Steelers' Aaron Rodgers Farewell Tour Has Finally Begun

The Steelers are having fun. This team is winning, overcoming injuries, sticking together and finding success, all while enjoying their time together. And it's all backed by their quarterback, who, very quietly, is marching through his final NFL season. Now, he may be doing it with a little more noise behind him from the fanbase and the players.

An NFL locker room can look one of two ways for a journalist. If the team is losing, or barely getting by during a season, it's gloomy. Players are quiet, there isn't much going on and no one wants to talk.

If the team is winning, it's a complete 180. You'll walk by players and they'll say, "What's up?" You hear a ton of laughter and players joking around. Everyone seems to be in a good mood, and you can feel the lightness and the excitement about practice or a game in the air.

The Steelers locker room is light as air right now.

They're a 5-2 football team that's fighting for the top spot in the AFC North, who believe in each other and are winning games through different parts, and different players, on this team. That's exactly what you're looking for in the NFL, and Pittsburgh is well aware of it.

Rodgers Farewell Tour

Then, there's Rodgers. The 42-year-old quarterback hasn't made a big deal of his final season, and neither have the Steelers.

This won't be a situation where the jumbotron puts up "Thank You, Aaron" and he walks through the crowd and cries while hugging all of the fans. Rodgers is not Ben Roethlisberger in the city of Pittsburgh, but the fans are starting to believe in this guy. And when you believe in your team's quarterback, you believe in the team.

Rodgers is making Steelers Nation a believer, and they'll be right behind him through his final run because of it.

There's a magic to a farewell tour. Everyone has one they remember most, whether it's Ray Lewis and the Baltimore Ravens, Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos, or Jerome Bettis and the Steelers. You remember how different the team felt, and how the eventual goodbye of an iconic player just felt like it couldn't go any other way but by holding up a Lombardi Trophy.

Not everyone gets that moment, and maybe Rodgers won't. But the belief that it's possible is always stronger when the farewell tour feels real.

With chains on his neck, sunglasses on his face and a grin from a Steelers legend standing next to him, Rodgers not only officially became a member of Steeler Nation, but his last rodeo in the NFL became overwhelmingly real.

How far will this farewell tour go? We'll find out. But the magic is real, and when it is, you just never know what's going to happen in the NFL.