One of the best stories in sports is a legendary athlete riding off into the sunset and retiring on the back of a championship. With Aaron Rodgers announcing to the world that 2025 is likely to be his last year, the questions have, of course, arisen: Can he win one on the way out with the Pittsburgh Steelers?
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Championship expectations for Rodgers in his 21st season aren’t exactly fair. But the 24-hour news cycle doesn’t care about that. All it cares about is whether he can match the late-career renaissances of other legendary QBs like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning.
Brady and Manning were both known as one-team guys for much of their careers. However, both switched teams later on, much like Rodgers, and each found Super Bowl success with their second team. So, can Aaron Rodgers find championship success with this Pittsburgh group? Steelers beat writer Alan Saunders thinks everyone needs to pump the brakes and start talking about more realistic expectations.
“It’s gonna be hard to compare anyone to Brady. No one’s ever had the success he had at the ages he had. I mean Manning, even that last year, when he wasn’t very good, and he didn’t play the whole season, and they won the Super Bowl, he was 39. Rodgers is gonna be 42 this year. It’s really hard. I think Brady has been better at the same age as Rodgers as they’ve aged,” Saunders said via Locked on Steelers.
The analyst also talked about how it has been a few years since we’ve seen Aaron Rodgers at the peak of his powers. He was injured in the first year with the Jets, then had a down season the next year. But as Saunders points out, even his last season in Green Bay in 2022 was underwhelming.
“The 2022 season, I think that’s the real fly in the ointment, if you think you’re getting a Tom Brady, Peyton Manning late-career resurgence out of Rodgers, is that he wasn’t that good his last year in Green Bay… But to me that last year in Green Bay just being okay, I don’t know how you think you’re gonna get 38-year-old Aaron Rodgers again at 42 now, three years removed. I just don’t see how that’s a reasonable expectation.”
The three situations are very different as well. Tom Brady was just one season removed from winning a Super Bowl when he arrived in Tampa Bay. And he had Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Antonio Brown, and Rob Gronkowski to throw to. Pretty good. And like Saunders said, Brady is a bit of a unicorn anyway.
In Manning’s case, he was already falling apart physically and had to be dragged to that Super Bowl title by an all-time defensive performance in the playoffs. The Broncos allowed just under 14.7 points a game, forced seven turnovers, and recorded 14 sacks, the 10th-most ever in a single postseason.
This 2025 Pittsburgh defense is pretty good, but it’s not that good. And its best player is currently holding out, so make of that what you will. And unlike Brady, all Rodgers really has to throw to is DK Metcalf on the offensive side. Behind the new arrival are a bunch of promising but unproven options.
To put things in perspective, the Steelers are 17th on the odds board for the likeliest to win the Super Bowl next year, at +4,000. That places them in the bottom half of the 32-team league and behind the likes of the Bears, Broncos, Chargers, and Vikings. Rodgers could surprise us by turning back the clock this year, but he won’t turn it that far back.
