Steelers News: Shazier, Porter, Bryant

The Steelers returned to Pittsburgh Saturday night after a contentious win over the Bengals.

The Steelers are all about business and business is definitely booming. While the team recovers from the Bengals and prepares to take on the Broncos we’ll be busy looking for mentions of your Black & Gold so we’ve got you covered. Here’s your Steelers Morning Huddle for Sunday, Jan. 10^th.

Digest Player of the Week

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Steelers rookie linebacker

Ryan Shazier

is your

Steelers Digest Player of the Week

for his outstanding performance on Saturday night against the Bengals. Shazier had 13 tackles, two forced fumbles and a fumble recovery.

The most important forced fumble came in the final 96 seconds of the game when he and Jarvis Jones forced the fumble from Bengals running back Jeremy Hill that was recovered by Ross Cockrell. That recovery led to the 35-yard field winning field goal by Chris Boswell.

Who ride?

Early in Saturday night’s game a Steelers coaching assistant got involved into the “chippiness” between the two teams when offensive line coach Mike Munchak was flagged for pushing Bengals safety Reggie Nelson on the Steelers’ sideline.

Clearly Joey Porter wasn’t about to be outdone by an offensive line coach (sarcasm). Porter went onto the field late in the game following the hit on Antonio Brown by Vontaze Burfict. ESPN News reminds us that the rules state that typically staff, trainers, attendants and the head coach will come out to check on an injured player but they will allow additional staff and players if the injury appears to be serious.

Porter was confronted by Cincinnati’s Adam Jones and the officials ended up flagging Jones for a penalty that advanced the Steelers into field goal range. The Bengals gave up 30 yards in penalties in those final seconds between Burfict and Jones. Porter will likely be fined by the league, according to ESPN, but something tells me he won’t mind a bit.

Next: Steelers out-class Bengals for win

Responding to the challenge

This week Ben Roethlisberger challenged receiver Martavis Bryant to “toughen up” and especially, as Teresa Varley points out, “make tough catches.” Bryant responded with one of the best touchdown catches we’ve seen in a long time. Let’s just take another look at it.

It’s a butt touchdown, a butt-down, if you will. The exact opposite of a butt fumble. It was the only Steelers touchdown of the night and it was awesome.