• Aaron Rodgers’ best performance in years: Rodgers’ 87.5 passing grade marked the 84th 80.0-plus game of his career, but his first since Week 17 of 2021 — and his only one of the 2025 campaign.

• A masterclass against the blitz: Rodgers excelled against the blitz, completing 9 of 12 passes for 119 yards and a touchdown at 9.9 yards per attempt with a quick 2.32-second time to throw. He added three big-time throws, posted a career-tying 90% accuracy rate, and finished with a 133.7 passer rating.

• Get PFF+ for 30% off: Use promo code HOLIDAY30 to unlock the PFF Player Prop Tool, Premium Stats, fantasy dashboards, the PFF Mock Draft Simulator, industry-leading fantasy rankings and much more — everything you need to win your season.

Aaron Rodgers walked into Week 14 with heavy criticism building around him, the same way it had for the entire Pittsburgh Steelers organization after their Week 13 collapse.

After a blowout Week 13 loss to the Buffalo Bills triggered “Fire Mike Tomlin!” chants at Acrisure Stadium, blame didn’t fall solely on the head coach — Rodgers’ play had become part of the problem, too.

Through 13 weeks, Rodgers had earned a 59.4 overall grade and a 60.4 passing grade, ranking 36th and 33rd among 42 qualifying quarterbacks. But his recent run told a far worse story. Passing grades of 36.2, 40.3 and 45.7 in Weeks 10, 11 and 13 produced one of the roughest three-game stretches of his career, and his 32.9 passing grade from Weeks 10-13 ranked 38th among 38 qualifiers over that span.

Aaron Rodgers: Passing grades in 2025

But like the Steelers in Baltimore, something flipped.

Rodgers responded with his best performance in almost three years. He went 23-for-34 for 284 yards and a touchdown, avoided interceptions and added five big-time throws with no turnover-worthy plays.

His 87.5 passing grade marked the 84th 80.0-plus game of his career, but his first since Week 17 of 2021 — and his only one of the 2025 campaign.

In terms of accuracy, Rodgers was excellent. He placed 65.5% of his passes on target — the fourth-best rate of his season — and was charted as perfectly accurate on 17.2% of his attempts, also the fourth-best mark of the year.

He then steered an offense that averaged 0.21 EPA per pass play, a 69th-percentile single-game output this season and a dramatic shift from previous weeks, where his passing performances landed in the 2nd percentile (Week 10, –0.52 EPA), 19th percentile (Week 11, –0.21 EPA) and 3rd percentile (Week 13, –0.50 EPA).

Rodgers handled the routine work from a clean pocket, completing 17 of 23 passes for 157 yards, a touchdown and two big-time throws, good for a 106.6 passer rating. But it was his play under pressure that truly elevated the outing.

On snaps where the defense moved him off his spot, he went 6-of-11 for 127 yards with three big-time throws, no turnover-worthy plays and not a single negative grade on those 11 dropbacks, earning a 92.7 PFF grade under pressure — one of only 19 times in his career he’s been mistake-free on pressured dropbacks, and the eighth-best pressured passing grade he’s ever recorded.

Aaron Rodgers: Best performances under pressure (since 2006)

Rodgers excelled against the blitz, completing 9 of 12 passes for 119 yards and a touchdown at 9.9 yards per attempt with a quick 2.32-second time to throw. He added three big-time throws, posted a career-tying 90% accuracy rate, and finished with a 133.7 passer rating. His 5.2-yard aDOT and heavy YAC share (65.5%) show the scheme and supporting cast helped, but relative to his 2025 baseline, it was a clear win.

He also reconnected with his downfield aggression. Rodgers threw 10-plus yards downfield on 26.5% of his attempts and went 5-of-9 for 165 yards in that range, earning a 93.5 PFF grade. Four of his big-time throws came on these deeper attempts, and he finished with the third-highest downfield passing grade of the week — his best single-game mark in that area since Week 8 of the 2022 season.

Week 14 doesn’t mean Rodgers is “back,” but it does prove the slide wasn’t permanent. He played clean, aggressive, efficient football — something he hadn’t come close to over the previous month.

And if he can stack performances like this, Pittsburgh’s ceiling changes.