If Monday turns out to be Rodgers’ last game in the NFL, it would be a most inappropriate conclusion to such a great career. His final pass will have been caught by Texans quarterback Calen Bullock, who returned a 50-yard interception to Rodgers for his first career playoff touchdown.
Rodgers was 17-of-33 for 146 yards, an interception and a 50.8 ERA. His size and rating — along with six points scored — were all career lows in the postseason.
Rodgers’ opponent on Monday night, CJ Stroud, had an equally disastrous night as he fumbled five times with two lost and an interception. However, the inability of Rodgers and the Steelers’ offense to cash in ultimately had Pittsburgh settling for a game Houston led 10-6 entering the fourth quarter.
The Texans scored 23 points in the fourth quarter, the knockout blow coming when Rodgers was starved by Will Anderson Jr. and Sheldon Rankins for a sack — one of Rodgers’ four — with Rankins then rumbling 33 yards for a score. As a result, Rodgers was unable to catch any touchdowns from the Steelers, but the Texans scored two of his turnovers, marking the game as the first since the Chicago Bears’ 73-0 NFL Championship game win over Washington in 1940 that a team – the Texans – scored multiple touchdowns and allowed zero in a playoff contest.
It added to Pittsburgh’s NFL record fifth consecutive playoff run with double-digit points — and seventh overall.
With yet another unique playoff appearance in Pittsburgh, questions about Tomlin’s tenure — the longest currently in the NFL — will abound. The issue has been a constant topic of conversation throughout the 10-7 season in which the Steelers rallied for the AFC North title. NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport reported during the season that Tomlin would not be fired and if he did not coach in 2026 it would be Tomlin’s choice, perhaps taking a year off.
Rodgers thinks questioning Tomlin’s safety — or even his former Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur — is a pretty silly reality of the current NFL landscape.
“This league has changed a lot in my 21 years,” said Rodgers, who won four AP NFL MVPs with the Packers from 2005-2022. “When you hear a conversation about the Mike Tomlins of the world, the Matt LaFleurs of the world, those are just the two that I played for. When I first came into the league, there was no discussion about whether these guys were on the hot seat. But the way the league is covered now and the way it’s snap decisions and the value given to the Twitter experts on TV and they know what the hell the experts are on Twitter. Speaking of, to me it’s a real joking about which of these guys is on the hot seat is really based on where we are as a community and a league because obviously Matt has done a lot of great things in Green Bay and we’ve had more success than damn near anyone in the league in the last 19 years right, you don’t think about changing but there’s a lot of pressure coming from the outside and obviously it changes decisions from time to time, but that’s not how I would do things and not how the league was.”