Aaron Rodgers Has Thrown His 500th Touchdown

When Aaron Rodgers’s name has come up during this NFL season, it’s largely been for reasons other than football. Some of that might be circumstantial: after all, Rodgers missed the vast majority of the 2023 season due to an injury and has emerged as an especially prominent, as the saying goes, vaccine skeptic. That he plays on the New York Jets, a team that currently blends lackluster gameday results and epic dysfunction off the field, doesn’t help matters.

To phrase it differently, Rodgers’s public persona has had a way of outshining his other attributes lately. (Which is not to say that he’s had a stellar season — he hasn’t.) And given the Jets’ season to date, it’s also meant that Rodgers has had a tantalizingly long wait to become the fifth quarterback in NFL history to throw 500 touchdown passes. But in Sunday’s Jets-Dolphins game, Rodgers pulled it off, joining Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning and Brett Favre in a very exclusive club.

Going into the game, Rodgers had thrown 499 touchdown passes overall. Over the course of the Jets-Dolphins game, he added four to that count, putting his tally at 503. Writing at NJ.com, Andy Vasquez noted that Rodgers’s pass to Tyler Conklin in the second quarter ended the drought that Rodgers had experienced during the Jets’ previous games against the Rams and the Bills.

Three more touchdown passes — to Allen Lazard, Davante Adams and Breece Hall — followed, with the Jets helping to eliminate the Dolphins from postseason play with a 32-20 victory.

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With the question “Will Aaron Rodgers break the 500 touchdown pass mark?” now definitely answered, football fans can now move on to the next big question around Rodgers: will he retire now that the Jets’ season is over? As USA Today‘s Chris Bumbaca reports, Rodgers did not have a definitive answer to that question after the game.

“I just need some time away to think about my future in the game and my future here, if they want me to be part of the next phase or if they’re ready to move on,” Rodgers said after the game. In other words, we’ll need to wait a little longer to see what the future has in store for both Rodgers and the Jets.