Pure hatred: Steelers vs. Ravens
PITTSBURGH – The Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens don’t even try to hide their dislike for each other anymore. “It’s pure hatred out there,” said Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward.
That was apparent before last season’s opener when the Ravens’ Ray Lewis approached the Steelers’ Joey Porter during warm-ups and taunted him by kicking his right foot to mock Porter’s “boot” celebration. He also told Porter he owned “this house.”
Porter was dressed in street clothes at Heinz Field that day because of an off-season gunshot wound. After the Steelers beat the Ravens 35-15, Porter said Lewis “got exactly what he was looking for, a beating.”
Outside, near the Ravens’ team bus, the two had words, and it spilled over into the rematch when the two linebackers met at midfield for the coin toss. They refused to shake hands and began screaming at each other. The Ravens won the game in overtime, 13-10.
On Wednesday, Lewis was asked via conference call if he would again taunt Porter by imitating his “boot” celebration.
“First and foremost, let’s make sure that you take my name out of that,” Lewis said. “I don’t stir up anything with Joey. Whatever was stirred up was stirred up. I come to play football and football is all I do, period.”
Porter wasn’t as brief.
“I thought he took some shots at me,” Porter said. “The feeling is mutual. I’ve got respect for him as a football player, but at the same time I don’t know how much his respect level is for me. However he feels about me, the feeling is the same.”
Porter was asked how his feud with Lewis began.
“It was something simple,” he said. “I wasn’t even playing that day and he had stuff to say to me. I didn’t understand why he was talking to a guy who wasn’t even playing. I never lent my focus to a guy who wasn’t even playing. There were times when he was sitting on the sidelines with the shoulder injury. I never went over to the sideline. What I was going through, he came over and said stuff to me, I took that as him taking a shot at me.
“I don’t know where he was going with it. He knows what kind of player I am, especially with football. He comes in hollering about how this was his house and all that. Me being a captain and a leader on this team, he knows I’m going to say something back to him. That’s an easy argument. It’s like if we went to Baltimore and I walked up to him and said, ‘This is my house.’ I expect him to say something back to me. He was trying to get me to argue with him and he did.”
What does Porter expect to happen in Sunday’s coin toss?
“I’m going to call heads or tails,” he said. “I got it off my chest. I told him what I wanted to tell him. He didn’t respond the way I wanted him to respond. If he wants to make something bigger of it this week, I’ll be there for that too.”
The game will be played at Baltimore’s M&T Bank Stadium. Since the stadium opened in 1998, the Steelers are 5-1 at the site. Last year’s overtime game was the Steelers’ only loss, and it still rankles Porter that Ravens Coach Brian Billick left his starters in the entire game, even though the outcome had no bearing on Baltimore’s playoff seed.
“That lets you know how serious they were in that last game,” Porter said. “A smart coach doesn’t play his players that long in a regular season game that has no meaning.”
Porter summed up the rivalry by using the same words Ward had used on the other side of the locker room.
“Pure hated, that’s the way you go out there,” Porter said. “All shots are dirty so you don’t have to feel bad because they’re going to be trying to get you if they have opportunities. That’s the way I like it. If I knock you down, don’t be putting your hand up expecting me to help you up. You’re not going to help me and I’m not going to help you. Leave it that way. I’ll play my best and you play your best. I know you don’t like me and I don’t like you.”