Aaron Rodgers played what could end up being his final NFL game on Monday night as his Pittsburgh Steelers fell to the Houston Texans with a 30-6 final score in the wild card round.
Rodgers was asked a variety of questions during his postgame press conference, including queries about his NFL future and the future of his head coach, Mike Tomlin.
In his response, Rodgers gave an impassioned defense of Tomlin and his former Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur.
Following the Packers’ wild card round loss to the Chicago Bears, there’s been some speculation regarding LaFleur’s future as head coach in Green Bay.
“I mean, this league has changed a lot in my 21 years,” Rodgers said, via The Athletic. “You know, when you hear conversation about the Mike Tomlins of the world, Matt LaFleurs of the world. Those are just two that I played for. And when I first got in the league, there wouldn’t be conversations about whether those guys were on the hot seat, 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 you 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 a league,” Rodgers continued, “Because obviously Matt’s done a lot of great things in Green Bay and we had a lot of success. Mike T.’s had more success than damn near anybody in the league for the last 19, 20 years. And more than that, though, when you have the right guy and the culture’s 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.”
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LaFleur was taken aback by Rodgers’ kind words.
“I’m speechless,” the Packers coach texted Michael Silver of The Athletic early Tuesday morning. “He didn’t have to do that, but he did. (It’s) one of the nicest compliments (of) my life. I’m so appreciative of him for that.”
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After LaFleur took over as head coach in 2019, Rodgers and the Packers made back-to-back NFC Championship appearances. Green Bay has not made it past the divisional round since.
LaFleur is reportedly working on a new deal with the Packers as he enters the final season of his current contract.