Entering the 2026 NFL season, the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to be the final stop for Aaron Rodgers in his Hall of Fame career. He plans to retire after 2026, making this upcoming season his last.
He's made plenty of feats in NFL history during his Hall of Fame career, and even in this final season, he has a chance to add to his legacy. But one piece of history doesn't require him to do anything but play this upcoming season.
As ESPN's Brooke Pryor highlighted, all Rodgers needs to do in the final year of his NFL career is to play 13 games in total. If he does, he'll reach 300 for his career, joining a very small group of QBs to accomplish the feat, all of whom are some of the best to ever do it.
"Milestone to watch: Aaron Rodgers becoming the fourth quarterback in NFL history to appear in 300 games (including the postseason), joining Tom Brady, Brett Favre and Drew Brees," Pryor writes.
Rodgers has played in 287 games during his illustrious NFL career entering the 2026 NFL season. This is his 22nd season in the NFL, and it will be his last.
With 264 regular-season games and 23 postseason games, Rodgers is coming into 2026 with 287 games on his resume, 279 of which were starts.
All he needs to do to achieve some pretty cool NFL history, which would have him joining Hall of Famers (or future Hall of Famers) Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Brett Favre as the only QBs to accomplish this feat.
What makes this all the more impressive for Rodgers is that he appeared in just seven total games in the first three years of his NFL career, along with multiple injury-shortened seasons.
He played in just nine games in 2013, seven games in 2017, and just one game in 2023 during his first season away from the Green Bay Packers.
But now, as long as Rodgers plays in 13 games this upcoming season, which he has done each of the last two years, he'll have appeared in 300 total games during his NFL career.
There is a path to Rodgers making 300 starts in his career, but it would take him starting all 17 games during the regular season, followed by starting all of the Wild Card, Divisional, Championship, and Super Bowl.
But to reach 300 games during his NFL career, whether or not he started, he needs to appear in 13 games this upcoming season.
It's an incredibly simple feat of NFL history to achieve for Rodgers this year, but it would be some elite company to join in his last year in the NFL.
