Rodgers backs Tomlin: 'Absolute joke' if on hot seat

PITTSBURGH -- For the second time in six weeks, fans at Acrisure Stadium audibly called for Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin to be fired.

On Monday night, the "Fire Tomlin" chants started midway through the fourth quarter, as the Houston Texans turned a defensive slugfest into a blowout 30-6 loss in an AFC wild-card game, handing the Steelers their seventh straight playoff loss.

While fans began streaming out of the stadium after the Texans went up 18 points on Woody Marks' 13-yard touchdown run, those who stayed behind relentlessly booed and called for Tomlin's dismissal over the final few minutes of the Steelers' season.

Afterward, Tomlin was brief as he acknowledged the fans' frustration.

"When you don't get it done, words are cheap," he said. "It's about what you do or you don't do. And so, I appreciate the question, but people talk too much in our business. You either do or you don't."

With the loss, Tomlin became the first head coach in franchise history to go nine consecutive seasons between playoff wins. Though Tomlin has never had a losing season, his teams have lost their past seven postseason games and had six first-round exits.

Quarterback Aaron Rodgers, though, was defiant and steadfast in his support of the 53-year-old coach, who clinched his 193rd regular-season win in Week 18 against the Baltimore Ravens. That milestone victory tied him with Hall of Fame coach Chuck Noll for ninth all time.

"Mike T. has had more success than damn near anybody in the league for the last 19, 20 years," Rodgers said. "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 not only supported Tomlin, who has been at the helm of the Steelers for 19 seasons, but he also expressed confidence in his former Green Bay Packers coach, Matt LaFleur, who is expected to reach an extension with the organization, sources told ESPN's Adam Schefter on Monday. After the Packers' 31-27 wild-card loss to the Chicago Bears on Saturday, though, LaFleur's future appeared shaky as he was set to enter the offseason with one year left on his contract.

"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."

Tomlin enters the offseason under team control for two more seasons. The Steelers, who've had only three head coaches since hiring Noll in 1969, have to make a decision on Tomlin's club option for the 2027 season by March 1. Asked about his approach to his future, Tomlin said he wasn't in a "big-picture mentality."

"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."

Defensive captain Cameron Heyward, drafted No. 31 by the Steelers in 2011, also voiced support for Tomlin in the wake of the audible fan unrest.

"I don't really care about that noise because they don't know what Mike T. puts into this," Heyward said, standing in a near-empty locker room late Monday night. "They don't know how he goes out of his way to prepare every man. They don't know about the countless nights that man is in there studying film. Coach is going to do so much, players have to play better. And in those critical moments that players are going to step up."

Though Tomlin remains under contract with the Steelers for the immediate future, Rodgers does not. His one-year, $13.65 million deal is set to expire, making the 42-year-old quarterback a free agent for the second time in his career. Rodgers told "The Pat McAfee Show" over the summer that he was "pretty sure" the 2025 season would be his last, though he recently left the door open to returning. Rodgers said Monday night that the wild-card loss, in which he completed only 17 of 33 attempts for 146 yards with a pick-six and a sack-fumble returned for a touchdown, wouldn't affect his decision.

"I'm not going to make any emotional decisions," he said. "At this point, obviously such a fun year. A lot of adversity, but a lot of fun. Been a great year overall in my life in the last year, and this is a really good part of that, coming here and being part of this team. So it's disappointing to be sitting here with the season over."

Rodgers added that the process of determining his future is to "just get away and then have the right conversations."

Heyward, who is also in the twilight of his career, declined to weigh in on Rodgers' future, but he expressed gratitude for the opportunity to play with the quarterback.

"If 8 wants to come back, he's got the right to come back," Heyward said. "I'd like to see him come back, but I'm not going to make that decision. That's not fair to the Steelers. It's not fair to 8. Have a lot of respect for the organization and Aaron.

"The dude's earned my respect for what he's been through this year. And he's a hell of a teammate. I'm just very thankful I got to play with that quarterback."

With the loss, the Steelers became the first team in NFL history to lose five straight playoff games by double digits, according to ESPN Research.