Aaron Rodgers says his decision to play in Pittsburgh this season was 'best for my soul'
Sports
The game has given a lot to him
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Aaron Rodgers doesn’t need to keep doing this. He knows that.
The four-time NFL MVP’s decision to return for a 21st season and to do it in Pittsburgh was not about trying to prove something to himself, the New York Jets or anyone else.
The game has given a lot to him. Stardom. Wealth. A title. Relationships that will last long after he decides to stop playing. The next seven months — if they are indeed the last seven months of a career that almost certainly will end with a gold jacket and a bust in the Hall of Fame — are about trying to pay it forward while finding peace in the process.
Standing in front of a sea of cameras more suited for the week ahead of a conference championship game rather than what Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin calls “football-lite” in June, the 41-year-old Rodgers made a compelling case that the coda he is trying to author in Pittsburgh is about something deeper.
“A lot of decisions that I’ve made over my career and life from strictly the ego, even if they turn out well, are always unfulfilling,” Rodgers said Tuesday after the first day of Pittsburgh’s mandatory minicamp. “But the decisions made from the soul are usually pretty fulfilling. So this was a decision that was best for my soul.”
