PITTSBURGH — Mike Tomlin had no interest in shucking the weight of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ recent failures in the NFL playoffs onto the shoulders of his players heading into Monday night’s visit by the Houston Texans.
“I’m certainly not going to unpack my bags on the collective’s bed, if you will,” said Tomlin, who will take a six-game postseason losing streak onto the Acrisure Stadium turf as AFC North Division champion Pittsburgh (10-7), the AFC’s No. 4 seed, hosts the South runner-up Texans (12-5), who are seeded fifth but streaking into this wild-card matchup.
The Steelers seem intent on carrying that anyway, their veteran quarterback perhaps most of all.
Aaron Rodgers, in the late stages of his 21st and perhaps final season — but first with the Steelers after the past two with the New York Jets and the rest with the Green Bay Packers — is well-versed in how things work. The four-time NFL MVP wasn’t immune to the noise that reached a hard-to-avoid level in late November, when fans chanted for Tomlin’s firing near the end of a blowout loss to the Buffalo Bills that left the Steelers’ record at 6-6.
“A lot of you probably in this group, either publicly or privately, were talking about Mike T. getting axed,” Rodgers said. “So it feels good to shut all those comments down. It’s a clean slate now. Anybody can make a run.”