Rich Weighs In on Aaron Rodgers Announcing He’ll Retire after the '26 Season with the Steelers

Aaron Rodgers met with the media Tuesday and got asked the question every reporter has been holding for two years. Do you believe this could be your last year?

Rodgers said yes. No qualifier. No grin-then-pivot. Just yes.

"He gave a little grin," Rich noted on the show. "I don't know if you can help. The grin is like, I bet you didn't expect that."

What the moment lacked was hedge. Rodgers, when asked directly if he was retiring after the 2026 season, did not buy himself room to backtrack. Rich's read was that he meant it.

"I don't believe he's going to be backtracking on that," Rich said. "I think that's it."

The schedule cooperates almost too cleanly. Last year, in the version where Rodgers' final season was supposed to happen, the Steelers played the AFC East and the NFC North. Those are the divisions where the memories live. The Jets. The Packers. He would have walked through both. The 2026 calendar does not deliver any of that. The Steelers play the NFC South, which is light on Rodgers nostalgia, plus an interconference game at Philadelphia.

The one piece that might still produce a poetic ending is sitting in Week 18. Steelers at Ravens. The last time those two teams met in the regular-season finale, both head coaches got tossed and the game decided the AFC North. If 2026 plays out anything like that, Rodgers's final regular-season snap could come in Baltimore with the division on the line.

After that, the question becomes whether there are playoff games beyond it. Rich thinks the Steelers are better than the Vegas win total of 7.5 suggests.

"They've never won less than eight games," Chris said. The last Steelers team to win seven games or fewer played its season in 1998. The win total feels like a trap line.

Rich also liked the Pittsburgh draft. He pushed back on the criticism that the team did not get a particular wide receiver target, citing a pair of mid-round picks the room agreed should give Pittsburgh the kind of identity Mike McCarthy wants. Chris flagged that one of the new Steelers draftees is going to be the city's adopted son the moment he plays his first game.

The biggest unknown, the room agreed, is what a Rodgers season looks like with no second seasons left to protect.

"What's he going to be like with truly no Fs left to give?" Rich asked.

The cast tested the fantasy football implications briefly. Late-round flyer territory.

Rich closed with the practical detail. There will be a Steelers game in Paris this year. Rodgers's only Paris appearance is now an exit lap, not a victory tour. The Thursday Night Football game at Cleveland later in the season also looms, with the room half-jokingly wondering if NFL teams have started giving each other gifts at the end of a player's career the way the NBA gave Kobe his Lakers jersey at every away arena.

The answer, the room concluded, is probably no. But if anybody deserves the inquiry, it is Rodgers.