Cal Sports Report

Was Sunday Aaron Rodgers' Final Day in Football?

Former Cal star Rodgers had a big game in the Jets' win Sunday, and it's unclear whether he will return next season and what role he would play if he does return

Jake Curtis

Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams
Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams / Ed Mulholland-Imagn Images
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Was Sunday Aaron Rodgers final game as a pro football player?

Will the former Cal star return for another season in 25 at the age of 41? And he does return, what role will be play?

Or will he decide some time in the coming days and weeks that his 20th season in the NFL will be his last. He knows he might not figure in the Jets' plans for 2025, but he said after Sunday's game, he does not regret coming to the Jets despite the disappointing results.

If Sunday was his final game, Rodgers will leave in a blaze of glory as he threw four touchdown passes in the Jets' 32-20 victory over the Miami Dolphins on Sunday.

He acknowledged during the week that he might not be part of the Jets' plans for 2025, and the retirement question remained unanswered Sunday:

"I just need some time away to think about my future in the game and my future here, if they want me to be part of the next phase or if they're ready to move on," Rodgers said after Sunday's game. "Either way, I'm thankful for my two years here."

If Sunday was his final game, Rodgers will leave with 503 career touchdown passes, the fifth-most in NFL history, behind only Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning and Brett Favre, the man he replaced as the Packers' starting quarterback 16 years ago. He is just five TD passes behind Favre, and would tha be motivation for Rodgers to retrun for another season?

If Sunday was his final game, Rodgers will stand seventh in career passing yards with 62,952, again behind the usual suspects.

If Sunday was his final game, Rodgrs will go into retirement as the alltime leader in career passer rating. He was No. 1 in that category before Sunday's game with a passer rating of 102.6, just ahead of Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson and well ahead of Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Steve Young, Joe Montana, Josh Allen, Brett Favre and anyone else you can name. And Rodgers did nothing but improve that rating with his 112.5 passer rating on Sunday, when he completed 23 of 35 passes for 274 yards and the four touchdowns after throwing an interception on a tipped ball on his first pass attempt of the day.

If Sunday was his final game, Rodgers will leave the NFL without its most controversial and polarizing figure, who had a book and a Netflix documentary about his hot-button life released this year.

Whether this was Rodgers' final game will depend on who the Jes hire as their next general manager and next head coach. Will those two people want to retain Rodgers after the Jets' disappointing 5-12 season in which Rodgers had the worst year of his NFL career? And if the new Jets leaderships does not have Rodgers in its plans, would Rodgers consider playing for another team?

Rodgers has said that he would agree to a salary cut if he decided to stay, and he might return even if it meant being only a mentor to his successor as the Jets' quarterback. But could a four-time NFL MVP and sure-fire Hall of Famer be satisfied going out that way? As essentially a player-coach? As a second-stringer? As a clipboard carrier who is not involved in the final critical minutes of a close game?

If the starter got hurt maybe he could come in and win a game on muscle-memory alone. Maybe.

Could he have audacity to play for another team if the Jets don't want him, and what role would he play for that team?

Rodgers will be 42 years old when the 2025 season ends, and if the 2024 season taught him anything it's that he is not the MVP-caliber quarterback he was just a few years ago, before suffering a torn Achilles tendon.

He has said he will take some time after this season to decide whether he wants to return, and presumably a lot of it will depend on who the Jets hire in the two positions that would determine Rodgers 2025 fate if he did return.

Was this the final touchdown pass of Aaron Rodgers' career"

Was this Rodgers' final TD pass to Davante Adams?.

Rodgers' 500th touchdown pass:

Was this the final postgame press conference for Rodgers, whose controversial statements and actions made him a polarizing character the past several years?

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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