By Will Graves<\/p>\n
PITTSBURGH (AP) \u2014 Aaron Rodgers<\/a> isn\u2019t talking like someone who\u2019s on the verge of retirement.<\/p>\n Maybe because there\u2019s a chance he\u2019s not.<\/p>\n The Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback, who recently turned 42, didn\u2019t shut the door completely on returning in 2026 when asked about it on Wednesday.<\/p>\n The four-time MVP, who stressed he didn\u2019t \u201creally want to get too deep in\u201d what lies beyond Sunday night\u2019s showdown with Baltimore<\/a> for the AFC North title, believes there will be opportunities available if he opts to give a 22nd season a shot.<\/p>\n \u201cWhenever the season ends, I\u2019ll be a free agent,\u201d said Rodgers, the former Cal star who signed a one-year deal with Pittsburgh in June. \u201cSo that\u2019ll give me a lot of options if I still want to play. (Maybe) not a lot options, but there\u2019ll be options, I would think. Maybe one or two.\u201d<\/p>\n Rodgers\u2019 message heading into Week 18 is a notable shift from his stance in the early summer, when he said on \u201cThe Pat McAfee Show\u201d<\/a> that he was \u201cpretty sure (2025) is it.\u201d<\/p>\n It still might be, but Rodgers also seemed encouraged by his own play at times this season. Rodgers has thrown for 3,028 yards with 23 touchdowns and seven interceptions heading into an elimination game against the Ravens. He\u2019s also stayed largely healthy, save for fracturing the wrist<\/a> on his left (non-throwing) hand, which forced him to sit out a loss to Chicago in late November.<\/p>\n Rodgers joked last week that in some ways he feels like the fictional character Benjamin Button, who ages in reverse.<\/p>\n Asked if he thinks he\u2019s shown enough over the past four months that any decision he makes about 2026 will rely solely on his desire to play and not his ability to play, he nodded.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, I hope so, yeah,\u201d Rodgers said. \u201cI mean, I hope I can get through this stretch and feel good physically so that\u2019s not in the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n Rodgers declined to pull the curtain back too far on what will go into the decision-making process, saying only that he\u2019ll talk with his wife and come to some sort of resolution \u201cdown the line.\u201d<\/p>\n The Steelers have long pointed toward the 2026 NFL draft \u2014 which will be held in Pittsburgh \u2014 as an opportunity to land the young franchise quarterback they\u2019ve been searching for since Ben Roethlisberger retired<\/a> at the end of the 2021 season.<\/p>\n Yet an incoming quarterback class that looked stacked in August doesn\u2019t look so stacked heading into January. While Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza<\/a> figures to hear his name pretty early in the first round by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, some of the other prospects thought to be available \u2014 such as Texas\u2019 Arch Manning and South Carolina\u2019s LaNorris Sellers \u2014 have chosen to stay in school instead.<\/p>\n While Rodgers made it a point to say that everything about his experience in Pittsburgh has been great, he also noted that there are always challenges to being in a new system. It\u2019s a transition he endured in Green Bay in 2019 when Matt LaFleur replaced Mike McCarthy as head coach.<\/p>\n Though Rodgers\u2019 numbers during his first year with LaFleur were fine, it took an offseason of adjustments for him to truly feel comfortable. Rodgers responded by leading the league in passer rating in 2020 and 2021 while winning back-to-back MVPs.<\/p>\n \u201cI used to tease LaFleur about this all the time,\u201d Rodgers said. \u201cI was a game manager in 2019 and a game impactor in 2020 and 2021. I think a lot of it\u2019s just familiarity with the offense and with the guys.\u201d<\/p>\n Something that would be the case if Rodgers returned to Pittsburgh again next season, provided there are no significant adjustments to the coaching staff.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve done the best we could with our conversations and our meeting time outside the facility and our meeting in the facility,\u201d Rodgers said. \u201cBut obviously, the more years you get in the system with the same guys. The more continuity you have, the better you feel like you can play.\u201d<\/p>\n Wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling, who spent four years playing alongside Rodgers in Green Bay from 2018-21 before reuniting this season in Pittsburgh<\/a>, has no doubt his good friend can play as long as he wants.<\/p>\n \u201cHe can play football until he\u2019s 50. He\u2019s almost there,\u201d Valdes-Scantling said with a grin. \u201cBut he can for sure play until he is 50 years old. Throwing the football? He\u2019ll be able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Rodgers has leaned into his time with the Steelers, particularly on an offense teeming with players who weren\u2019t even in elementary school when Rodgers was selected by Green Bay in the first round of the 2005 draft. He called the quarterback room he shares with veteran backup Mason Rudolph<\/a>, rookie Will Howard<\/a>, and third-year pro Skylar Thompson \u201cone of the best I\u2019ve ever been around.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a room that will have at least one open seat next year, and maybe a guy in his early 40s looking for work. Either way, the man who came to Pittsburgh because he felt it was \u201cgood for my soul\u201d appears to be on far better terms with the game and his place in it than he was following two drama-filled and injury-filled seasons with the New York Jets.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I hadn\u2019t taken this path, I never would have met so many guys in the locker room who I now call close friends and wouldn\u2019t have the experiences and the memories on the field,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel like there would be a little hole in my life, you know, missing without having this chapter. So I\u2019m thankful for this time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Will Graves PITTSBURGH (AP) \u2014 Aaron Rodgers isn\u2019t talking like someone who\u2019s on the verge of retirement.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[7,6,4475,520,57,2360,10007,9,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-644913","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-nfl","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","13":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","14":"tag-san-jose-sharks","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115818415210982662","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}