Maurkice Pouncey knows the Pittsburgh Steelers’ offensive line needs to be a more physical unit. But don’t call them soft. Pouncey responded to Booger McFarland’s recent claim that the Steelers’ line was a soft group.
“You know, I got a good laugh out of it with old Booger when he put that up, you know what I mean?” Pouncey told reporters via the Steelers’ website.” Obviously you guys saw, I put a joke back. So who cares? You know what I mean? It was all fun and games. This is about football. Like things are supposed to be talked about good and bad. So who cares? You know what I mean? Just move on. And hopefully we get our a couple of wins coming up and everyone could shut up now.”
Ten days ago, McFarland, an analyst for ESPN, offered his opinion of why the Steelers’ run game was struggling.
“Here’s the biggest problem in Pittsburgh…from an offensive standpoint, the offensive line has been playing terrible. They’re soft. Soft. S-O-F-T.”
He went on to explain the issues with the Steelers being in two-point stances too often and playing on their heels too much as opposed to firing off the line and hitting their opponent.
Pouncey took to Instagram in response. His caption read: “Booger, these quotes are the same reason why you are not on Monday night football anymore.”
McFarland spent just one year as part of the MNF crew and was heavily criticized for his unimaginative commentary.
Pittsburgh got their run game going in Monday’s loss to the Bengals, running for 86 yards (in Pittsburgh, that’s a lot) on 23 carries with one touchdown. Pouncey explained how things got better.
“We just did a good job with double-team and some things, I think we had some good situational plays with some good runs got called and things looking really good. Obviously, you know, the people wanted to see the run game and they got to see it.”
It’ll be tougher to replicate that success Sunday against the Colts and their stingy run defense. It’s a unit who ranks top ten in YPC and yards allowed and in games where they’ve struggled, they often were without multiple starters up front.
