Aaron Rodgers was really hoping to be able to check out Lambeau Field as a visitor for the first (and only) time in his legendary NFL career.
Rodgers’ Pittsburgh Steelers will play his former team, the Green Bay Packers, in the preseason. For a while, it wasn’t certain whether that game would be in Green Bay or in Pittsburgh.
It will ultimately be played in Pittsburgh on Thursday night. That led to Rodgers lamenting the fact that he won’t be able to be a visitor at Lambeau while he’s still playing.
He told Green Bay media on a Zoom call that he was hoping it was going to be an away game for his team.
“When I heard it was possible to play both my former teams, I was really hoping this one was going to be in Green Bay, not just to get back at Lambeau one more time, but to head out to Chives [restaurant] for a dinner and maybe head out to Green Bay Country Club for a quick nine or something. I was really hoping it was going to be in Green Bay for a lot of reasons,” Rodgers said, according to Rob Demovsky of ESPN.
While Rodgers admitted that it would have been strange to be in the visitors’ locker room, there would be plenty of people at Lambeau he would have loved to see. He would have found a way of getting over that initial awkwardness to see some of the “people I really care about that still work there.”
Rodgers will one day be able to go to Lambeau whenever he wants. He’s said that this 2026 season will be his last in the NFL, and a few years after he officially hangs them up, the Packers will undoubtedly put his name onto the stadium facade alongside other Green Bay legends like Curly Lambeau, Don Hutson, Vince Lombardi, Ray Nitschke and Brett Favre, among others.
Aaron Rodgers will wait for an invite to return to Lambeau Field
The Packers will undoubtedly retire his iconic green and gold No. 12, and eventually, he’ll be wearing the gold jacket bestowed upon all the members of the NFL’s Hall of Fame.
In the meantime, though, Rodgers isn’t going to simply invite himself back to Lambeau as the guest of honor. He’s going to wait to hear from the Packers.
“Well, there first has to be an invite back,” Rodgers said, speaking of all the pomp and circumstance that will surround his eventual return to Green Bay. “We’ll see about that, but yeah, I’m always going to have such a strong tie to Green Bay and the organization. If that comes to fruition, that could be a cool deal.”
