Huddle up!
Mandatory Credit: Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports
As the Steelers prepare to travel to London today we can only hope that a change of continents can improve their play. Looking for the positives right? Here’s what’s being said about your Pittsburgh Steelers around the block.
Steelers trying to stop Adrian Peterson
The Steelers run defense will have their toughest task of the season when the face off against the league’s best running back in Vikings Adrian Peterson. And they know it. As Teresa Varley reports, the Steelers are well aware of the damage that AP can do to a defense, and CB William Gay more personally knows. During their meeting in 2009 Peterson ran over Gay for a 29-yar reception.
"“He is a physical guy. I’ve known that since 2009 when he ran me over. The mental part, he runs the ball the same way every play. If he rushes 20-30 times, every time is going to be hard.” – William Gay"
The good news is that in the Steelers last meeting against the Vikings they held Peterson to only 69 rushing yards in the game. That’s a positive.
Ryan Clark won’t play for a London team
The Steelers will travel to London to take on the Vikings as part of a 2-game series of NFL games London will host this season as opposed to the typical one game. Naturally there is growing concern that the league will try to move more games overseas and it could result in a team being located there at some point. That idea isn’t sitting well with some players and most fans. Pro Football Talk reports that Ryan Clark spoke about the topic on ESPN and said that he’d retire before playing for an NFL team in London.
"“That team would be asked to travel eight weeks of the season extremely far away. It would be extremely tough to ask. I don’t know if guys want to relocate their families, have their families educated in London, have their families relocate to London. It just seems like a hard deal for players to do. I can’t see unrestricted top notch top caliber free agents wanting to go to London to play football.” – Ryan Clark"
Makes sense to me. The NFL already asks people to move to Cleveland. That seems punishment enough.
Roethlisberger and Bell OK
Ben Roethlisberger had to do some back tracking on Wednesday after reactions to some comments he made on his Tuesday morning radio show on 93.7 The Fan regarding rookie RB Le’Veon Bell. When asked how much pain Ben thought Bell could play through he said he didn’t know. He compared the situation to Heath Millers in saying that he didn’t question how Miller could return from injury because he’s played with him for so long. He has no such history with Bell. Naturally, because the yinzers are all about the overreacting these days, people took the comments to mean that Ben was taking a shot at Bell, who will hopefully play his first NFL game this Sunday.
"“I meant that as a compliment to Heath and just saying that I know Heath and I’ve been around Heath for a long time. I just don’t know Le’Veon well enough yet to know. I didn’t even know that (the comments) created…I’ll go say something to him and see if it hurt his feelings, but I don’t think it would have.” – Ben Roethlisberger"
Per ESPN’s Scott Brown, this was Bell’s response,
"“I’m a young guy, I’m a rookie, I haven’t been here. This is his first season with me. A lot of guys still really don’t know what I am about because I haven’t played. I just want to show him at least a little bit in this coming week.” – Le’Veon Bell"
This is the kind of thing that comes with being 0-3. Just like the talks of the locker room troubles following the 8-8 season. Nothing brings peace and harmony among everyone quite like winning. Ben is right, Bell hasn’t shown anyone anything. He was named the co-starter out of camp but in reality he has yet to play and NFL minute and we all need to relax and wait and see what he’s capable of.
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