Aaron Rodgers took his sweet time before signing a one-year deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers this offseason. Soon after, he made it clear that he plans on making this his final year in the NFL.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure this is it,” Rodgers said on The Pat McAfee Show last week. “That’s why we just did a one-year deal. Steelers didn’t need to put any extra years on that or anything, so this was really about finishing with a lot of love and fun and peace for the career that I’ve had.”
The four-time NFL MVP evokes a lot of emotions when he talks (which he is fond of doing). When he later added that he plans on disappearing from the public eye once his NFL career is over, there were plenty of jokes. He has often been accused of letting his ego take over, making things about him, and sharing his dubious opinions publicly as if they were essential to the world.
So, even when he decided to announce on McAfee’s show that he was planning on making the 2025-26 NFL season his farewell one, that rubbed some people the wrong way as well.
“Give me a break with the ‘I just wanted to do this for fun for my final [season] – it’s been 20 years, haha, chuckle, chuckle,'” Courtney Cox said on Wednesday’s The Greg Hill Show on WEEI. “No, you did it so that you could tell everybody you’re retiring and have a farewell tour. That’s why you did it. You’re an egomaniac, a narcissist.”
Cox wasn’t the only member of the program to have a problem with Rodgers. Executive producer Chris Curtis added that the former Packers and Jets quarterback is “loathesome” and it was beneath the Steelers to entertain him for a year.
Show host Greg Hill took particular offense at the quarterback turning this into the Aaron Rodgers Farewell Tour before training camp had even begun.
“It is kind of a douche move,” Hill said. “Training camp hasn’t even started, and you need to declare that this is, this is the last [year]. ‘If you want to ask me about it when I come to your city, feel free to ask me about it. Feel free to bother all the other guys also all season long when you ask them about my last season.'”
“All of his teammates now – that’s your quarterback where you’re going to be hearing about it game after game, and you’re just trying to win,” Cox added. “That’s it. You’re just trying to win. You’re trying to make the Pittsburgh Steelers the best team imaginable, and now it’s the Aaron Rodgers show.”
Cox admitted that while other notable athletes have had similar “farewell tour” final seasons, Rodgers makes her feel like a hypocrite because if Tom Brady had done the same thing, she would have loved it.
“The fact that it’s Aaron Rodgers, that’s why I hate it,” she said.
Trust us, we get it.
About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.