Aaron Rodgers already knows what he wants after the final pass, the final locker-room meeting and the final Sunday of his NFL career. It has very little to do with football.
The Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback says he plans to turn his attention toward starting a family with his wife, Brittani, after the 2026 season. In a preview of an upcoming interview with Adam Schein, Rodgers said he hopes retirement finds him supporting a pregnant wife, healing his body and largely stepping away from public life, according to PEOPLE.
Brittani is not currently pregnant. Rodgers was describing what he hopes his life will look like by roughly this time next year.
The idea is not something he introduced only in the new radio interview. During a longer conversation at Steelers training camp last month, Rodgers told The Washington Post that “my next chapter in my life is fatherhood,” while his recent reconciliation with his parents and older brother Luke has given that plan additional personal weight.
Rodgers Says Fatherhood Is the Next Chapter
Rodgers sounds less interested in replacing football with another public-facing career than in changing the shape of his daily life altogether. He told Schein he is looking forward to a quieter existence, recovering physically and beginning a family after what will be 22 NFL seasons and three years of college football.
Spending more time with older brother Luke’s children has apparently made the idea more immediate. Rodgers said he has enjoyed being “Uncle Aaron” again, along with relationships he already has with several godchildren. The more time he and Brittani spend around the children, he said, the more excited they become about having some of their own.
He is not romanticizing only the easy parts. Rodgers specifically said he is looking forward to sleepless nights, crying babies and changing diapers. After more than two decades of NFL calendars dictating much of his life, the ordinary responsibilities of parenthood appear to be part of what appeals to him.
Brittani Has Already Changed His Family Life
Rodgers has kept his marriage almost completely outside the public eye. He first publicly mentioned dating a woman named Brittani in December 2024 and confirmed in June 2025 that he had quietly married a couple of months earlier.
He has since spoken more openly about the effect of the marriage than about Brittani herself. Rodgers credited conversations with his wife with helping him become receptive to repairing relationships with his parents, Ed and Darla, and older brother Luke after years of distance.
That reconciliation became visible in July when Rodgers shared rare photographs with his parents, Luke and one of his nieces. He later stressed that Brittani did not force the reunion, but helped him open himself to the possibility of reconnecting.
There Is ‘Zero Debate’ About This Being the End
Rodgers is talking about retirement as a fixed endpoint. After signing a one-year deal to return to Pittsburgh in May, he said the 2026 season would be his last and reaffirmed that position when training camp opened in July. The NFL reported that when asked whether he might reconsider, Rodgers answered that there was “zero debate.”
He had believed the 2025 season might be the end, particularly after Mike Tomlin stepped down as Steelers head coach in January. Pittsburgh’s hiring of Mike McCarthy, who coached Rodgers for 13 seasons in Green Bay, changed the equation enough for him to consider one more year. Rodgers has also said Brittani supported that decision.
He Is Spending His Last Season Passing Things Down
Rodgers’ final months in football are not entirely about counting down games. At Steelers camp, he has spent considerable time talking with younger teammates about parts of an NFL career that rarely appear on stat sheets.
He has discussed taxes, investing and financial literacy with younger players, acknowledging that he did not pay enough attention to those subjects during the first several years of his own career. He has also tried to make himself more available as a mentor.
That approach partly reflects his own experience behind Brett Favre in Green Bay. Rodgers told The Washington Post that Favre was not the mentor he had hoped for, even though observing him proved valuable, and said he later decided that if he had the chance to mentor younger quarterbacks he would be more hands-on.
Rodgers is still trying to win with Pittsburgh, but his final season has also become an opportunity to hand off lessons accumulated over more than two decades.