This week, Aaron Rodgers announced that the coming season will be his last in the NFL. Given Rodgers’ recent tendency to make his proclamations via The Pat McAfee Show, this announcement was somewhat notable because it came with no heads up and absolutely zero fanfare. In fact, he didn’t even make an announcement. Rodgers was simply asked a question by a reporter – and he responded. Just as noteworthy as the announcement’s unceremonious nature, was its certitude. Asked about his future, Rodgers offered a terse but confident, “This is it.”

If indeed he means it, it’s fitting that Rodgers will end his NFL journey with the Pittsburgh, PA-born Head Coach who guided him to Super Bowl glory back in 2010 – what seems like a lifetime ago. 

Rodgers led the Steelers to the playoffs last year, but they were over-matched by a ferocious Houston Texans defense that limited Rodgers to 146 yards passing, no touchdowns, and a rare pick-6. Given last season’s result, I’m sure many around the NFL will be ready to turn the page on Rodgers and the Steelers’ chances this season. But given Rodgers’ history, that might not be wise.

Rodgers has been proving people wrong his entire career. A lack of scholarships coming out of high school led him to Butte Community College. He would later emerge as a top NFL prospect at Cal. But even then, Rodgers was passed over in the NFL draft. When finally scooped up by the Packers, Rodgers was gifted with a clipboard and a seat on the bench. 

We all know where that story went next. 

There are a lot of ways to measure the greats – usually it boils down to some mixture of: winning, statistics, ability, and circumstance. Which of those pieces matter most varies depending on who you ask. For my dollar, Aaron Rodgers is simply the greatest quarterback I’ve ever seen play the game. Yes, Tom Brady won more Super Bowls (an absurd seven to Rodgers’ one). Yes, Tom Brady is the all-time touchdown leader, by a comfortable margin. Still, for me, it’s the 4-time MVP Rodgers – not Brady – who stands out as the greatest I’ve ever seen.

Rodgers was so meticulous in his preparation and so polished with his abilities, that routine plays became automatic. When the Packers would fall into 3rd and long, there was the expectation that they would pick it up. It wasn’t a hope – it was an expectation.  

He seemed to have eyes in the back of his head at times, the way he would shift around inside the pocket, always sensing where the pressure was coming from (before it got there), and also, usually, how to elude it. Fans will sometimes complain about the sacks he took, but protecting the football and avoiding the big mistake was also part of Rodgers’ greatness. 

If you were to rank every 4,000-yard passing season in terms of TD-to-interception ratio, Rodgers was responsible for 6 of the top 7 seasons. It’s a telling and remarkable measure of the quarterback’s true mastery of the position.

Whether safely inside the pocket, or scrambling outside of it, Rodgers’ accuracy and touch with the football were second-to-none. Maybe it was his accuracy that wow’ed me most of all. In a game with so much motion and second-to-second variance of distances and speed, Rodgers’ brain seemed to intuitively know precisely how much speed, loft, and timing every throw required – and Rodgers’ arm had the extraordinary talent to immediately execute whatever the Rodgers brain told it to do.

When Rodgers won the Super Bowl early in his career, it created a natural expectation that more titles were on their way. Sadly, that didn’t happen. Some of that failure certainly falls on Rodgers, but I’d chalk up more of it to “circumstance” – botched plays, leaky defenses, or missed calls on very clear face mask penalties (looking at you, Scott Green!).  

Still, it’s hard to be too bitter about the lack of Super Bowls, because so much of the week-to-week Rodgers experience was pure joy, and very often, magic. There was the cadence that always got defenders to jump (no matter how much they prepped for it in practice), or the sneaky ability to catch a slow substitution. More than any of his peers, Rodgers was the “free play” master. 

He also did the impossible. Rodgers had so many Hail Mary’s that, to discuss them, you have to clarify which Hail Mary you’re referring to. Rodgers even has a double-Hail Mary on his resume, a mind-blowing feat which, in real time, inspired this CheeseheadTV writer to go running into traffic on Manhattan’s 10th Avenue. 

Off the field, Rodgers could be a bit prickly, particularly when it came to perceived slights or matters of privacy. He had some well-publicized family issues, but to me, that just made him more relatable. He had a bunch of girlfriends that included race car drivers, actresses, and even a self-described facilitator of shamanic arts (less relatable, maybe). Eventually, he settled down, but still none of the paparazzi have yet identified his wife. Good for them. 

Despite his boundaries, Rodgers could also be quite engaging and interesting. He was an avid reader, a music lover/Swiftie, a film junkie, a Jeopardy superfan, and, in recent years – a seeker of expanded consciousness, either through darkness retreats or ayahuasca journeys.  

Many in the general public will remember Rodgers most for his outspoken stance on health issues. But Rodgers was also more complex than many were willing to admit. He was among the first players to speak out in support of Colin Kaepernick. He devoted many hours to the Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer (MACC) Fund, helping raise over $2.5 million for childhood cancer and blood disorder research. He donated a very generous sum to the Barstool Sports fund to save small businesses affected by Covid. He donated to his hometown of Chico, Ca when it was overrun by wildfires. One time, he even helped to save a beloved Packers bar in New York City’s West Village. In the end, whether you agree with him on every issue or not – Aaron Rodgers always carried the G. 

Beyond this season, Rodgers will eventually collect his Gold Jacket in Canton, and his number will be retired in Green Bay. But after that, we may not hear much from him. 

“I don’t want the attention — I know that’s a narrative out there,” Rodgers once said. “When this is all done, it’s Keyser Söze. You won’t see me. I won’t be in the public. I don’t want to live a public life. That’s why it’s so strange, what’s going on right now in my private life, because I don’t want to live a life in the public eye. I’m not gonna be in the public eye. When this is done, I’m done. You won’t see me, and I’m looking forward to that.” 

For now, we can all look forward to one more season of Rodgers’ magic, and so long as he isn’t playing the Green Bay Packers, I’ll be watching him and rooting him on.