Reunited and it Feels So Mid

After yet another drawn out decision-making process, Aaron Rodgers has agreed to return to the Pittsburgh Steelers on a one-year deal worth up to $25 million. The expectation is that 2026 will be the final season of Rodgers’ illustrious NFL career.

All of which leads to one obvious question: Why???

To be fair, Rodgers wasn’t terrible in 2025. In Week 16, he threw for 266 yards and a touchdown in a gotta-have-it game against the Detroit Lions. Two weeks later, in Week 18, Rodgers threw for a season-high 294 yards in a victory over the Baltimore Ravens to clinch the AFC North title and a trip to the playoffs. All told, he finished the season completing 65.7% of his passes – his highest mark since 2021 – and threw for 3,322

yards with 24 touchdowns against just seven interceptions.

Unfortunately, in the Steelers’ Wild Card loss against the Houston Texans, Rodgers turned in his worst performance of the season. He only completed 17 of 33 attempts for 146 yards, no touchdowns and had one pick-6 interception. He also lost a fumble that was returned for another score. All in all, Rodgers directly accounted for more Texans touchdowns (2) than Steelers touchdowns (0).

And that’s not all.

Last season, Rodgers had the quickest time to throw among all quarterbacks at 2.71 seconds. As a result, he also led the league in percentage of throws behind the line of scrimmage at 32.5%. What’s more, Rodgers’ off-target rate when pressured (41.9%)

was the fourth-worst mark for any quarterback over the past five years. And therein lies the problem.

Even at his advanced age, Rodgers is still good enough to lead a talented roster to 7 to 9 wins a year. And if things break right where the best team in your division (Baltimore Ravens) gets ravaged by injuries, and the second-best team in your division (Cincinnati Bengals) loses their All-Pro quarterback for 9 games, you might even get up to double- digits in the win column. But even if all the stars align, you’re still never going to be in

the Super Bowl conversation.

No reasonable person should expect Rodgers to improve on his offensive numbers next season during his age-43 season. Therefore, having him under center almost guarantees that Pittsburgh is going to be stuck in football purgatory; They’ll be too good to earn a high draft pick to get their quarterback of the future but not quite good enough to be a legitimate contender.

You know what kids nowadays call something like that?

Mid.