After 18 years with the Green Bay Packers and a pair of campaigns with the New York Jets—more like one year and four plays with Gang Green, but that's neither here nor there—Aaron Rodgers is set for one last season with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
At least we think this 2025 season will be his last. Rodgers says he's "pretty sure" this is the last ride, but you just never know. But we're not here to get into a retirement rant, as that simply brings too many Brett Favre flashbacks into play.
No, instead, we're here to focus on the fact that the four-time Most Valuable Player is on the cusp of breaking into the top five on the NFL's all-time passing yards list. And if he does indeed get there, which he should unless he suffers some sort of serious injury (we won't make another Jets joke), the quarterback he'll knock out of the top five is none other than Steelers legend Ben Roethlisberger.
Here's a quick look at how the leaderboard currently shakes out. It should be noted that only regular-season yardage is taken into account.
Rank | Player | Passing Yards |
|---|---|---|
1 | Tom Brady | 89,214 |
2 | Drew Brees | 80,358 |
3 | Peyton Manning | 71,940 |
4 | Brett Favre | 71,838 |
5 | Ben Roethlisberger | 64,088 |
6 | Philip Rivers | 63,440 |
7 | Aaron Rodgers | 62,952 |
As you can see, Rodgers currently sits in seventh and will first need to surpass longtime San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers signal-caller Philip Rivers, but needs just 489 yards to do so.
To move past Big Ben and take over solo fifth, the 10-time Pro Bowler needs 1,137 yards, which shouldn't be a problem whatsoever if he remains healthy. One would assume Rodgers would love to catch Favre at No. 4, but unless he plays several more seasons, that's never going to happen.
Roethlisberger played all 18 seasons of his career with the Steelers, leading the team to three Super Bowl appearances, winning the first two but dropping the third to Rodgers and the Packers to close out the 2010 season.
Roethlisberger has been extremely supportive of Rodgers' decision to close out his career in Pittsburgh and seems confident that his former foe can, at the very least, lead the Steelers to the franchise's first playoff win since he himself did so in the postseason following the 2016 campaign.
He's also come out in support of Rodgers taking his spot on the list mentioned above. During a recent episode of his Footbahlin' podcast, the same episode in which he took a bold stance when comparing Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes, Roethlisberger learned how close the Packers legend was to his number and was all for it.
"Oh, Aaron is gonna pass my all-time passing record this year? Good, records are meant to be broken," Roethlisberger said.
If Rodgers were to average the 229.2 yards per game he did a season ago with the Jets, he'd surpass Roethlisberger in the Steelers' Week 6 matchup with the Cleveland Browns, which comes two weeks before the Packers roll into Pittsburgh for a Sunday Night Football showdown.