SI:AM | The Steelers Are Done—Is Aaron Rodgers, Too?

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. What I wrote yesterday—predicting the Texans-Steelers game would be a blowout and Houston’s defense would thump Aaron Rodgers—was right, huh?

In today’s SI:AM:
💪 Texans’ championship-worthy defense
🇺🇸 Figure skating’s “Quad God”
⚾ HOF ballot newcomers

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Rodgers’s last ride?

If last night’s game against the Texans really was the final one in Aaron Rodgers’s Hall of Fame career, then he went out on a sour note.

Rodgers’s Steelers got thumped by Houston, 30–6, in a game that was just as ugly as the final score would indicate. The Pittsburgh offense couldn’t get anything going against Houston’s elite defense. While the Texans were at times equally inept on offense, they put the final nail in the Steelers’ coffin with two defensive touchdowns in the fourth quarter—both of which came at Rodgers’s expense.

The first of those defensive scores came when Rodgers was sacked by Will Anderson Jr. and coughed up the ball, which was then returned for a touchdown by Sheldon Rankins. The second came on what may have been the final pass of Rodgers’s career. With the Steelers clinging to the slimmest of hopes in the final three minutes, Rodgers threw a pass behind his tight end Pat Freiermuth that was picked off by Houston’s Calen Bullock, who then ran it back for a touchdown. The last Steelers player to get a hand on Bullock during the return was Rodgers, but Bullock easily shook off Rodgers’s tackle attempt and Rodgers could only watch as he put the finishing touches on Houston’s win.

Calen Bullock takes it back for six!

HOUvsPIT on ESPN/ABC
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— NFL (@NFL) January 13, 2026

The end of the Steelers’ season inevitably raised questions about whether this is also the end of Rodgers’s career. He turned 42 last month, and, while his lone season in Pittsburgh went much better than his disastrous two-year run with the Jets, his limitations forced the Steelers to play a dink-and-dunk offense that was often painful to watch. Rodgers, though, declined to address his future when speaking with reporters after the game.

“I’m not going to make any emotional decisions,” he said. “At this point, obviously such a fun year. A lot of adversity, but a lot of fun. Been a great year overall in my life in the last year, and this is a really good part of that, coming here and being part of this team. So it’s disappointing to be sitting here with the season over.”

If that was the last time we see Rodgers in a helmet and pads, it’s fitting that it ended so embarrassingly. It reflected how Rodgers’s decline on the field coincided with the way public opinion of him cratered.

For the first 15 years of his career, Rodgers was widely respected and admired; his combination of top-notch arm strength and elite accuracy, paired with his ability to use his legs and improvise outside the pocket, made him the most exciting quarterback in the NFL. His contemporary, Tom Brady, went on to become the unquestioned GOAT, but Rodgers was capable of making throws Brady could dream of. He was likable, too. The success on the field helped, of course, but he was thoughtful and personable enough that he was chosen to guest host Jeopardy! for 10 episodes in 2021 when the show rotated hosts in the wake of Alex Trebek’s death. I spoke with Rodgers about the guest host gig and found him really kind and engaging.

And then Rodgers became a pariah. His intentional deception about his COVID-19 vaccination status in 2021 (“Yeah, I’ve been immunized”), and his subsequent griping about “the woke mob” after he contracted the virus and was forced to acknowledge he was unvaccinated, completely changed the way he was viewed. He became a laughingstock for more innocent reasons when he contemplated his football future at a “darkness retreat” in 2023. By the time he took the field with the Jets later that year, fans were so sick of his crap that there was little room for sympathy when he tore his Achilles tendon on the fourth play of the season.

Rodgers is unquestionably a legend and first-ballot Hall of Famer. He’s won four MVPs and a Super Bowl, and holds the all-time career records for passer rating and lowest interception rate. He’s easily one of the 10 best quarterbacks in the history of the sport, probably among the top five and maybe even one of the three best. So it was somewhat jarring to see my feed on the social media site Bluesky last night filled with people relishing the humiliating end of his season. (I’ll admit I got off a couple of quips at Rodgers’s expense, too.)

Under different circumstances, seeing a legendary career potentially end the way it did on Monday night would have been disheartening. A player as great as Rodgers deserves a less unceremonious end to his career, like Peyton Manning winning the Super Bowl or Tom Brady going down swinging with 66 pass attempts in a playoff game against the Cowboys. But Rodgers didn’t get that storybook finish, and considering how he looked this season, there’s little reason to believe he’d fare any better if he came back for a 22nd season in 2026. It’d just be one more opportunity for fans to get their jokes off.

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The top five…

… things I saw last night:
5. A really tough shot by Cooper Flagg and an impressive block on the other end.
4. The final 30 seconds of the Celtics-Pacers game.
3. A strong hit by the Steelers’ Payton Wilson to break up a pass.
2. A great throw by C.J. Stroud to find Christian Kirk for a big gain on third down.
1. Two goals in 20 seconds by the Canadiens’ Alexandre Carrier.