The Pittsburgh Steelers waived running back LeGarrette Blount Tuesday following his walkout from the team during its Monday night game against the Tennessee Titans and it doesn’t sound like he will be missed by many of his former teammates.
During his talk with the media Tuesday, center Maurkice Pouncey chimed in with his thoughts on Blount and even went as far as to suggest that he was a cancer in the locker room.
“We’ve got our star running back,” Pouncey said, according to Will Graves of the Associated Press. “That’s probably a good thing for our team that happened. At the end of the day if there was someone that was a cancer who ended up leaving on his own, that’s a blessing for us.”
Prior to Blount being released Tuesday, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was asked on his weekly radio show if he could forgive the running back for his actions Monday night and his response really wasn’t too surprising.
“It will be tough if it was just for pure selfishness and he was just upset about not getting the ball or whatever and walked out because he is a new player to our team,” Roethlisberger said, according to 93.7 The Fan. “If it was a guy who has been here for a while and we know and it was just a lapse in judgment and he was upset about something, I think it would be easier to look past. But, it will be tough if it was just for pure selfishness reason because that is not what the Pittsburgh Steelers are. It’s not what we are about, but like I said, I don’t know anything about that yet so I’m not going to judge right now.”
Roethlisberger doesn’t have to worry about judging Blount now as head coach Mike Tomlin and general manager Kevin Colbert have already done the judging that matters.
With the Steelers entering the bye week it was a perfect time to send a message to the entire team and hopefully the organization can move past this incident quickly as they slowly start to prepare to host the New Orleans Saints a week from this coming Sunday.
“If you don’t want to be here, don’t be here,” Pouncey said. “At the end of the day you’ve got your decision to make as a man and he made it.”
