Aaron Rodgers will officially be hanging up the cleats after one final season to close out his soon-to-be Hall of Fame career.
“Yes. This is it,” Rodgers, 42, told reporters on Wednesday, May 20.
Rodgers signed a one-year deal worth up to $25 million to return for a second season with the Steelers on Saturday, May 16.
The quarterback admitted there “was some doubt” about whether he’d decide to come back, but credited “good conversations” with new Steelers head coach, Mike McCarthy, who was previously Rodgers’ head coach with the Green Bay Packers.
“It felt different than last year,” he explained of his decision. “I knew some of the guys and some of the people who work here and stuff. So it felt good coming in.”
Rodgers said he thought his time in Pittsburgh might be done after the team moved on from longtime head coach Mike Tomlin in the offseason, but was ultimately convinced to return after the team hired McCarthy.
“I thought that was probably it for me in Pittsburgh,” he admitted. “But when the decision was made to hire Mike, I started opening my mind back up to coming back.”
Rodgers also said he had “a lot of conversations with my wife” about his decision to ultimately return for a final season.
The four-time NFL MVP has kept details about the relationship with his wife, Brittani, almost exclusively private. The couple got married in early 2025, which Rodgers revealed a couple of months later.
“She didn’t sign up for this bulls***,” Rodgers said on ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show in March. “She signed up for this because she loves me and supports me and wants to spend the rest of our lives together and start a family together. She didn’t sign up to be an out front social media WAG. She doesn’t want any of that bullshit. And I don’t either.”
Rodgers called the interest in his wife’s identity “ f***ing bizarre.”
“That’s the only way to put it,” he told host McAfee, 39. “The obsession is really bizarre.”
Rodgers added that only his “small” group of friends have met his wife, with even many within the Steelers organization left in the dark.
“The people that are in that circle know [Brittani],” he added. “They’ve met her and they love her.”
During the offseason, Rodgers admitted it was “harder” to stay fit.
“You can’t take the same amount of time off as you used to,” he told McAfee in March. “After so many seasons, I would take a few weeks off, a month off, a month-and-a-half. Now at 42, you always gotta be dialed in on the diet and sleep and workouts if you want to look the right way.”
Rodgers added, “I want to look good. I want my wife to want to f*** me all the time.”
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