The Pittsburgh Steelers will meet up with a familiar foe in the New England Patriots on Sunday for the AFC Championship game after knocking around the Kansas City Chiefs in the divisional round. The Patriots took care of their business on Saturday, giving them an extra day of rest. Steelers coach Mike Tomlin address this in his postgame locker room speech, which Antonio Brown broadcasted to the world on Facebook:
Let’s start our preparations. We just spotted these assholes a day and a half. They played yesterday. Our game got moved to tonight. We’re going to touch down at 4:00 in the f*cking morning. So be it. We’ll be ready for their ass. But you ain’t got to tell them we’re coming.
Of course, any sort of disparaging comment during the playoffs, when precious few storylines sustain NFL fans in the week between games, can be locker room material. And despite Tom Brady claiming that Bill Belichick wouldn’t let this sort of thing fly, the Steelers aren’t trying to back away from Tomlin’s comments.
“As far as I’m concerned, everybody in this league is an asshole, in my opinion,” guard Ramon Foster told reporters. “You have to be to play this sport. Coaches don’t become head coaches by being nice guys.”
It’s hard to argue with Foster’s logic here, and equally hard to fault him for downplaying comments that must be routine to him. Even to us, they don’t seem over the top, but the Steelers seemed more bothered by Brown’s actions than Tomlin’s words.
“I think there are some things that are kind of sacred,” long-snapper Greg Warren said. “I personally like to keep some of that stuff private. AB is AB. He can do what he wants to do. We love AB. He’s a heckuva player. We will rally around him, and whatever he needs, we will help give it to him. But personally, I like some of that stuff sacred.”
When Bill Belichick was asked about the whole scenario, he went to his well of dad jokes to dismiss Brown’s Facebook post.
“As you know I’m not on Snapface and all that, so I don’t really get those,” he said. “I’m really just worried about getting our team ready to go. I’m not really too worried about what they put on Instantchat, or whatever it is.”
Solid fake social media names from Belichick, who has probably made his kids’ eyes roll with that line dozens of times by now.
(Via ESPN)
