The 2017 NFL season for the Pittsburgh Steelers came to a disappointing end after falling to the surprising Jacksonville Jaguars in the AFC Divisional Round. Needless to say, the Steelers have taken scathing criticism for seemingly overlooking the Jaguars. This is especially the case for head coach Mike Tomlin.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, defensive end Cameron Heyward could not disagree more with the recent takes.

“It’s a load of crap to me,” Heyward said. “We’re grown men. We’re not in Little League. We lost the game, and we overcame a lot. A lot of teams would have fallen by the wayside. ‘Coach T’ kept everyone focused and moving on to the next problem. Obviously, we had too many problems to deal with, but that’s not on him. … It falls on me and Ben. We’re leaders. As much as we talk about the drama and stuff, it wasn’t like guys were getting arrested or anything, or being caught with stuff. We’ll move past it. It’s nothing that will stick with this team.”

Toward the end of the regular season, Tomlin was admittedly hyped for a potential rematch with the New England Patriots in the AFC Conference Championship.

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Safety Mike Mitchell was too. In fact, he was so hyped that he mentioned the Pats prior to even taking the field against the young Jags, via Greg Bishop of Sports Illustrated.

“We’re going to play [the Patriots] again,” Mitchell said. “We can play them in hell, we can play them in Haiti, we can play them in New England. … We’re gonna win.”

Obviously, the Steelers once again were unable to reach the expectations they had for themselves.

As a result, there is plenty of speculation regarding Tomlin's future in Pittsburgh should they again fall short of a Super Bowl appearance next year.  That said, Steelers players like Heyward have been adamant that their head coach is the right man for the job.