The Pittsburgh Steelers’ most intense division rivalry in recent years has been with the Baltimore Ravens. That may all be changing thanks to the dirty tactics of the Cincinnati Bengals.
You know the story by now. The Bengals are no good at winning playoff games. For five years in a row they have made the postseason but haven’t been able to come away with a victory.
While they can’t get the job done themselves they sure did a good job of playing the spoiler for the Steelers this year.
If not for a few brutal plays by Cincinnati linebacker Vontaze Burfict, Pittsburgh’s season might have gone a totally different way. Halfway through the year he took out Le’Veon Bell with a tackle that tore his ACL. Then in the wild card round he nailed Antonio Brown with a high hit that gave him a concussion and sidelined him for the next game.
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Later in the evening Adam “Pacman” Jones claimed that Brown was faking his symptoms when he was lying out cold on the field.
Now some Steelers have had enough.
This morning Antonio Brown went on 93.7 The Fan for the Cook and Poni Show and he called out both Burfict and Jones, per CBS Sports:
“Guys don’t want to stop me anymore. They want to take me out. They want to kill me,” Brown said. “They want to steal my dreams. They want to ruin me. They want to end me, but we’re not gonna let them…”
Brown went on to say that he only had 70 percent of his vision and he was never close to being able to suit up against the Broncos for the divisional round. He regrets not being able to make a run at the Super Bowl:
“I didn’t have a chance… Man, I wish I could have been out there with my teammates. I’m living with regrets that we could have been in the Super Bowl.
There’s simply no place for the kind of plays that Burfict was making in the wild card game. He has since been suspended four games by the NFL, which seems like a slap on the wrist given his history. If you think they won’t schedule Pittsburgh and Cincinnati for Week 5 I have a very nice bridge with a great view to sell you.