With Aaron Rodgers now headed to Pittsburgh, the Steelers’ 2025 schedule suddenly just got a lot more interesting. The most notable part of the schedule is the fact that Rodgers will now get to go on his own personal revenge tour. The four-time MVP will get to face the both the Green Bay Packers and the New York Jets this year.
Rodgers spent the first 18 years of his career in Green Bay before the Packers decided to ship him off to New York in a trade with the Jets. Rodgers then spent two unspectacular seasons with the Jets before going through an ugly breakup with the team this offseason.
Let’s take a look at his two revenge games:
Week 1: Steelers at Jets
- Sunday, Sept. 7: 1 p.m. ET (CBS)
For Rodgers, the fun will start in Week 1 when the Steelers hit the road to face the Jets in their season opener. The Jets had a chance to bring Rodgers back for a third season in New York, but they decided to move on. During an interview with Pat McAfee in April, Rodgers definitely sounded bitter about the way things ended. The 41-year-old said he flew across the country on his own dime only to sit down for a meeting where he was told in the first 20 seconds that the Jets didn’t want him.
Rodgers thought the two sides were going to talk about his future, but instead, new coach Aaron Glenn and new general manager Darren Mougey let him know that he had no future in New York. Rodgers is definitely the type of player who will hold a grudge, so there could be fireworks in the opener.
The game between the Steelers and Jets is scheduled to kick off at 1 p.m. ET in Week 1, which is something that definitely would NOT have happened if the NFL had known for sure that Rodgers was going to sign. In a recent interview with CBS Sports, Mike North, the NFL’s vice president of broadcast planning and scheduling, admitted that the game likely would have been given a prime-time slot if the league had been 100% certain that Rodgers was going to play.
“I think if the league knew, we probably would’ve scheduled that game for a national television window,” North said. “Look at what we did with Aaron Rogers’ first game the last two years (both Monday night games). If we knew something, I think you would’ve seen it reflected in the schedule. That being said, still a good game.”
Of course, Rodgers won’t be the only one looking for revenge in that game. Justin Fields will be making his first start with the Jets and he’ll be facing a Steelers team that benched him after six starts in 2024.
The game against the Jets is just the appetizer for the Rodgers revenge tour, because there’s an even bigger game in Week 8.
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Week 8: Packers at Steelers
- Sunday, Oct. 26: 8:20 p.m. ET (NBC)
Rodgers is finally going to face his old team and it’s going to happen on the final Sunday in October. It’s likely going to be a bittersweet night for Rodgers, who started his career in Green Bay after the Packers selected him in the first round of the 2005 NFL Draft. By 2008, he was the full-time starter and during his 15 years under center, he led the Packers to five NFC title games and one Super Bowl win while also winning four MVP awards. Rodgers had a Hall of Fame career in Green Bay, but it came to a somewhat bitter end in April 2023 when the Packers traded him to New York.
The Packers made it pretty clear that they were getting ready to move on from Rodgers when they used a first-round pick in 2020 to select Jordan Love. Rodgers wasn’t happy about the pick and things became awkward between him and the front office after that. Rodgers will now get to face Love for the first time.
The NFL actually had a plan in place for this game. According to North, the league put the showdown on Sunday night just in case Rodgers ended up signing with the Steelers.
“If it fell on a Sunday afternoon for instance, it becomes a dominant story of the day. Aaron’s first game against his old team,” North said recently, via ESPN. “So put it in a national window. If Aaron’s the quarterback, it’s a great story. If Aaron’s not the quarterback, it’s still Packer[s]-Steelers ‘Sunday Night Football’ in Week 8. … We tried to play it down the middle.”
The good news for Rodgers is that he has a Thursday night game in Week 7 (against the Bengals), which means he’ll get 10 days to prepare for this revenge game against the Packers.
If you’re looking for some other games on the schedule that just got more juicy, there are certainly a few:
- Ravens vs. Steelers: Aaron Rodgers will get to face off with Lamar Jackson twice in 2025. These two players have combined to win six MVP awards, which have all come over the past 14 seasons. The two quarterbacks will face off in Week 14 in Baltimore before getting together again for a Week 18 battle in Pittsburgh.
- Bengals vs. Steelers. Nearly every game the Steelers play in the AFC North is going to be must-see TV. Not only will Rodgers get to face Jackson twice, but he’ll also get two showdowns against Joe Burrow. The first Rodgers-Burrow showdown will come in prime time with the Steelers traveling to Cincinnati for a Thursday night game in Week 7. The two teams will then meet again at 1 p.m. ET in Week 11.
- Bills vs. Steelers. Rodgers vs. Jackson won’t be the only battle of MVP winners on Pittsburgh’s schedule. Rodgers will also get a crack at the NFL’s reigning MVP in Josh Allen when the Steelers play host to the Bills in Week 13. That’s part of a brutal stretch where the Steelers will have three games in a four-week period against Burrow (Week 11), Allen (Week 13) and Jackson (Week 14).
Rodgers will also get to face his old NFC North rivals with the Steelers facing the Vikings (Week 4 in Dublin), Lions (Week 16) and Bears (Week 12) this year.
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