The Associated Press PITTSBURGH — Mike Tomlin has no interest in shucking the weight of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ recent playoff failures onto the shoulders of his players heading into Monday night’s opening-round visit by Houston. “I’m certainly not going to unpack my bags on th e collective’s bed, if you will,” said Tomlin, who will take a six-game postseason losing streak onto the Acrisure Stadium turf to face the streaking Texans. The Steelers (10-7) seem intent on carrying it anyway, their future Hall of Fame quarterback perhaps most of all. Aaron Rodgers, in the late stages of his 21st and perhaps final season, is well-versed in how things work. He wasn’t immune to the noise that reached a hard-to-avoid level in late November when fans chanted for Tomlin’s firing near the end of a blowout loss to Buffalo that left the Steelers at 6-6. “A lot of you probably in this group, either publicly or privately, were talking about Mike T. getting axed,” Rodgers said. “So it feels good to shut all those comments down. It’s a clean slate now. Anybody can make a run.” That includes, Rodgers believes, his own erratic team. Pittsburgh responded from the messy end against the Bills by winning four of five to earn its first AFC North title in five years, the final win coming in a heart-stopper in Week 18 against Baltimore that ended up costing longtime Ravens coach John Harbaugh his job. Tomlin survived, as he has every year for nearly two decades. But he hasn’t won a playoff game since the 2016 season. With a misstep against the impressive Texans and the NFL’s top-ranked defense, the volume about Tomlin’s job status will no doubt be turned back up, even if the conversation is a non-starter internally for a coach whose next losing season will be his first. “They’ve got to find something to try and get after him,” Rodgers said. “Mike T.’s probably like me, though. He doesn’t (care a whole lot) about any of those comments. (But) we all love him. We want to play for him. We want to win for him.” Tomlin and the Steelers aren’t the only ones who will bring some baggage to the final game of wild-card weekend. Houston (12-5) comes to Pittsburgh riding a nine-game winning streak but also still searching for its road playoff victory in the franchise’s 24-year history. The Texans are 5-3 away from NRG Stadium this season, though just one of those wins came against a team that reached the playoffs. Coach DeMeco Ryans thinks his players have “handled themselves pretty well on the road,” though the energy and the stakes will be far higher against a Steelers team that hasn’t lost a Monday night home game since 1991. Then again, considering the hole the Texans were in after a 3-5 start, in a way their postseason started two months ago. “Our guys know how to win football games,” Ryans said. “That doesn’t change because we’re in the playoffs. We’ve been in that mode for a while now.” ...read more read less