It’s going to be one last ride for Aaron Rodgers in 2025.
In a Tuesday interview with the Pat McAfee show, Rodgers revealed that he’s likely to retire after spending the coming season with the Steelers.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure this is it,” Rodgers said. “That’s why we just did a one-year deal. Steelers didn’t need to put any extra years on it or anything. This was really about finishing with a lot of love, and fun, and peace for the career that I’ve had.
“I mean, I’ve played 20 freaking years. It’s been a long run and I’ve enjoyed it. What better place to finish than in one of the cornerstone franchises of the NFL? With Mike Tomlin and a great group of leadership, and great guys, and a city that expects you to win.”
Rodgers, 41, officially signed a one-year deal with Pittsburgh earlier this month, ending a flirtation that had lasted throughout the offseason.
With this revelation, it now means that the Jets, Patriots, Bengals, Chargers, Bears, Ravens, Lions, and Browns will all be a part of Rodgers’ season-long goodbye, as those are the teams the Steelers will play on the road. Pittsburgh will also host Green Bay on Sunday Night Football in Week 8, setting up a potentially emotional showdown against the team that Rodgers spent the vast majority of his decades-long career with.
The Steelers — who usually play their starters in the preseason — will also play the Jaguars and the Panthers on the road in August.
Jets owner Woody Johnson once served as the United States ambassador to the United Kingdom and he’s now buying into England’s biggest sports league.
The Premier League soccer team Crystal Palace announced on Monday that Johnson has agreed to purchase a stake in the team. He is set to buy the 43 percent share owned by John Textor for what Mark Ogden of ESPN.com reports is a $254 million deal.
“Whilst the completion is pending approval from the Premier League and Women’s Super League, we do not envisage any issues and look forward to welcoming Woody as a partner and director of the club,” Crystal Palace said in a statement.
The move makes Johnson partners with a couple of other NFL owners as Commanders principal owner Josh Harris, and Commanders minority owner David Blitzer own the majority stake in the team along with Steve Parish.
A year after Jets receiver Malachi Corley arrived as a third-round pick, his time with the team could be running out.
That’s the takeaway from an item posted earlier today by Rich Cimini of ESPN.com regarding Corley’s current status. With the regime that drafted Corley gone, he needs to prove himself with the new one. Because he missed plenty of the offseason program with an undisclosed injury, he’ll have work to do to get the attention of the new coaching staff.
“He’s going to have to find a way to catch himself up,” offensive coordinator Tanner Engstrand recently said, via Cimini.
Coach Aaron Glenn said that Corley has yet to secure any sort of role with the team because he hasn’t been available.
“There’s a plan for him, and we’re going to make sure that we try to utilize him to what he can do best, and we’ve seen that in college,” Glenn said, via Cimini. “Hopefully, he gets well soon, and we get a chance to utilize his skill set.”
Last year, Corley didn’t produce much. In nine games, he had three catches for 16 yards and two rushing attempts for 26 yards, including one that went 18 yards before he dropped the ball short of the goal line, resulting in a turnover against the Texans.
This year, the clock is ticking. As Corley’s position coach makes clear.
“My old coach, Bill Parcells, used to say the first thing you need to be is you need to be available,” receivers coach Shawn Jefferson said, per Cimini. “He’s missed some time, and there’s a learning curve here, so he’s in catch-up mode right now.”
If Corley doesn’t catch up, he won’t catch on. Which means he could be catching a one-way bus out of town, in time.
The first Sunday of the 2025 regular season will indeed start with a bang.
The Steelers face the Jets. And the stakes will be high for both teams. It will be the first bit of evidence regarding both the question of whether the Jets were right to move on from quarterback Aaron Rodgers — and whether the Steelers were right to embrace him.
And it’s clear that Rodgers has strong feelings about the franchise with which he spent two seasons. Mark Schlereth recently said on his podcast that Rodgers had plenty to say about one very specific aspect of the team’s offense during Rodgers’s time there.
“Aaron and I had a conversation about when he was with the Jets was how abysmal their running game was and how schematically it made no sense,” Schlereth said, via Chris Ward of SteelersNew.com. “I started the conversation, and then Aaron went on for about a 25-minute diatribe on just their run game.”
If he’s capable of talking for 25 minutes about the team’s running game, how long could Rodgers go about owner Woody Johnson’s teenage sons making personnel recommendations based on Madden ratings?
It’s no surprise that Rodgers has strong feelings about the Jets. Beyond the dysfunction he witnessed (and spoke out about) while he was there, he has chastised the organization for having him fly across the country only to be told that they’re going in a different direction.
So, yeah, he’s going to want to beat the Jets. And, yeah, the Jets are going to want to beat him.
Making the first Sunday of the season even more interesting will be the efforts by the Jets to beef up their running game. Which, if effective, will extend drives and reduce the number of possessions and make it harder for Rodgers to even get on the field.
Wide receiver Davante Adams has spoken positively about the Rams since joining the club on a two-year deal this offseason, recently saying he feels “rejuvenated” with Los Angeles.
Hearing Adams say that landed well with head coach Sean McVay.
“It’s so cool, and that’s what you want,” McVay said in an interview with J.B. Long of the team’s website. “I think we talk about it as coaches all the time, ‘How do we make sure these guys leave excited about coming back the next day? How do we cultivate an atmosphere and environment that, hey, it’s hard — it’s hard work, and to be able to do special things that are worthwhile, it doesn’t mean that it’s always easy. But it can be enjoyable in the midst of that.’
“So, we’re always trying to strike that balance of urgency and enjoyment. For Davante to say that, that means the world to me because of the respect and admiration I have for him as a person, as a player. Really glad that he’s in our locker room. He’s made a tremendous impact already. And I think he feels appreciated, and I know the guys feel appreciated by the way that he moves, the way that he’s pouring into guys, and just being a great teammate himself.”
Adams, 32, split last season between the Raiders and Jets, finishing with 85 receptions for 1,063 yards and eight touchdowns in 14 games. He’s reached at least 1,000 yards in every season since 2020 and six of the last seven years — narrowly missing out on eclipsing the mark in 2019 with 997 yards.
