Washed-up NFL legend announces impending retirement to disinterested nation

On Wednesday, Aaron Rodgers broke the seal. After years of festering "will he or won't he?" consternation, darkness retreats, picking fights with football hagiographs, and precipitously declining play on the field, the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback declared he will finally retire after the 2026 NFL season.

To that I say: Congratulations! Do you want a cookie? Anyway, what else is going on in the world, quite literally anywhere?

In all seriousness, Rodgers did this to himself. Even if you take the words of a glorified charlatan like him at face value, and you really believe he will retire at the age of 43 this coming January, it's hard to muster up the necessary pomp and circumstance for him. You know, the kind of farewell tour and celebrations usually reserved for beloved athletes and sports figures. To earn that, you have to be both special at your craft and, if not outright kind to others, at least a seemingly decent human being enough not to alienate almost everyone in your orbit.

Rodgers did not do that. From his stomping grounds in Green Bay to a desperate New York, he burned every bridge. He's yelled at his teammates for making mistakes in postseason games where he didn't perform up to par, then acted like a pouty grade-school child who didn't get his way over offseason moves. He's feuded with coaches and general managers and brought down entire regimes with his toxic influence and presence. He's taken matters beyond football, even dangerously questioning medical pandemic science in public as someone with no (read: zero!) medical expertise. At almost every step of late, he's castigated the people who don't want to make him look like the doofus that he really is — the reporters on the ground and the fancy, schmancy TV people — but who have to write the harsh truth when that's the only material he gives them.

Late-stage Rodgers hasn't just burned bridges. No, no. He's also burned their blueprints for reconstruction and called everyone who wants to bring them back attention-seeking egomaniacs who want the spotlight and some sort of ethereal "clicks." Don't worry. I sincerely doubt he's ever heard of pots calling kettles black. After all, that would require reading.

Rodgers is a four-time NFL MVP. A Super Bowl champion. A perennial Pro Bowler. He was, for all intents and purposes, the peak of his quarterback position in his playing prime. No one was better. He will walk into Canton one day very soon and, from a football perspective, be immortalized as one of the greatest ever to wear a helmet and shoulder pads. Full stop.

A player like that, at the center of America's cultural touchstone sport, should be a beloved icon. We should talk about them with reverence, mention them as memorable folk tales to our children and their children's children when trying to pass the game we love as heritage. Rodgers will get none of that. To be sure, there might be a slight groundswell of this sentiment for him when he does hang it up at the end of the year. Why? There is nothing our demented culture loves more than romanticizing "complicated, tortured" performers who were clearly just talented creeps and jerks, but creeps and jerks nonetheless.

Mostly, there will be sweet relief, like there is now. Because long ago, everyone realized they were rolling out a red carpet for an insecure, sniveling duke, not an all-time great king. Because, above all, Rodgers deserves to be an afterthought, someone whose life's work is destined to be immediately upstaged by a person everyone actually cherished, Veep style.

At the absolute nadir of his powers, we were already ignoring Rodgers. Now, we'll soon be able to forget him for real. Good riddance. Anywho, I ask again: What else is on TV right now?

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Aaron Rodgers announced looming 2026 retirement but no one cared

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