Pittsburgh Steelers: Hines Ward, James Harrison at the Center of Rivalry

A rivalry will be renewed Sunday night when the Pittsburgh Steelers travel to Baltimore for a matchup that will have a tremendous impact on the rest of the season, and the trash talk is in full force.

Many Steelers spent the week trashing their opponent, but no one was more vocal than James Harrison and Hines Ward.

Harrison began talking right after the game at Buffalo, not about the Ravens, about the officials.

“I didn't expect to get a flag," Harrison said. “I guess the referees are getting to the point where they're afraid not to make a call if it's borderline. That's textbook, it doesn't get any better than that. Hit, wrap and I made sure to put my hands out so I didn't land on him, put my body weight on him or anything, but they still made the call.”

That’s right, rather than building the hype for the Steelers-Ravens game, all of the chatter has been about all of the penalties against the Steelers, particularly James Harrison.

After being issued his fourth fine of the season for a hit on Buffalo quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, Harrison and his teammates have seemed to have enough on what is legal and what isn’t in the league.

“It's the same exact thing as last week if you go back and look at the play from the Raiders. It was the same exact hit, I hit (Fitzpatrick) the same way as I did the quarterback from Oakland and I got the same flag but I didn't get a fine,” said Harrison.

Ryan Clark, one of Pittsburgh’s most physical defenders, joined in as well. However, it was not as the starting free safety, it was as Pittsburgh’s union player representative.

“We definitely need some answers, just clarity of what they want. Every week it's a different explanation by the referees to the reason for the hit—full body, lying on the guy or hitting the guy with the crown of your helmet or putting your facemask in his back. If I'm running down the back of a guy, which way do I turn to make sure my facemask doesn't hit him?  I think it needs to be cleared and I think the NFLPA can be instrumental in getting us that clarity.”

James Farrior did not talk about how he plans to stop Ray Rice, but rather how Harrison cannot play the game how it is suppose to be played while players can throw haymakers after the whistle.

“All he does is go out and do his job and play as hard as he can every Sunday and he’s getting in trouble for it now. You can fight and do a whole lot of stuff but you better not hit that quarterback hard.”

Farrior’s statement was in reference to the fight between Cortland Finnegan and Andre Johnson, as well as Richard Seymour’s punch to the face of Ben Roethlisberger. Each player involved was fined $25,000, the same as Harrison’s latest fine, and ejected from the game

It was how the Seymour issue was handled that touched a particular nerve in Pittsburgh’s locker room, not how to get pressure on Joe Flacco.

“They’re trying to suspend guys for hits when that’s within the whistles, some hits that guys can't even stop from doing. It's an adjustment that a receiver makes to what you are about to do to him, and you end up hitting helmet to helmet. You're talking about suspending a guy for that? You tell me what the next step is for a guy who blatantly, outside the play, it's already thrown, and a guy is going to celebrate with his teammates and you punch him in the face,” Harrison regarding Seymour’s punch to Roethlisberger’s head.

Baltimore’s defense, no problem. They were trying to figure out whether the penalty would have been different if Seymour clocked Peyton Manning or Tom Brady in the face as opposed to Roethlisberger.

“It would have been a little more,” Antwaan Randle El said. “Or if one of our guys did it, there would have been more.”

Starting right guard, Chris Kemoeatu agreed with Randle El.

“They should have fined him more,” Kemoeatu said.

What about Roethlisberger himself? Can he avoid the relentless pass rush of the Ravens? Who knows? But he sure can dodge a question.

“I know where you're going. We all know the answer to that one. Easy.”

In all seriousness, if anyone should have issues it should be Roethlisberger who admitted he has not drawn flags many times over his career.

“I don't know that there've been many roughing the passer calls on me in my career,” Roethlisberger said.

In fact, Roethlisberger noticed that the referees made a pretty quick call when Harrison went to make a hit.

“I saw the ref reach for the flag before it was even coming. It's unfortunate for him,” Roethlisberger said of Harrison's hit on Fitzpatrick.

Yet when Roethlisberger was worked over by two Bills players after the whistle was blown, injuring his foot, there was no call and no fine.

The treatment of Steelers’ players versus opposing players comes into question as the Roethlisberger will have to play Sunday night with an injured foot. Once again, no penalty or fines for the Bills for injuring Roethlisberger after the play was over.

Is the NFL really after the Steelers? According to the NFL’s executive vice president for football operations Ray Anderson they are not.

Anderson told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the Steelers are not being singled out, that all teams must follow the league’s rules.

“I would say that's misguided and, frankly, completely untrue,” Anderson said when asked if the Steelers were the target of the NFL. “Every team and every player, hopefully, will have the confidence that, if they play within the rules, we won't have this problem.”

Hines Ward took particular offense to the NFL, accusing them of being “hypocrites” for their actions.

“The league doesn’t care about us anyway. They don’t care about the safety of the game. If the league was so concerned about the safety, why are you adding two more games on?” Ward said. “You talk about you don’t want players to drink … and all you see is beer commercials. You don’t want us to gamble, but then there are (NFL-endorsed lottery scratch-off games).”

Ward added, “The league is a joke. They don't care about the safety of players. For them to even try to make it 18 games lets you know they don't care.”

But it was Clark who may have said it best on a Tweet earlier this week.

“New break: Steeler D will protest this Sunday in the wake of #92 latest fine by hitting harder and more vicious. Since they fine either way!”

Now those are some fighting words!

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