After a brutal first-round exit in the AFC Wild Card Round, Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin was quick to announce that he’d be stepping down from the role. After the prime of quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, Tomlin has led lackluster quarterbacks to a winning record each season, but has struggled to go on a serious run. With mixed feelings online, all fans are curious exactly how much of this was up to the coach. While questions remain, the aftershock is hitting the players, who have things to say.
Fox Sports confirms details surrounding quarterback Aaron Rodgers and the ongoing coaching situation. “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,” said Rodgers.
Things got emotional with Rogers that day. MSN reports that Rogers was sobbing near the end of his availability. The quarterback went as far as to accept responsibility for this situation, apologizing to his former coach on the way out. It’s unclear at this time what both of these future Hall of Famers plan to do next season.
The ripples didn’t end there. Yahoo! Sports confirms information regarding linebacker TJ Watt and other players. The veteran was visibly emotional during Tomlin’s announcement, repeatedly shaking his head in disbelief. Another anonymous Steeler said, “He’s the only (coach) that guys wanted to do it for. You think we didn’t want to get that monkey off his back that the whole city has been berating him for? Yeah, we all wanted that. That’s why it sucks.”
MSN also confirmed what JJ Watt had to say about the reporting around the emotional Rogers. He quoted a post from Andrew Fillipponi, who was sharing the reporting from Mike DeFabo of The Athletic. They both shared the information about an emotional Rodgers. “Feels like this moment could have stayed in the meeting room,” Watt wrote on X.
Until the Steelers find their franchise quarterback, fans of the team should likely expect further growing pains. Even Pittsburgh’s typical dominant defense fell to the bottom of the barrel this year. While the media-driven heat was obvious, it’s unclear how much pressure he was truly under, or how much say he had in this decision.
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