Tag: Steelers fans

T.J. Watt, Kenny Pickett praise Steelers fans after wild win vs. Rams

T.J. Watt praised Steelers fans for showing up & showing aht in L.A.

It can be said time and time again: Pittsburgh Steelers fans represent on the road better than any other team in the NFL. This afternoon was no different as Steelers nation traveled to Los Angeles to witness another wild win.

T.J. Watt, the game’s defensive star with a 24-yard interception return that led to a Kenny Pickett rushing touchdown, praised the fans for showing up and showing out in L.A. The away crowd forced the Rams to use a silent count throughout the matchup.

“Steelers Nation is incredible,” Watt said in a postgame press conference. “They’ve been incredible all season long. And I want them to understand how important that is, especially for us on defense. Anytime you can get offense going to a silent count, it helps us out tremendously.”

Pickett seconded that emotion. “I truly believe we have the best fans in the world. It’s like a home game when we go on the road,” he told Fox sideline reporter Pam Oliver after the game.

The Steelers have five more away games, including at Cleveland, Seattle and Baltimore in the remaining 11 weeks.

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Steelers fans stay classy following injury to Browns RB Nick Chubb

Pittsburgh Steelers fans showed class after Cleveland Browns running back Nick Chubb suffered a devastating knee injury.

On the Cleveland Browns’ first drive of the second quarter, the dynamics of their offense were transformed for the worse. They’d been operating smoothly on the legs of running back Nick Chubb and found themselves in scoring position less than a minute in.

Then, in one play, everything changed. On a handoff from Deshaun Watson, Chubb drove up the middle and was hit directly on the knee by Pittsburgh Steelers safety Minkah Fitzpatrick.

Audible gasps fell over the crowd at Acrisure Stadium, indicating the replay was shown on the Jumbotron.

“These fans here in Pittsburgh, so classy,” observed ESPN game broadcaster Joe Buck. “They groaned when they saw the replay. When Chubb got on the cart, they were chanting ‘Chubb’ for Nick Chubb, and they gave him a huge ovation as he was carted away.”

“I am told the replay of Chubb getting injured is not to be seen,” he said.

In good taste, NBC opted not to show the gruesome replay of the injury, but it was quickly found on social media for those who love to watch train wrecks.

“Well wishes go out to Nick Chubb,” Mike Tomlin said in his Tuesday press conference. “We’re competitors, but we’ve got a lot of respect for that man, as a player and as a man. You like to compete against guys like him, you like to beat guys like him, but you certainly don’t want to see catastrophic injury.”

Leading up to Chubb’s exit, he was shredding Pittsburgh’s run defense. On 10 attempts, he’d gained 64 yards for a 6.40 average. The game could’ve ended differently if the injury had never occurred.

Chubb suffered a devasting injury to the very same (left) knee as a sophomore at Georgia. According to Draft Sharks injury history, it was a mess, tearing his PCL, MCL and LCL, dislocating the knee and suffering cartilage damage.

The question now becomes whether Chubb, 27, will ever play again, as lucky as he was in 2015.

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Ben Roethlisberger to Steelers fans: ‘We miss them, especially for this really cool run that we’ve been on’

Wednesday’s game was the first since Week 5 that fans have not been permitted at Heinz Field.

Well, it was fun while it lasted. In October, the Pittsburgh Steelers announced that 5,500 fans would be allowed to attend games at Heinz Field. That all came to a halt last week.

Wednesday’s game was the first since Week 5 that fans have not been permitted at Heinz Field. At least lucky fans in attendance got to see Pittsburgh defeat the Philadelphia Eagles, Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals.

Players could’ve certainly used the lively atmosphere fans generate in their Baltimore Ravens battle.

“I’ve talked about it for 17 years now that we have the best fans in all of sports,” said Roethlisberger in a press conference on Friday. “In Dallas, it was more than 50 percent Steeler fans. In Jacksonville, 80-90 percent. That’s just what we’re used to. We’re used to Steeler fans being everywhere. When you come home, and you’re used to the Terrible Towels, you’re used to those fans bringing that energy, bringing that excitement.”

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Big Ben said, as a quarterback, he doesn’t feed off the fan’s energy as the defense does.

“I love the fans. I love the excitement, but like for a defense on a third down, you need that crowd to feed that energy, and you just don’t have it; it’s crazy, weird, it’s different.”

“I can’t imagine trying to be a guy like that that really feeds off that energy, but we miss them. We miss the fans, especially for this really cool run that we have been on. It would be awesome to have them in there, but we are still playing for them even when they are not in there.”

Guard David DeCastro added on Saturday, “We’re still humans,” he said. “We have emotions and not having fans there, it’s tough.”

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JuJu Smith-Schuster plans for COVID-friendly celebrations with fans

JuJu has something up his sleeve to delight fans at Heinz Field when he scores on Sunday.

Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster is the life of the party. So when he heard that fans will be in attendance on Sunday for Steelers-Eagles, you know what he was thinking.

TIME TO CELEBRATE!

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It sounds like JuJu is crafting some special celebrations to honor the fans who make their way to Heinz Field for The Battle of Pennsylvania. He made it a point that whatever post-touchdown performance he goes with, it’ll be socially-distanced.

“It’s not all 68,000, but it’s something,” Smith-Schuster told the Pittsburgh media on Wednesday. “It’s something that will keep us going … I can’t wait. I might do some celebrations. It may include the fans or something like that. But NFL protocols with COVID.”

Here are some of JuJu’s past touchdown celebrations to geek yourself out on:

 

 

 

 

 

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Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger says ‘it’ll be different’ having fans back at Heinz Field

When word came down that Heinz Field is allowing limited fan attendance, there were three people more excited than Ben Roethlisberger.

Nearly one month after Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine announced the state had no plans to allow fans at Steelers games, the team revealed a slow return would be allowed.

Starting with their Sunday matchup versus the Philadelphia Eagles, 5,500 fans will be permitted at Heinz Field.

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Ben Roethlisberger said the news was welcomed not only by him but his kids.

“It will be cool,” Roethlisberger told the Pittsburgh media on Wednesday. “It will definitely be different because it’s such a small amount. Just to have some [fans] out there will be fun.”

“My kids were so excited when I told them they could go to the game. To me, that makes it worth it.”

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Pittsburgh Steelers YouTube channel sees significant rise in fan engagement

The Pittsburgh Steelers have been utilizing YouTube to interact with their fans more and more during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Steelers are socially paving the way for how the league’s 31 other teams should best approach the use of YouTube to engage their fans.

There hasn’t been a better time to attract fans than during the COVID-19 pandemic that has otherwise brought the sports world to a halt.

It all began for the Steelers shortly after the NFL posted the full broadcast of Super Bowl 54 on its own YouTube channel in mid-March.

On March 29, the Steelers took to YouTube Premieres to bring fans a livestream of their Super Bowl 43 win over the Arizona Cardinals. Similar to a Facebook Watch Party, YouTube Premieres allows users to schedule a video upload and create a shareable public watch page.

“Obviously it was not live – it was a re-air – but we behaved as if [Super Bowl 43] was happening live and we were able to engage with some of our former players who were key figures in the game and then push that out to other platforms,” said Ryan Huzjak, Steelers director of corporate partnership and sales in an interview with Ed Moran of Front Office Sports. “That allowed us to engage and have some fun and get some reaction as if it was happening right then and there.”

According to Front Office Sports, the Steelers’ Livestream Premiere tallied more than 151,000 views – 192% more than average for other club live game premieres. Its 2.1 million total minutes watched was a 214% increase, while impressions (1.4 million, +36%), unique viewers (+155%), and engagement rate (+974%) also saw increases.

“In the last year, we grew 61% in terms of subscribers,” Huzjak said. “We’re just seeing more people subscribing to our channel and then obviously more people viewing, clicking, and spending time there as well.”

After a near 1,000% uptick in fan engagement, the Steelers’ approach to YouTube Premieres is being used as a game plan to share league-wide, according to a league spokesperson.

“We are excited to see the efforts made by our clubs like the Steelers to utilize YouTube in a way that creates deeper engagement points with our fans,” the NFL spokesperson said. “The success of activations like this help us develop best practices to share with other clubs.”

For those who enjoyed the reliving the glory of Super Bowl 43, or perhaps missed out, the team plans to livestream its other five Super Bowl victories over the next couple of months.

In the meantime, the Steelers YouTube channel has a ton of content from highlights to full-length player interviews for fans to check out.

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