PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Steelers will tell you they focused more on their game and didn’t concern themselves with Jared Verse’s comments about them following the Browns win in Cleveland and leading up to Sunday’s game. They noticed. And turned those words into action.
And several Steelers had a common way of putting it.
“We let the pads do the talking.”
- LB Nick Herbig
“I feel like we did the talking with our pads.”
- LB Alex Highsmith
“It was a statement win, especially at the stuff they were saying earlier in the week.”
- S Jaquan Brisker
“We didn’t really pay attention to it. Some walk, some talk.”
- RB Jaylen Warren
“That guy (Jared Verse) just talks, I told him at the end, all he does is talk. He’s got zero sacks.”
- RB Rico Dowdle
Even head coach Mike McCarthy got a subtle jab in about all of it.
“I think they obviously had more to talk about than we did,” McCarthy said. “Didn’t pay no mind to anything else but just getting ready to play. I thought our men did a really nice job with that.”
But realistically, while they may not have made it a part of their game plan meetings, those words from Cleveland were heard.
“Clearly, we were, (motivated) just a little bit,” said tight end Pat Freiermuth. “Obviously, they were talking externally, Verse was doing his deal. It wasn’t really about what they were saying, it was more so what happened last time. Just want to go out there and prove to ourselves that we belong in the top of the division.”
“We do the talking on the field.”
And there it is. Doing the talking on the field.
Tackle Troy Fautanu even relayed the Steelers played a little mind game with Cleveland as the outcome of the became more and more a certainty.
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“We were almost not talking on purpose just to (tick) them off,” Fautanu said. “They wanted us to chatting a little bit, we were just trying to win the game.”
Did they get quiet?
“100%, what can you say when you are down, 27-6, there’s no much else you can say.”
What was said in the Steelers locker room about the Browns lead-up talking
What was said in the Steelers locker room about the Browns lead-up talking
