When the Steelers and Bengals get together in an AFC Wild Card game Saturday night, it will be a battle of two quality teams, each with an opportunity to purse a Vince Lombardi Trophy and render the blah blah blah yada yada yada.
Do you realize how much these teams loathe each other?! Do you understand how much potential there is for entertainment before the game even starts?! Consider all the wonderful anger displayed between both teams during the regular season.
When Le’Veon Bell suffered a season-ending injury against the Bengals in November, that was bad enough. But the Steelers were upset with the hit by the Bengals’ Vontaze Burfict, and like any adult in the modern age, Pittsburgh’s Vince Williams talked junk on Twitter and Burfict responded.
@VinnyVidiVici98 why wait then u kno were I'm at pic.twitter.com/khEd43nBmf
— Vontaze Burfict (@King55Tez) November 2, 2015
Then again, maybe Williams just wanted to paint Burfict and both parties were into it. It’s nice to have hobbies to take your mind off work.
About a month later, Pacman Jones of the Bengals told the Steelers to “shut the f*ck up” about the idea that Burfict injured Bell intentionally in a since-deleted Instagram video. That was one day before their second meeting of the season, one that saw Andy Dalton suffer a thumb injury that will keep him out of this upcoming playoff game.
Before Dalton went “Full Dalton” with a red-zone interception and subsequent injury, the teams squabbled before the kickoff when Burfict got into Williams’ face.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1ZJrzRlRMY
Maybe they were mad about the Bell hit; maybe Burfict wanted to be painted in South Beach and Williams never followed up. We may never know.
And now, for the first time since Carson Palmer had his knee mangled by Kimo von Oelhoffen in 2005, these teams are meeting in the playoffs again.
What will happen next? Will Ben Roethlisberger post a mean Snapchat story about A.J. McCarron? Will Jeremy Hill post a hateful meme to his Facebook page about Antonio Brown?
We are living in the golden age of trash talk. Let’s embrace it this week.
