In Monday’s “First Call,” James Harrison congratulates T.J. Watt on breaking his Pittsburgh Steelers single-season sacks record. Tennessee Titans coach Mike Vrabel had some interesting comments on the Steelers’ rushing game. Antonio Brown will be back with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Le’Veon Bell wants to try celebrity boxing.
And Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh has another two-point conversion blow up in his face.
Harrison happy for Watt
With 1½ sacks on Sunday against the Titans, T.J. Watt set the single-season sacks record for the Steelers franchise.
Watt is now up to 17½ sacks on the year, passing James Harrison’s 16 in 2008. Harrison was the NFL Defensive Player of the Year that season. We’ll see if Watt gets that same honor.
Once the record was official, Harrison had this post on Instagram congratulating Watt. Now he wants Watt to do more.
That NFL single-season mark is 22½. Michael Strahan of the New York Giants owns it. He set the record in 2001.
Mike is on the mark
If you were anticipating Titans coach Mike Vrabel to say something inflammatory after that spot at the end of the game Sunday afternoon, tough luck.
“Initially the ball was spotted where they spotted it,” Vrabel said during his postgame comments. “Then replay assist comes in from New York. And then … The call is the call. They had a bunch of guys looking at it. And the play was short.”
Yeah, so, basically Vrabel employed the strategy of his old New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. Just grumble through a quote and say nothing so you can’t get yourself in trouble with the league.
But what Vrabel said about the Steelers run game on offense a few moments later caught my attention.
“We didn’t think they would run the ball on us. All their runs were jet sweeps, razzle-dazzles on the outside. We didn’t think that the run game was going to be an issue,” Vrabel said.
Maybe that’s because the Titans entered the game as the second-best rush defense in football (86.9 yards allowed per game). Or maybe that’s because the Steelers only average 84.6 yards per game on the ground (31st in the league).
Either way, it’s telling how dismissive Vrabel was of the Steelers run game threat against his defense. Not like anybody in Pittsburgh would disagree.
After all, Vrabel was spot on in his critique. Running back Najee Harris had just 18 yards on 12 carries. Wide receivers Diontae Johnson (10) and Chase Claypool (7) gained 17 yards on two carries.
Run it back
The Steelers picked up a game on the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC North standings. That’s because they lost 31-30 at home to the Green Back Packers on Sunday.
Much like they did when the Steelers beat them 20-19 a few weeks ago, the Ravens decided to forgo a late point-after-touchdown kick attempt that would’ve pushed the game to overtime. Instead, coach John Harbaugh told his offense to go for a two-point try, and it failed.
Defense comes up BIG!
The two-point try is NO GOOD!#GBvsBAL | #GoPackGo
FOX pic.twitter.com/1yqbLzZ3XG
— Green Bay Packers (@packers) December 20, 2021
Again, as was the case against the Steelers, tight end Mark Andrews was the intended target, but the pass fell incomplete.
That victory clinched the NFC North for the Packers. After the game, Harbaugh stood by his decision.
“We just gotta try to win the game right there,” Harbaugh said via ProFootballTalk. “I think our chances of winning right there were a little higher than they were in overtime, maybe, if you calculate it out. Felt good about, felt we had a good play. They made a really good play. Gotta give that safety a lot of credit for getting out there and tipping that ball.”
The Cincinnati Bengals gained ground, too, because they won in Denver 15-10. So, the Bengals and Ravens are now both 8-6, and Cincy has the tie-breaker advantage because they beat Baltimore 41-17 in Week 7. Those teams play each other in Ohio next Sunday while the 7-6-1 Steelers are in Kansas City.
The 7-6 Cleveland Browns play Monday against the 6-7 Las Vegas Raiders after their coronavirus rescheduling. Cleveland visits the 11-3 Packers next week.
A.B. will be back
Antonio Brown hasn’t burned his newest bridge. At least not yet.
The former Steelers wide receiver will rejoin the Tampa Bay Buccaneers next week. So will defensive back Mike Edwards. General manager Jason Licht made that proclamation on his pregame radio show Sunday night.
Brown and Edwards were suspended for their violation of the league’s covid-19 protocols by using fake vaccination cards.
A third suspended player, receiver John Franklin III, was with Tampa Bay in training camp but is now a free agent.
Tampa Bay could use the help. The Bucs lost Sunday night against the New Orleans Saints 9-0. Receivers Chris Godwin and Mike Evans got hurt along the way.
Bell the boxer?
Since Le’Veon Bell can’t seem to last with any NFL team these days, he wants to try a new sport.
Boxing.
The former Steelers running back is trying to bait celebrity boxer and YouTube/social media personality Jake Paul to a match.
Le’Veon Bell wants to trade in the cleats for boxing gloves and give Jake Paul a real fight pic.twitter.com/VEwNmSi5fx
— DAZN Boxing (@DAZNBoxing) December 19, 2021
Paul has won all five of his fights, four by knockout. He is 6’1” tall and 191 pounds. Bell is 6’1”, 225. Paul won his latest fight, knocking out Tyron Woodley in Tampa on Saturday night.
Bell has used boxing to train for the NFL in the past. Now it looks like he wants to use the sport for life after the league.
Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at [email protected] or via Twitter. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.
