Steelers player directs some strange trash talk toward the Patriots
Taking things “one game at a time” is one of the most popular cliches in sports — unless you’re a Pittsburgh Steeler.
First, Mike Tomlin did the exact opposite of what coaches are expected to do by looking ahead to the team’s Week 15 game vs. the Patriots. During a Week 12 game vs. the Packers, Tomlin referred to the “elephant in the room” by saying the Patriots game three weeks later was “probably going to be part one.”
Part one didn’t go Pittsburgh’s way, but that didn’t stop more Steelers from already salivating at a potential rematch in the AFC championship game.
Safety Mike Mitchell jumped aboard the hype train, looking past Sunday’s divisional-round game against Jacksonville to a possible meeting between Pittsburgh and New England. He doesn’t believe the Patriots’ home field advantage will affect the outcome.
“We’re going to play [the Patriots] again,” Mitchell promised in an interview with Sports Illustrated. “We can play them in hell, we can play them in Haiti, we can play them in New England. … We’re gonna win.”
Strong words from Mitchell, but as we’ve seen and heard from his head coach, that’s just par for the course in Pittsburgh.
Mitchell also has his dream scenario already played out and it involves Ryan Shazier as well. It involves the Steelers beating the Patriots to advance to the Super Bowl where Shazier, who was carted off the field with a back injury Dec. 4, would join the team on the sideline.
“It’s destiny,” he says. “I’m praying every day that he won’t be in a [wheelchair], that he’ll be on the sideline and run up and celebrate it with us. There’s gonna be hella people crying when it happens.”
Mitchell’s destiny apparently ignores the dominance that New England has had over Pittsburgh in the Tom Brady era. Since he became the starter in 2001, the Patriots are 11-2 against Pittsburgh including the playoffs.
That doesn’t include a 2008 game in which Pittsburgh won while Brady was injured and Matt Cassel was the starter. Brady is 5-0 vs. Pittsburgh at home, with an average margin of victory of 17.4 points.
Mitchell’s brash talk is reminiscient of another former Steelers safety, Anthony Smith. Back in 2007 the Patriots were 12-0 and on the way to the first 16-0 regular season in NFL history. Yet Smith was confident that Pittsburgh would beat New England and end their quest for perfection.
“We’re going to win,” Smith said. “Yeah, I can guarantee a win. As long as we come out and do what we got to do. Both sides of the ball are rolling, and if our special teams come through for us, we’ve got a good chance to win.”
We all know how that game ended as the Pats couldn’t reach 16-0 without first reaching 13-0. New England defeated Pittsburgh, which was 9-3 at the time, by a score of 34-13.
Smith wouldn’t get a chance at a rematch as Pittsburgh would lose its first postseason game, which just happened to be against the Jaguars.
That postseason win was the last one Jacksonville would have prior to this past weekend’s wild-card victory over Buffalo.
You would think that Mitchell wouldn’t already be looking ahead when it was Jacksonville that handed Pittsburgh it’s worst home loss since 2006 with its 30-9 defeat in Week 5.
In order for Mitchell to have any chance of his premonition coming true, Pittsburgh will have to defeat the Jags, which will be no easy task.
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