The Pittsburgh ended yet another season without winning a playoff game, something the organization hasn’t done since the 2016 season. Fans in Pittsburgh have become increasingly fed up over the years, and even chanted for head coach Mike Tomlin to be fired during the 30-6 loss to the Houston Texans.
It’s a sentiment that quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who very well might have played his last game on Monday night, staunchly disagrees with.
“Mike T. has had more success than damn near anybody in the league for the last 19, 20 years,” Rodgers said after the loss, according to ESPN. “And more than that, though, when you have the right guy and the culture is right, you don’t think about making a change, but there’s a lot of pressure that comes from the outside and obviously that sways decisions from time to time. But it’s not how I would do things and not how the league used to be.”
Rodgers compared Tomlin’s situation to that of Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LeFleur, who is also facing uncertainty around his future after a Wild Card round loss.
“When I first got in the league, there wouldn’t be conversation about whether those guys were on the hot seat,” Rodgers said. “But the way that the league is covered now and the way that there’s snap decisions and the validity given to the Twitter experts and all the experts on TV now who make it seem like they know what the hell they’re talking about, to me that’s an absolute joke.
“And for either those two guys to be on the hot seat is really apropos of where we’re at as a society and a league, because obviously Matt’s done a lot of great things in Green Bay, and we had a lot of success.”
For his part, Tomlin said he hasn’t thought about his future in Pittsburgh just yet.
“I’m not even in that mindset as I sit here tonight,” he said. “I’m more in the mindset of what transpired in this stadium and certainly what we did and didn’t do. Not a big-picture mentality as I sit here tonight.”
He might want to start thinking about it.
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.