Defensive lineman Cameron Heyward moved into second place on the Pittsburgh Steelers all-time games played list Sunday. With that longevity, Heyward is clearly one of the top leaders in the team’s locker room.
That means when Heyward speaks, his teammates and the rest of the NFL do a lot of listening.
Following Week 11, the All-Pro defensive lineman had some rather negative things to say about Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase.
Heyward suggested to the media the Bengals wideout didn’t deserve to be in the NFL because of his Week 11 spitting incident.
“Two competitors, but one guy took it too far,” Heyward said of Chase and Steelers defensive back Jalen Ramsey, via The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Our guy got penalized, but if you wanna spit on a guy, you don’t belong in the game.”
Jalen Ramsey told reporters that Chase spit on him during the fourth quarter of the Steelers-Bengals matchup. In response, Ramsey punched Chase, which resulted in an ejection for the defensive back. It wasn’t until after the game was the reasoning behind Ramsey’s punch revealed.
Chase denied spitting on Ramsey when he spoke to reporters following the game. However, video from Fox 19 sports photographer Austin Briski showed Chase clearly spat at Ramsey just before the defensive back took a swing at him.
There’s no situation where it’s acceptable to throw a punch at another player in the NFL. Punches thrown will always result in an ejection, which puts one’s team at a disadvantage.
Ramsey could face further disciplinary action through a suspension. Other defenders around the league such as Brian Branch and Daron Payne served one-game suspensions after throwing a punch.
But Heyward essentially argued Ramsey’s reaction was understandable given the circumstances with Chase. The Steelers defensive tackle made that argument while seemingly delivering a plea to the league to also punish the Bengals receiver.
“Hopefully the NFL handles it,” Heyward said, via Steelers Depot’s Alex Kozora. “We all tried to calm [Ramsey] down, but if a man spits at you, that’s a different reaction than you should ever have to deal with.”
When he talked to reporters after the Week 11 showdown, the Bengals receiver tried to put to rest any idea of him spitting at Ramsey. But Briski’s video caught what Chase did.
“Field-level view of the second altercation between Ja’Marr Chase and Jalen Ramsey,” Briski posted on X as a caption to his video. “Chase said, ‘I didn’t spit on nobody.’
“The video clearly shows he did.”
The video is circulating around the sports media world. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Sunday evening that an NFL spokesman told him the league “will be reviewing the incident.”
Philadelphia Eagles defensive lineman Jalen Carter didn’t receive a suspension from the league for spitting on Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott in Week 1. However, the incident happened before the first snap of the game, and Carter received an ejection for spitting.
Therefore, the league considered Carter’s ejection as a one-game suspension. Carter also received a $57,222 fine.
Chase wasn’t ejected for spitting at Ramsey.
“No. Obviously, we did not. We did not see anything that rose to that level at all,” referee Bill Vinovich told reporters after the contest, via New York Post’s Christian Arnold.
Mike Johnson parlayed a 661-game NHL career that included stops with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Tampa Bay Lightning, Phoenix Coyotes, Montreal Canadiens, and St. Louis Blues into a broadcasting career with TSN.
Johnson has been the color commentator for numerous NHL and IIHF broadcasts, but recently, he has been the primary commentator for the Maple Leafs’ regional TSN broadcasts. Unsurprisingly, given his ties to so many Atlantic Division rivals, Johnson doesn’t have too many good things to say about the Boston Bruins.
That continued on a recent NHL Network hit, where he dropped the take that two-time Stanley Cup Champion and 1000-point getter Brad Marchand doesn’t have a place in the Hockey Hall of Fame. While criticizing the Bruins on the Maple Leafs broadcasts makes sense as the regional guy, taking such a bizarre stance about Marchand’s Hall of Fame status is a bridge too far.
Winning two Stanley Cups, recording 1000 points, winning 2 World Junior Gold Medals, scoring the championship-winning goal in the 2016 World Cup, and playing an essential role on Canada’s 4 Nations Face-Off team when many said he shouldn’t have made it, isn’t enough of a resume for Johnson. Neither was scoring two goals in the Game 7 clincher in 2011 or recording 20 points in 23 games for the Florida Panthers’ run last postseason.
Instead, Johnson believes that players like Keith Tkachuk and Curtis Joseph should be in the Hall over Marchand. Tkachuk, whose trophy case includes one Maurice Richard Trophy and a silver medal with Team USA, and Joseph, who was a Vezina Trophy finalist on a couple of occasions, and had a front-row seat to Martin Brodeur winning him an Olympic Gold Medal in 2002. Coincidentally, both were also former teammates of the non-biased Mike Johnson.
Johnson finished his explanation by saying that today he wouldn’t put Marchand in the Hall of Fame, but talk to him in three years and it’ll be a yes. My question would be what else could Marchand possibly achieve to make him worthy in Johnson’s eyes? An Olympic Gold Medal is one of the only things missing from the trophy case, which he might get a chance to win in a few months.
If Johnson was attempting to generate some clickbait from this take, it worked, but sometimes a biased take has to come under scrutiny. The good news is that his fans in Toronto will love the take after years of watching the man who doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame dominate their team in the postseason.