Tag: Hines Ward (Page 3 of 4)

Super Bowl XLIII Notes 1/29

January 29, 2009 / Anthony Stalter

– Steelers’ wideout Hines Ward did not go through 11-on-11 drives on Wednesday, but he did catch passes and made cuts on his sprained knee. He’s still expected to play on Sunday. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

– The Cardinals are expected to use rookie cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie to shadow Pittsburgh wideout Santonio Holmes. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

– Speaking of Holmes, he admitted to the press on Wednesday that he used to sell drugs as a teenager, but now hopes to help at-risk teens in the same situation he was in growing up to turn the situation into a positive. (Associated Press)

– Former Steeler Rod Woodson believes that Kurt Warner and the Cardinals may go straight into their two-minute offense to start the game so that Pittsburgh’s defense can’t get into their blitz-checks right away. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

– Kurt Warner hopes the young Cardinals can avoid the pitfalls that come with playing in the Super Bowl. (theSpread.com)

– Need picks for the Super Bowl? Head to our partners at Sports Gaming Edge.com for daily picks & previews from some of the best handicappers in the business. They’ll give you top picks throughout the year.

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Peter King thinks it’ll be an all-Pennsylvania Super Bowl

January 16, 2009 / Anthony Stalter

Peter King of SI.com made his predictions for this Sunday’s games and thinks it’ll be an all-Pennsylvania Super Bowl.

• The longer the week goes, the more reason I find to like Arizona. The defense has been reborn in January, the players have perfected the Rodney Dangerfield no-respect rant, Larry Fitzgerald is playing like Superman, and they’ll be home, inside their weather-controlled dome. However, what this pick comes down to is my late-season belief in Donovan McNabb … 217 yards passing in the Meadowlands wind tunnel last week, 68-percent passing in Minnesota’s noise machine the week before, and a 9-to-1 touchdown-to-interception differential in the five games since Andy Reid pulled the plug on him in Baltimore. And though I trust the Arizona defense to stop the Eagle run, I trust McNabb to make the right decisions and move the Eagles consistently against Arizona.
On the other side, I don’t think Kurt Warner will have the time to throw that he’s had in his first two playoff games, which means he probably will have to throw more checkdowns than he likes. The Eagles linebackers ate up the checkdowns against the Giants last week. McNabb’s out for redemption, whether he says it or not, and he’ll get it near his winter home in the desert. Philadelphia 24, Arizona 19.
• As a reporter, or a fan, when you get to the big games, you just hope both teams come in healthy so when the ball’s kicked off, you can say, “Let the best man win.” In this game, I’m afraid it’s about the healthiest team winning. The Steelers’ running game has come alive with a healthy Willie Parker gashing the Browns and Chargers for 262 yards on 50 carries in his last two starts. And Roethlisberger has made a real alternative out of Santonio Holmes in the passing game, so he now has three guys — Holmes, Heath Miller, Hines Ward — he trusts implicitly when he throws.
I fear the Ravens will have to play the pass with Fabian Washington and Frank Walker — good, hard-trying guys but not shutdown corners — playing most of the snaps at corner with Chris McAlister long-gone and Samari Rolle likely out with a thigh injury. Two huge Ravens in this postseason, McClain and Terrell Suggs, will either be out or severely limited with injuries. I loved the Ravens two weeks ago. I still love their gumption, but I don’t think that’s enough to beat the hottest team playing and playing at home. Pittsburgh 20, Baltimore 13.

Peter obviously saw my predictions for this weekend and went the opposite. Smart man.

Comment fodder: Who wins this week?

NFL

Anquan Boldin Arizona Cardinals Baltimore Ravens Ben Roethlisberger Chris McAlister Donovan McNabb Frank Waler Hines Ward Peter King Peter King predictions Philadelphia Eagles Pittsburgh Steelers Santonio Holmes

Brian Billick speaks out on Terrell Suggs’ “bounty” comments

October 27, 2008 / Anthony Stalter

From Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback:

I think I’d be surprised if the Baltimore Ravens did not have some sort of bounty — financial or otherwise — or at least some quiet pact, to try to knock Hines Ward onto the Pittsburgh sideline when they meet Dec. 14 in Baltimore. And though Terrell Suggs has sanitized his initial statements on bounties with a statement issued through the team’s PR staff (the most carefully sculpted, crafted words that Suggs has ever been assisted in feeling, if you know what I mean), it’s probably better to listen to the man who was Suggs’ head coach with the Ravens until this year.
Writing on his WNST.net “Brian Billick’s Blog” in Baltimore, Billick opined: “So-called ‘bounties’ by players [are] a commonplace occurrence in any locker room and similar to the bravado displayed on most schoolyards. Players are constantly motivating each other by putting a certain amount of money in a pool and the cash going to the player that ‘knocks’ so-and-so out of a game, or gets an interception for a TD, or pancakes a defender on a running play. This is standard operating procedure in virtually every locker room in the NFL … What is worth commenting on is how stupid it is to talk about it afterward. Locker room talk should be just that.”
Pretty revealing.

I kind of downplayed the issue when it first came out, but maybe the whole “bounty” issue is a big, underlying issue in the NFL. Still, what can the league do about it? They can fine players if they talk about it later but other than that, how are they going to stop players from getting together over the phone or secretly in the locker room and having money on trying to knock an opponent out?

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Baltimore Ravens Brian Billick on Terrell Suggs' comments Ed Reed Hines Ward Hines Ward hit on Ed Reed Pittsburgh Steelers Rashard Mendenhall Terrell Suggs Terrell Suggs bounty comments Terrell Suggs' comments on Hines Ward

Did Ravens have bounty on Mendenhall, Ward?

October 23, 2008 / Anthony Stalter

Baltimore Ravens’ defender Terrell Suggs recently said on a radio show that he had his teammates had a “bounty” on Steeler players Rashard Mendenhall and Hines Ward.

During the “2 Live Stews” syndicated radio show on Oct. 17, when he was asked, “Did you all put a bounty out on that young man [Mendenhall],” Suggs replied, “Definitely. The bounty was out on him and the bounty was out on [Ward] — we just didn’t get him between the whistles.”
Also during the interview, Suggs called Ward “a dirty player” and “a cheap-shot artist. … We got something in store for him.”
Ray Anderson, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations, said the league is looking into the comments.

Suggs later backpedaled:

“There wasn’t any bounty,” Suggs said, according to the newspaper. “He [the talk show host] asked me if there was a bounty and I just said I’m going to keep a watch on the guy. He [Ward] broke some guy’s jaw last week, and he tried to cheap shot JJ [Jarret Johnson]. He has also cheap-shotted Ed Reed. We’re just going to be on alert the next time we play him.”

I think comments like these are blown way out of proportion. Do we always have to hold what players say to the absolute literal meaning? Are we all really that naïve to think that Suggs and other players aren’t thinking to themselves before a game, “If I get a good shot on Hines Ward today, I’m going to take it”? Football is a physical game and players take a ‘kill or be killed’ attitude out to the field. Granted, some players are dirty and will take cheap shots, but a lot of the time these comments are said in jest to get fired up for a game.

You don’t think Suggs and the other Ravens want to pop Ward after he did this a few years ago? Of course they do. Saying they had a “bounty” on him was extreme, but again, I think this situation is being blown out of proportion. That said, I’m not surprised that the league is looking into it; they have an obligation to make sure no foul play is being carried out.