Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers might not be in a partnership anymore, but both of their seasons came to an end during Wild Card Weekend. Rodgers and the Pittsburgh Steelers were blown out by the Houston Texans on Monday night, while the Packers blew an 18-point lead against the Bears on Saturday night.
Rodgers' former team and current team's head coaches have both been on the hot seat, and the losses won't help with those conversations.
Rodgers spoke about that in his postgame press conference and didn't hold back when defending both Matt LaFleur, his former head coach in Green Bay, and Mike Tomlin, his current head coach in Pittsburgh.
"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 the league, because, obviously, Matt’s done a lot of great things in Green Bay and we had a lot of success," Rodgers said about his former head coach. "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 that’s not how I would do things and not how the league used to be."
Aaron Rodgers got brutally honest about whether Packers should fire Matt LaFleur
This is a strong statement from Rodgers, and he's yet another player who thinks LaFleur should remain the head coach in Green Bay.
Considering that both Jordan Love and Micah Parsons have also stood up for LaFleur and advocated for him to keep his job, and now someone as notable as Rodgers is doing the same, it feels more than likely that LaFleur will be returning for another year with the Packers.
Rodgers hasn't played a snap for the Packers or LaFleur since 2022, but it was awfully nice of him to defend his former head coach when he didn't have to. While Rodgers and LaFleur didn't reach a Super Bowl when they were both in Green Bay, the team was always competitive, especially in their first three years together.
Rodgers could be heading toward retirement -- and he spoke plenty about that in his press conference -- but giving his former head coach a glowing endorsement on the way out was a classy move from him. We'll have to see if the Packers end up listening to their former franchise quarterback.