Aaron Rodgers

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• 2026 PreviewJul 3, 2026

  Aaron Rodgers 2026 Season Preview — what repeats, what doesn't

  Rodgers finished QB17 across all 16 games, averaging 14.2 half-PPR points per game in what was a full, healthy season after years of durability concerns — his availability from 2021 through 2025 sat at just 78.8 percent. A season built this heavily on staying on the field carries real uncertainty, since that availability rate reflects how fragile the foundation has been.

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  Show notes & transcript

  Aaron Rodgers announced in May that this is it — one final season, his 20-second, and then it's over, per ESPN. The market heard "final season" and filed him at quarterback 27, pick one-69. Here's the inconvenient row in the spreadsheet: last year he outscored that slot by a point and a half a game, threw 24 touchdowns against seven picks, and won the division. The farewell tour is being priced like a farewell. The tape was a season.

  The season, on quarterback scoring — the standard four-point-passing convention, identical to Half-PPR for quarterbacks: 16 games, 327 of 498 — 66 percent — for 3322 yards, 24 touchdowns, seven interceptions, 29 sacks. 14.1 points a game, 20-third among quarterbacks per game, eighteenth in total. Pittsburgh won the AFC North at 10-seven, then lost the wild card to Houston, 30 to six. A wrist fracture in late November — multiple breaks, no surgery, per NFL.com — cost him exactly one game. At 42.

  The career, in our 10-year window, is a mountain range flattening into a plateau that refuses to become a cliff: 23-eight and 23-nine at the peaks, and his last three full seasons — one each in Green Bay, New York, and Pittsburgh — at 14-one, 15-one, 14-one. Three different teams, three nearly identical seasons. Whatever age is doing to him, it's doing it remarkably slowly.

  The pattern beat: our library has no quarterback aging cliff — we've never validated one, and we won't improvise one for the occasion. The rushing-floor rule doesn't reach him either: five percent of his points came on the ground, a statue's share. What the library can say: there's no touchdown inflation in a 24-seven line, no luck begging to be given back — just a 14-a-game quarterback priced at a 12.6 slot.

  The situation is a reunion with a deadline. He re-signed in mid-May — one year, 22 million guaranteed, up to 25 with incentives, per SI — and announced the retirement plan at his first press conference, crediting the coach for his return: Mike McCarthy, his play-caller for 13 Green Bay seasons, hired in January after Mike Tomlin stepped down — resigned, not fired — ending a 19-year run, per ESPN. McCarthy calls the plays; Brian Angelichio holds the coordinator title. The weapons got a full remodel: DK Metcalf returns, Michael Pittman arrived from Indianapolis by trade in March with an extension attached, Rico Dowdle signed from Carolina, and the Steelers spent pick 47 on Alabama's Germie Bernard. The beat's June observation: the Rodgers-Metcalf chemistry looks a tier better with a full offseason, per SteelerNation. Behind him, the quarterback room is a succession plan in waiting — Mason Rudolph, Will Howard, and third-round rookie Drew Allar.

  The price: QB27 at pick one-69 for last season's per-game QB23 and total QB18 — the slot's implied production is 12.6; he delivered 14-one. Our verdict: no call. The market is pricing the birthday and the goodbye; the rows priced a division winner — and the two land close enough that we can't call the gap a mistake. The caveat is real in both directions: 43-year-old quarterbacks have no base rate because there's essentially no cohort, and a final season with a hand-picked play-caller and remodeled weapons is precisely the setup that outruns a QB27 price in 12-team leagues where he's functionally free.

  Watch the deep connection with Metcalf in September — the chemistry reports have a receipt to earn — and the succession chatter if Pittsburgh stumbles early, because a farewell season's floor is loyalty, and loyalty has a record too: his was 10-seven. He's one of your guys? This show covers your whole roster — every player, every week, all season.