Aaron Rodgers is heading into his final NFL season at 42 with one of the most decorated resumes in football history. Not everyone is ready to put him in the top tier, though.

"Rodgers is a first-ballot Hall of Famer. He's awesome. I don't think he played winning football," Analyst Steve Palazzolo said on the Check The Mic podcast. "I don't think Rodgers has played winning football at the same level as Peyton Manning, Brady, Mahomes, and some of the other elite quarterbacks. I think he's just a tick below that."

Palazzolo believes Aaron Rodgers struggles to execute during late-game comeback situations and plays too cautiously to avoid interceptions when his team needs aggressive, winning plays.

"You look at Rodgers in comeback situations, through his career, he hasn't been great in comeback situations. He's like, 'No, I'm not throwing a pick.' But an incompletion's the same as a pick if it's on fourth down," Palazzolo said in the same podcast.

That is a fair point. Nobody is saying Rodgers cannot play. He is the NFL's all-time leader in passer rating at 102.2 and has thrown fewer interceptions than any quarterback in league history.

The numbers are real. The question is what he does when it matters most. Safe football won a lot of games (125-77-2) for Rodgers in Green Bay with Mike McCarthy. It just never won him another ring.

The Super Bowl count is the other thing that comes up every time. Rodgers has one. Brady has seven. Mahomes has three. Manning had two. For a quarterback with Rodgers' raw ability, one ring in 21 seasons is hard to ignore when you're debating the all-time greats.

The numbers he does have are staggering, though. Fifth all-time in passing yards with 66,274, fourth all-time in touchdown passes with 527, and a 163-93-1 record as a starter. He's also a four-time MVP, one of only two players in NFL history to win that many.

Rodgers confirmed that 2026 will be his last season in the league and that he will reunite with head coach Mike McCarthy in Pittsburgh.

Peyton Manning’s 2015 blueprint is the template Aaron Rodgers is chasing this season

Manning's last year in Denver is the clearest example anyone has of how a quarterback at the end of the road can still go out the right way. He threw for just 2,249 yards with nine touchdowns and 17 interceptions over 10 games, but won Super Bowl 50 on the back of an elite defense, per SI.

Rodgers hasn't declined to anywhere near that level yet. The Steelers aren't as dominant defensively as that Broncos team either.

But the formula is simple. Let the defense carry the load, manage the game, and don't make the critical mistakes Palazzolo pointed out. A deep playoff run would do more for how Rodgers is remembered than anything else he could do at this point.

His last chance to answer the critics starts in September.

Do you think Aaron Rodgers can cement his legacy as one of the all-time greats with a strong final season? Let us know in the comments.

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Written by

Farheen Fathima

Edited by

Zaid Quraishi