Kevin Dotson already felt bad enough. He had a tough game. He allowed Bucs linebacker Devin White to break through the line and hit Steelers rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett, who suffered a concussion on the play.
Then, following Pittsburgh’s 20-18 win over Tampa Bay, Dotson got on social media saw its ugly side, as people — with anonymous accounts, of course — making numerous death threats and public wishes that he would die.
On Monday, having already taken to Twitter to address these threats, Dotson spoke more about the situation.
“At the end of the day, they've never done what I've done,” he said. “They'll never be able to do it. I’m trying not to come to come at them as fans because I've been a fan my whole life, but I've never felt like I had the right to tell somebody that they should die. That’s just wild.
“And then people come behind them and say, oh yeah, ‘it was bad that they gave you death threats, but we're fans and we should be able to say whatever.’ You can feel what you want to feel, you can feel what you want to feel. But to say that you could give somebody a death threat is just wild.
Dotson believes he saw at least 10-12 threats.
“I reported them on Twitter,” he said. “But I'm not about to out them or give them that type of publicity, I guess.”
The fan outrage — as ridiculous as it is — seems to center of Dotson committing multiple penalties during the game.
“I don't think that people understand, or maybe they do and they’re just doing it, but I didn't do it on purpose,” he said. “I didn't try to do it. I messed up. I had a bad day with penalties.
“Overall, I had a good game though. If you can only see the negative, what's the point of me caring what you think? If you never say anything positive — which they usually only say bad stuff about the o-line, only talk about the o-line when it's bad — why would I listen to you now?”
Dotson also saw criticism for the hit on Pickett.
“It happens,” Dotson said. “I don't know why it went so crazy. Maybe just because it's Kenny Pickett, but I gave up a sack. I can't deny that. I won't deny that. It just so happened that something happened afterwards. I told him sorry and stuff like that. He forgave me. So I mean, I don't really care what everybody else says.”