BEREA, Ohio — Myles Garrett urged Steelers fans to get their hate on for him Sunday in Pittsburgh.
Does he get more shade there than at other NFL stadiums?
“For sure and I love it,” he said during weekly media availability. “That kind of stuff fuels me, man. I love the chants, I love the talk. That’s part of the game. That’s what makes the game special.”
To punctuate his feelings, he later posted on X a video clip of that answer along with another clip from Steelers training camp over the summer at Saint Vincent College in LaTrobe, Pa.
It was a clip of The Pat McAfee ESPN show visiting camp, with Steelers premier defenders T.J. Watt and Cam Heyward both on the set.
In the background, Steelers fans erupted into chants of “(Expletive) Garrett! (Expletive) Garrett!” Heyward amplified the chants by directing the mic toward the fans.
Of course, some Steelers fans still hold it against Garrett that he removed Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph’s helmet in a game in Cleveland in 2019 and hit him over the head with it. Garrett later said Rudolph hurled a racial slur at him, which Rudolph denied.
Other Steelers fans just love to hate Garrett because he’s one of the best edge rushers in the NFL, and has sacked Steelers quarterbacks 13 times in his 14 games against them, with the Browns going 5-8-1 in those games.
Garrett, tied for the ninth in the NFL with 4.0 sacks this season, has also forced four fumbles and recovered one.
Steelers coach Mike Tomlin knows he has to gameplan hard for 95.
“Obviously if you’re starting up front, and that’s what you do, it starts with Myles Garrett,” Tomlin said this week. “He’s a gamewrecker. We’re highly familiar with him, but everyone in the division is, yet and still I think he had two-plus sacks versus Baltimore, two-plus sacks versus Cincinnati this year. We’ll take our shot at working to minimize him. A component of that is staying out of one-dimensional passing circumstances.
“We’d better do a good job of that. Certainly, we’re going to deploy all the schematics that most people do trying to minimize a guy like him. We’ll use tight end body position. We’ll use chip help. We’ll slide the line that way, but everybody does. This guy has 100 or so career sacks with people doing that, and yet he still gets home. That’s why he is who he is.”
And some “(expletive) Garrett!” chants might just help everyone get their gamefaces on.
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