Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers made history with his second touchdown pass of Sunday’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
With his 1-yard scoring toss to Randall Cobb with 4:46 left in the third quarter, Rodgers has thrown 420 career touchdown passes. The second touchdown pass of the day to Cobb tied Hall of Famer Dan Marino for sixth on the NFL’s all-time list.
Rodgers could make more history. With one more touchdown pass, he’d tie Philip Rivers for fifth all-time.
Tom Brady (591 and counting), Drew Brees (571), Peyton Manning (539) and Brett Favre (508) top the NFL’s all-time list.
Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger started the day with 399 career touchdown passes. He joined the 400-touchdown club on the opening possession.
“It’s the ole cliché – everyone says it’s the quarterbacks against each other, and then we’ll say, ‘No, we play against the defense,’” Roethilsberger said this week. “But it’s still an honor to share a stadium with one of the greatest and a guy that I admire, and a lot of people admire that has just done it at such a high level for a long time. It’s pretty cool to watch his mastery of the game. I just hope that this week our defense can hold up and maybe have something to say about it.”
This was just the third Rodgers vs. Roethlisberger matchup. Pittsburgh won Round 1, 37-36 on Dec. 20, 2009, on Roethlisberger’s 19-yard touchdown pass to Mike Wallace on the final play of the game. A year later, Rodgers won the rematch, 31-25, in Super Bowl XLV. Rodgers was 24-of-39 passing for 304 yards and three touchdowns to win MVP honors.
Rodgers missed games against Pittsburgh in 2013 and 2017 with broken collarbones. In three career regular-season games against Green Bay, Roethlisberger has completed 65.6 percent of his passes for 1,021 yards with nine touchdowns and three interceptions.
He entered the game ranked sixth in NFL history in completions, seventh in yards and eighth in touchdowns. He entered the day with 61,149 passing yards, 212 yards behind Marino for sixth.
“I haven’t spent any time with him outside of the few times getting to see him on the field,” Rodgers said on Wednesday. “He was drafted in the draft right before me, 2004, with him and Eli (Manning) and Phil, so have always followed his career pretty closely. He’s had a lot of success. He’s had a great career, Hall of Fame career, but it is strange we’ve played just the two times.”
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