The rivalry between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals within the AFC North is quite fierce. Whereas there’s respect between the Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens, there’s a number of hatred and dangerous blood between the Steelers and Bengals.
There’s the Kimo von Oelhoffen hit on Carson Palmer within the 2005 playoffs that helped the Steelers win that recreation on the best way to Tremendous Bowl XL, and there’s the heated 2016 playoff recreation, too. Inside that playoff recreation, which noticed the Bengals have a full-on meltdown late and blow the sport, former Steelers’ linebacker Ryan Shazier ignited the ugly ending to the sport with an enormous hit on Bengals’ operating again Giovani Bernard.
For Shazier, that hit on Bernard was one wherein he wasn’t even being soiled on. He was simply operating quick and caught Bernard in a foul spot. Showing on “The Arthur Moats Expertise” podcast earlier within the week, Shazier defended himself for the hit, which Bengals followers nonetheless get on him about.
“Bro, folks was like, ‘man, that was a grimy hit.’ I’m like, bro, I used to be simply operating as quick as I can and I ended up hitting him,” Shazier stated relating to the hit on Bernard in that 2016 playoff recreation, in keeping with video through Moats’ YouTube web page. “I wasn’t even attempting [to hurt him], bro. I simply went up there to hit him like an everyday hit, bro.
“I wasn’t even attempting to hit him [like that]. Yeah, I used to be simply operating so quick.”
The hit itself was ugly. Even Steelers’ head coach Mike Tomlin stated a number of months later in 2016 on the NFL House owners conferences that it was an unsightly hit, and that no person within the league needs that kind of hit within the recreation.
It was a violent hit, and all of it occurred within the blink of a watch.
The hit from Shazier on Bernard got here with 1:43 remaining within the third quarter of the 2016 Divisional Spherical matchup in Cincinnati. The Bengals, trailing 15-0, have been in the course of a nine-play, 57-yard drive when Bernard caught a third-down cross within the flat from quarterback AJ McCarron.
Simply as Bernard caught the ball and circled, Shazier drilled him, main together with his helmet. The play wasn’t flagged, but it surely was a brutal hit. Shortly after the hit and the fumble restoration from the Steelers, a scuffle ensured close to midfield as Bengals’ operating again Jeremy Hill took exception to the hit.
Right here’s a take a look at the play, and in the end the dustup that ensued.
What made issues worse, in the end, was two months after the hit on Shazier to Bernard, the NFL made these kinds of blindside hits unlawful.
After the sport, Shazier was seen praying with Bengals’ QB Andy Dalton, presumably for Bernard, who was carted off with the concussion. He even despatched out a tweet after the sport stating he wasn’t attempting to injure him.
However that didn’t settle issues for Bengals followers, and one 12 months later when Shazier was injured in Cincinnati in a Monday Night time Soccer recreation the place he ducked his head on successful throughout the center and suffered a severe backbone harm ending his profession, Bengals followers let him have it.
Even to today, the Bernard hit is talked about. It’s an unlawful play now, but it surely performed a giant consider that 2016 playoff win for the Steelers on the highway. And it happened as a result of Shazier was nonetheless studying the way to play the place, and was simply too quick for his personal good at occasions within the violent recreation.
