Ah yes, the Pro Bowl. The one game everyone is ok with completely forgetting about. It’s meaningless and somehow, it makes football feel uninteresting. Football, the thing you watch every waking moment of your life.
If there is anything of note to come out of Orlando this year, it’s about the Pittsburgh Steelers who are attending. That includes Ryan Shazier, who is making his first ever appearance at the, uh, big? game.
He caught up with Steelers.com and talked about what the experience has been like.
“It was amazing. It’s one of my goals every year. My goal is to be one of the best players to ever play the game. I just try every week to play the best I can and give everything I have. When I finally got the call, it made it feel like people are seeing what I’m doing. Sometimes, you don’t feel like everybody sees what you’re doing. It feels great to know people respect you.”
The slightly more interesting quote pulled from the interview is Shazier’s offseason plans.
“I’m going to be in Pittsburgh a lot this offseason.”
Shazier spent parts of last season in Arizona training with Mike Mitchell, James Harrison, and others. He may do so again this year but it sounds like he wants to stay close to the facility. He’s said in the past how key his offseason workouts and commitment to them are in order to get his body ready for the long, grueling season.
A lot of times, I would do the workouts, but I wouldn’t do the same workouts as before,” he said last February. “I was going hard but I was focusing more on football and less on working out as much. It’s a balance. You need to workout as much as you focus on football so you can maintain your body.”
Whatever Shazier did, it worked. After a slightly bumpy beginning to the season, he took off, having a terrific season and playing not only at a Pro Bowl level but an All-Pro one.
