After a tough 30-6 home loss to the Houston Texans in the wild card round on Monday night, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who played for current Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur from 2019 to 2022, voiced his opinion on the idea of LaFleur being on the hot seat after going 76-40-1 in in the coach’s first seven regular seasons but failing to win an NFC Championship.
This league has changed a lot in my 21 years. You know, when you hear conversations about the Mike Tomlins of
the world, the Matt LaFleurs of the world. Those are just kind of two that I’ve played for. When I first got in the league, there wouldn’t be conversations about whether those guys are on the hot seat.
You know, but with the way the league is covered now and the way 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 of those two guys to be on the hot seat is really apropos of where we’re at as a society and the league, because, obviously, Matt’s done a lot of great things in Green Bay and we had a lot of success. Mike T has had more success than damn near anybody in the league, for the last 19-20 years.
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 that’s not how I would do things and not how the league used to be.
Rodgers wouldn’t comment on whether or not he planned on retiring after this game, one which he finished with a 50.8 passer rating and a 14.3 QBR against maybe the league’s best defense. If this was his last game, his professional football career ended with a pick-six taken back 50 yards by Texans safety Calen Bullock. On the following drive, Rodgers stood on the sideline as backup quarterback Mason Rudolph came in to play the last six plays of the game, five of which were handoffs to Steelers running backs.
Tomlin, who has been the head coach of the Steelers since 2007, also wouldn’t comment on a potential retirement or firing from his post after the game.
