6 other QBs have started games at 42 or older, but only one succeeded. Can Aaron Rodgers be next?

If Aaron Rodgers makes his return to the Steelers official, he'll instantly become a member of an elite quarterback club. Rodgers already could lay claim to being one of the NFL's best quarterbacks of all time, but he will be alone with seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady when it comes to longevity.

Rodgers is following in the footsteps of Brady, who not only played the game better but also longer than anyone else. Brady is the only other quarterback to be a full-time starter at 42 years old - and the only one to begin a season as the full-time starter when he was 42 (Rodgers turned 42 on Dec. 2 in 2025).

Brady started 16 games for the New England Patriots during the 2019 season, threw for more than 4,000 yards and had 32 touchdown passes. After winning the Super Bowl in the 2018 season at 41, Brady, at 42, went 12-4 in 2019 but lost to the Tennessee Titans at home in an AFC wild card game. The 20-13 loss ended up being Brady's final start as a Patriot.

All of the other quarterbacks in NFL history to make a start at 42 or older were not full-time starters. The oldest quarterback to make an NFL start not named Brady is Steve DeBerg, who at 44 came out of a four-year retirement in 1998 to serve as the backup to Chris Chandler in Atlanta. Dan Reeves, DeBerg's former coach in Denver a decade earlier, was the Falcons coach and brought him onboard as a reserve for one of the most talented teams in the NFC.

DeBerg made one forgettable start that season. In a late-October game against the New York Jets, DeBerg completed just 9 of 17 passes for 117 yards and an interception in a 28-3 loss. He remained the backup for the rest of the season and became the oldest player to ever make a Super Bowl roster at 45 a few months later. (The Falcons lost to the Denver Broncos, 34-19.)

You might have heard DeBerg's name brought up late last season when Philip Rivers made his comeback at 44, also after a four-year retirement. Rivers was coaxed off his couch after a spate of quarterback injuries hit the Indianapolis Colts, who were in a desperate push to make the playoffs. Rivers was better than DeBerg in his starts with the Colts but not good enough to lead them to a win. They were 0-3 with Rivers as the starter and fell short of the playoffs.

Rivers, who won 134 games with the Chargers and Colts before his first retirement, was respectable. In his first start against the eventual Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, he was 18 for 27 for 120 yards and threw one touchdown and one interception. In three games, he threw for 544 yards with four touchdowns and three interceptions.

While DeBerg and Rivers came out of retirement to play in their mid-40s, the other three quarterbacks on this list just kept playing. Vinny Testaverde and Warren Moon also made starts at 44.

Testaverde signed with the Carolina Panthers in mid-October 2007, when Jake Delhomme and David Carr were out with injuries. Testaverde had been cut six weeks earlier by New England, where he was Brady's backup in 2006.

The Panthers were 2-4 with Testaverde as their starter, and his start on Dec. 2 against the San Francisco 49ers, a 31-14 victory, made him, at the time, the second-oldest quarterback to start a game in league history.

Moon's final start went about as well as DeBerg's. In his only start for the Kansas City Chiefs, where he finished out his 17-year NFL career, Moon was 12 for 31 for 120 yards and an interception in a 17-16 loss.

The only other quarterback to start a game after turning 42 is Doug Flutie.

What makes quarterbacks want to play this long? Well, the money and fame are two good reasons, but a coaching connection almost always is at play. We already mentioned the long relationship that led to DeBerg reuniting with Reeves. Testaverde played for Bill Belichick in Cleveland when he was a young player and Belichick a young coach before they rejoined in 2006.

And so it might be with Rodgers and Mike McCarthy, who were together for 13 years in Green Bay from 2006-18. If the Steelers had hired any other coach, Rodgers almost certainly would either be playing somewhere else or enjoying retirement.

A 22nd season and another tour of the NFL likely awaits. Rodgers will be hard pressed to match Brady's late-career heroics. After his Patriots career ended, Brady won the Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during his age-43 season in 2020 and also started for them at 44 and 45.

Like Brady late in his career, Rodgers is limited in his movement in and out of the pocket. The Steelers can learn something from how the Buccaneers protected Brady.

In three seasons in Tampa Bay, Brady was sacked 65 times, an average of fewer than 22 per season. In 16 starts last season (he missed one game due to a hand injury), Rodgers was sacked 29 times, including four in the season opener against the Jets. After that game, the Steelers knew they could not allow Rodgers to be hit that often and changed their protection scheme.

It wasn't necessarily a good development for the downfield passing game, but Rodgers' ability to get the ball out quickly allowed him to play most of the season in good health.

In 2021, Brady's penultimate season, he set career highs in attempts and completions and his 43 touchdown passes were the second most of his career. In his final season, he broke his own records for attempts (733) and completions (490) when he was 45.

The Steelers don't plan to throw that much, but Rodgers did attempt 498 passes last season, a number that should increase with McCarthy as coach.

Brady is the GOAT for a reason. If Rodgers wants to resemble him more than DeBerg and the others, the Steelers are going to have to protect him much better than they did a season ago.

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This story was originally published May 12, 2026 at 11:16 PM.