s definitely a full circle moment,’ Rodgers said of finishing his career under McCarthy. ‘When the decision was made to hire Mike, I started opening my mind back up to coming back.
‘Honestly, sitting in the first 8 o’clock meeting on Monday took me back to being a 22-year-old kid sitting in Green Bay.’
Rodgers, who turns 43 in December, returned to camp on Tuesday as he steps up his preparations for his last dance.
He said that as well as discussing his future with Brittani, talks with McCarthy and Steelers general manager Omar Khan helped him decide to keep going.
Rodgers’ $25m contract for 2026 is almost double what the Steelers paid him last year. When he penned a $13m deal for the 2025 campaign, he told Pat McAfee that it was with a view to end his career there.
‘That’s why we just did a one-year deal,’ Rodgers told McAfee last summer. ‘This was really about finishing with a lot of love and fun and peace for the career that I’ve had.’
But it turned out he wasn’t quite ready to walk away. Rodgers now heads into a 22nd year in the NFL.
Rodgers reunites with Mike McCarthy, who he won a Super Bowl with, this year in Pittsburgh
The bulk of that time was with the Packers but he left for the New York Jets in April 2023, vowing to reinvigorate the struggling franchise.
The move turned out to be a disaster, though. He tore his Achilles just four snaps into his debut against the Buffalo Bills and missed the rest of the first season.
When he returned in 2024, the Jets went 5-12 and didn’t get anywhere near a playoff spot. When Aaron Glenn took over as head coach, he told Rodgers he was no longer needed – a move that irked the quarterback deeply.
He took great joy on Week 1 last year as he returned to MetLife Stadium to beat narrowly Glenn and the Jets in a 34-32 thriller.
Rodgers previously had an ill-fated two years as the quarterback for the New York Jets
Rodgers’s final season begins at home to Atlanta Falcons in September – the Steelers don’t play the Jets in the regular season but do face them in a preseason game Rodgers will likely miss.
There is no return to Green Bay, either, for Rodgers. They face Super Bowl runners up New England Patriots in Week 2 and also head to Paris to play New Orleans Saints in October.
The Steelers close the season with a brutal six-game stretch against playoff cotenders, including the Texans and Philadelphia Eagles, as well as AFC North rivals Baltimore Ravens.
If Rodgers leads his team through that, who knows how far they can go from there?