One of the biggest stories that came out of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Week 11 win over the Cincinnati Bengals was WR Ja’Marr Chase spitting on DB Jalen Ramsey, earning himself a one-game suspension while Ramsey was ejected in-game for throwing a punch. On his Not Just Football podcast, Steelers DL Cam Heyward talked about the incident and said Ramsey came to him immediately and said he was spit on.
“Jalen came to me during that and was telling me he got spit on. So as the captain and as a leader, you want to handle that. Because it can be misconstrued that Jalen was just popping off.”
Heyward said the refs claimed that they looked at the incident and didn’t see anything on the field with Chase spitting on Ramsey.
While the Ramsey/Chase incident was the big story coming out of Week 11, after Week 7, the big story was Chase coming out and saying the Steelers did “exactly what we was expecting.” Chase had 16 receptions for 161 yards and a score in that game, but in Week 11, he was held to just three catches for 30 yards and he only had two grabs when he spit on Ramsey. Heyward thinks Chase was acting out of frustration after struggling all game against the Steelers.
“After the first game, it was talk about, ‘oh we know what they were gonna do.’ You ain’t know what to do when we had a plan for your ass. People get frustrated, and when they get frustrated they don’t know how to act, and they don’t know how to play football. So more pissed off they took my guy out of the game even though he was playing the game the right way,”
The Steelers had a good game plan to mitigate Cincinnati’s passing attack after struggling the first time matchup. Pittsburgh mixed up coverages in both matchups, but in Week 7, the Steelers played more cover one and tried to go man on Chase and Tee Higgins. Week 11 was a much more zone-heavy matchup, with the Steelers utilizing a heavy dose of cover 2 to take away Cincinnati’s passing attack. While Higgins got on the board with an early touchdown, it wasn’t a day to remember for any of Cincinnati’s receivers.
That frustration may have boiled over and led to Chase spitting on Ramsey, costing himself a game in Week 12 and over $400,000. While it was frustrating for the Steelers in the moment to lose Ramsey even though he was rightfully defending himself, Chase got the harsher punishment.
The incident could reignite the Steelers-Bengals rivalry, and Heyward, who chooses his words carefully, certainly doesn’t seem to have any love lost for Chase.
Recommended for you