Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has been in the NFL long enough to know when his performance isn’t getting it done. His head coach, Mike Tomlin, could say the same.
Asked how he would assess Rodgers’ game in Pittsburgh’s 25-10 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday, November 9, , Tomlin, 53, was blunt.
“How would you?” Tomlin asked in the postgame press conference. “Next.”
Rodgers, 41, threw for one touchdown and two interceptions in the game, totaling just 161 passing yards.
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Tomlin, who is in his 19th season as Steelers head coach, later took the heat off Rodgers a little by saying the entire offense underperformed.
“We as an offensive collective were off today, and certainly, he’s a component of that,” he said. “I’ll let [Rodgers] speak for himself, but we certainly got to be better. Didn’t feel like they did anything unanticipated, but certainly, they outperformed us, particularly in possession-down play.”
Rodgers had no problem owning the subpar outing during his own postgame press conference
“This was not my best performance,” he said. “I got to play better than this for us to win. Whatever it takes … if it’s better checks, if it’s better throws, whatever it is, I got to play better. I will. … We got to play better on offense, for sure. But this is part of the season. There’s ebbs and flows, there’s ups and downs, and we can’t ride the wave.”
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He continued, “A lot of stuff wasn’t working. We were bad on third down. I was just a little bit off. I missed DK [Metcalf] early. Could have been a big play. … I missed some throws for sure. And then we weren’t getting guys open … times the guys were open, I missed some throws I usually make.”
Though Rodgers wasn’t on his game on Sunday, he still has the Steelers atop the AFC North. It’s his first year with the team, coming after an eventful offseason. Not only did his free agency have its share of twists and turns, but the future Hall of Famer also got married
Rodgers has kept his marriage mostly a secret, with her identity only publicly known as “Brittani,” which has even kept other Steelers’ wives intrigued.
“She’s like a phantom,” one unidentified wife of a Pittsburgh player told the Daily Mail in an interview published on Saturday, November 8. “We all want to meet her, to invite her out, get to know her…But we haven’t met her yet. We don’t even know who she is.”
As Rodgers explained in a June appearance on ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show, his wife “didn’t want” the publicity connected with being an NFL spouse.
“And now I’m with somebody who’s private, who doesn’t want to be in the public eye,” he said. “Didn’t sign up to be a celebrity. Doesn’t want to be a part of it. Because I do things in private because I want my personal life to be private, now I’m weird.”
He continued, “My private life is my private life. It’s gonna stay that way. I’m with somebody who wants to be private. If and when she wants to be out and there’s a picture, she’ll choose that. She deserves a right to that.”