Aaron Rodgers is still deciding whether to retire or return to play another season in the NFL.
Similar to last year’s offseason, it feels like a staredown between the Rodgers and the Pittsburgh Steelers, with both sides tiptoeing around the idea of reuniting for another season.
Unlike 2025, though, the Steelers aren’t expected to wait until the waning days of the offseason to add Rodgers to the roster, as new coach Mike McCarthy is rumored to have an affinity for sophomore quarterback Will Howard, whom they took in the most recent NFL Draft.
Retirement or not, though, Rodgers will impact a team heading into 2026.
And it’s not the Steelers.
Nor the team he will be forever remembered wearing a uniform for, the Green Bay Packers, where he and McCarthy won a Super Bowl almost two decades ago now.
It’s the New York Jets, as it almost always is when there are ghosts of the past involved.
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The two players taking up the most cap space for the Jets this season are a pair of quarterbacks, neither of whom is on the current roster.
Justin Fields has a $20 million dead money cap hit for the Jets, per Spotrac.
Rodgers? $28 million.
While the Jets are in a full rebuild and have the space available to eat those types of numbers, it’s just another haunting memory of how much they put into the Rodgers basket when they signed him a few years ago from the Green Bay Packers.
Rodgers was supposed to be the turning point for the Jets franchise, yet, after suffering a season-ending injury immediately with them to open the season, it was just another gigantic setback.
Rodgers will make his retirement decision at his own pace, as usual. But no matter if he suits up for the Steelers or wanders into the wilderness never to be seen again, the Jets will be impacted by Rodgers this coming season.