Come into the world together, get on with your life’s work together. That’s what the Pouncey twins were able to do, after making millions and millions of dollars doing what they loved and rising to the top of their profession as individuals—even if neither ultimately claimed the title that they sought.
Identical twins, Maurkice and Mike Pouncey have done quite a lot together, but one thing they never got the opportunity to do was to play on the same team in the NFL. They did line up a time or two during Pro Bowl appearances, but that was the extent of their professional interactions outside of when their two teams would play one another.
On Friday, the duo announced together that they would be retiring. Both former first-round picks—Maurkice in 2010 for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Mike for the Miami Dolphins in 2011—each of them would rise to the ranks of the best at their respective position, making numerous Pro Bowls, while continually pushing and fueling each other.
During the season, it came from distance. In the offseason, it was always together. Heading into 2021, that was no longer possibly, with Mike’s injuries that he sustained having already made it highly probable that he would be calling it a career. And for Maurkice’s former teammate, Ramon Foster, he believes that played a huge role in his decision to retire.
“With Maurkice, if you could read the writing on the wall, his brother Mike had just pretty much had two season-ending surgeries, and the fact that he’s a twin—I think one of the reasons that he and I really linked up a whole lot was because, one, he was really familiar with having somebody next to him, and we became—not as tight as his brother—but we were really, really tight”, he said on the Poni and Muellere Show.
“You knew that, going into the offseason, every time they’re working out, they’re working out together. And if he lost Mike, as far as his workouts, then you felt like he was gonna bow out too”, Foster went on. “Because a guy like myself, who trained solo for a while, I’m telling you, that is a hard mental battle to get up every single day to go work out, to be better, and then still not having a gauge of where you are. At least for Maurkice with his brother, okay, he had a gauge, like, okay, if Mike is here, then I’m here, which means we’re good.”
Football is family…but family is family. And you don’t get closer than identical twins. The Steelers are more than familiar with the family concept—they already have a pair of brothers on the roster in Terrell and Trey Edmunds and T.J. and Derek Watt, who also train as families as the Pounceys do—so surely they can understand.
