Aaron Rodgers didn’t take a single snap at Lambeau Field on Sunday night, but the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback still managed to steal a slice of the spotlight on NBC’s Sunday Night Football broadcast. Now fans are wondering whether Cris Collinsworth just gave away the veteran’s next move.
Late in the broadcast of the Green Bay Packers’ 23-13 win over the Dallas Cowboys, Collinsworth and booth partner Mike Tirico chose to spend a stretch of the call on Rodgers.
That set off a flurry of posts asking whether Collinsworth had let slip that the 42-year-old is heading to the broadcast booth once he retires. However, the theory runs straight into Rodgers’ own words, as the quarterback has repeatedly said he plans to disappear from public life once he hangs up his cleats.
Why Viewers Think Cris Collinsworth Let Something Slip About Aaron Rodgers
Rodgers had already done his work for the day. His Steelers took care of business in the 1 p.m. window, outlasting the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 26-19 in overtime.
Rodgers completed 33 of 49 passes for 253 yards and two touchdowns, and the second, a 6-yard strike to Germie Bernard in the extra period, held up as the winner and left Pittsburgh 4-2 and first in the AFC North.
Still, the four-time NFL MVP, who spent his first 18 seasons in Green Bay, came up in the booth. Collinsworth dropped some high praise, saying he had never heard one of Rodgers’ teammates call him anything other than a good teammate.
The conversation then turned to Rodgers as a possible broadcaster, and for one viewer, the booth’s reaction was every bit as telling as the topic, since Tirico “seemed way too shocked/concerned about the fact Cris brought it up.”
Another viewer took it a step further, guessing that Tirico and Collinsworth “have it pegged as Aaron Rodgers is getting Aikman’s job in the ESPN booth,” adding that they changed the subject awkwardly after realising what had just been said.
“Did Collinsworth just spill the beans that Aaron’s Rodgers is going to be an announcer after he retires?” asked another fan.
One more asked whether Collinsworth had just hinted “that Aaron Rodgers has a broadcasting deal in the works on SNF.”
Aaron Rodgers Has Vowed to Vanish Once His Final Season Ends
Rodgers, for his part, has spent much of 2026 sketching out a very different future.
On “The Pat McAfee Show” in March, he talked about the privacy he and his wife, Brittani, value and was blunt about what comes after football: “When this is done, it’s Keyser Söze, and you won’t see me. You won’t see me. I’m not doing TV.”
After Mike Tomlin stepped down and the Steelers hired Mike McCarthy, his head coach for 13 seasons in Green Bay, Rodgers signed a one-year deal to return. In May, in his first news conference since then, at organized team activities, he declared 2026 his final season in three simple words: “This is it.”
On Sept. 4, he doubled down during an appearance with Adam Schein on SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Sports Radio. Schein told him he’d love to hear him still talking football and pointed out that Rodgers was once in the mix to host “Jeopardy!”
Asked what he’ll be doing this time next year, Rodgers said he hopes to be supporting a pregnant wife as the couple starts a family. He added that he is “not gonna be making a lot of appearances or statements” and is “looking forward to a life of quiet after 22 years in the pros and three in college.”
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Interestingly, three years ago, in a column for The Athletic, sports media analyst Richard Deistch also wondered whether studios would come calling for Rodgers, writing, “I would be stunned if a network did not reach out to Rodgers soon to see if he’d do a one-off in the booth or studio this season. Would he be interested? Who knows.”
Of late, however, Rodgers has been pretty critical of ESPN, so if the rumors are pointing to him potentially replacing Troy Aikman in the booth alongside Joe Buck, that could be a long shot.
This article originally appeared on Pro Football Network.