\n<\/p>\n
Aaron Rodgers signed a one-year contract to play his 21st NFL season with the Pittsburgh Steelers thanks to Mike Tomlin. Rodgers’ Green Bay Packers defeated Tomlin’s Steelers in Super Bowl XLV at the end of the 2010 season. In the years that followed, the four-time league MVP quarterback’s appreciation continued to grow for Tomlin, the latest pillar of stability in a Steelers organization bolstered by strong leadership.<\/p>\n
Tomlin waited for Rodgers this past season when the 42-year-old player decided that he still wanted to continue playing football. Rodgers paid him back with 10 wins and an AFC North title \u2014 and the constant support in front of the microphones the veteran signal-caller loathes.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
“Mike T has had more success than anybody in the league over the last 19, 20 years,” Rodgers said, via ESPN, after Pittsburgh lost its seventh straight postseason game under Tomlin, a 30-6 wild-card loss Monday night to the Houston Texans.<\/p>\n
“And more than that, though, if 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 from outside, and obviously that drives decisions at times.<\/p>\n
“But that’s not the way I’m going to do things, not how the league used to be.<\/p>\n
The decision about Tomlin’s future was ultimately his to make, however. Steelers owner Art Rooney II confirmed that on Wednesday when he told reporters that he is willing to welcome the NFL’s longest-tenured coach back for the 2026 campaign.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Yet Tomlin, 53, stepped down after a 19-year run that produced the franchise’s sixth Super Bowl victory and eight titles without a single losing season. Tomlin was the first to break the news, and he did so in the team’s meeting room on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
That’s when Rodgers was heard crying and repeatedly telling Tomlin, “I’m sorry,” according to a graphic report by Mike DeFabo from The Athletic.<\/p>\n
Speaking to a group of players, coaches and staff, DeFabo revealed the emotions that Tomlin’s final speech as head coach in the Steel City had sparked. The Athletic’s story highlights the disbelief and grief that filled the Steelers center earlier this week.<\/p>\n
NFL rankings are never the same from year to year. The constant in the league is change. Tomlin indicated that he will be a part of that change in his speech with his players on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
“I had a feeling that the meeting was going to go completely differently,” one anonymous player told The Athletic.<\/p>\n
“When he said, ‘Some of us will be there and some of us won’t, that’s when I was like, ‘Is this guy really going down?’<\/p>\n
Steelers running back TJ Watt was stunned as Tomlin revealed his decision to leave the team he coached for nearly two decades, including during the 31-year-old’s career.<\/p>\n
“No. No. No. No. No,” an emotional Watt reportedly said repeatedly.<\/p>\n
Third-year Pittsburgh quarterback Joey Porter Jr. grew up with the Steelers. His father played for the franchise from 1999-2006 and was part of the Super Bowl XL team that recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of its world championship in the 2005 season. He then went on to coach Tomlin’s staff from 2014-18 before his son launched his career at Penn State.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Porter Jr. and Tomlin went back.<\/p>\n
When the young DB heard the news, he almost gasped, according to a report by The Athletic.<\/p>\n
The “Fire Tomlin” chants were hard to ignore this season, as the Steelers danced around .500 before bouncing back and pushing for the division crown in the injury-riddled AFC North.<\/p>\n
The nine-year drought without a finals win has angered the fans. Many of them believed that it was indeed time for a change.<\/p>\n
The Steelers, however, remained steadfast in their belief that Tomlin was the right man for the job, and they wanted to help him get back over the postseason hump.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
“Every single player in that building wants to play for Mike T,” one anonymous player told The Athletic. “Are the guys upset by the producers? Yes. Was it the main guy? No.”<\/p>\n
Tomlin has two years left on his Steelers contract. If he wants to train for another NFL team before the end of the 2027 season, Pittsburgh has the right to demand compensation. But Rooney said on Wednesday Tomlin told him he didn’t plan to coach anytime soon.<\/p>\n
The decision he revealed on Tuesday seems to be very important in that way.<\/p>\n
A Steelers employee told The Athletic that the atmosphere in the meeting room “felt like a funeral.”<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Tomlin reportedly received praise after his speech and hugged the players one by one.<\/p>\n
It was the end of an era, and the season that began when Rodgers signed with hopes of playoff success.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Aaron Rodgers signed a one-year contract to play his 21st NFL season with the Pittsburgh Steelers thanks to Mike Tomlin. Rodgers’ Green Bay Packers defeated Tomlin’s Steelers in Super Bowl XLV at the end of the 2010 season. In the years that followed, the four-time league MVP quarterback’s appreciation continued to grow for Tomlin, the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1986"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1988,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986\/revisions\/1988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}