Former Pittsburgh Steelers RB Rashard Mendenhall was a guest on The Pivot Podcast, hosted by former Steelers safety Ryan Clark and Hall of Fame finalist RB Fred Taylor. In a revealing conversation, Mendenhall talked about his feelings regarding the attention he’s gotten after his fumble in Super Bowl XLV, and how that negative attention still lingers to this day.
“I’ll go out here and say this, I don’t know if there’s a more attacked player in the modern era than me. Because of a single play from a single game,” Mendenhall said.
He did say he’s over the play now, but not over how he’s been treated since.
“It’s not the play, I’ve played a million plays,” Mendenhall said. “I did the best I could, I let go of the play. It’s how I’ve been treated and what’s happened since that I don’t feel like is fair and I’ve finally had enough.”
It’s never right for any fan or anybody, really, to go after a player on social media or in any way for messing up in a game. It’s a sport, and the people on the field are human too. There are ways Mendenhall could’ve handled things better when discussing the play. Saying that he didn’t actually fumble the ball and placing the blame on Ben Roethlisberger for the loss in that game years after the fact doesn’t come across as a good look.
But it’s clear just how much the attention to the play still bothers Mendenhall. He said that the play is now attached with his name, and if people bring it up to him, he knows they’re trying to inflict hurt.
“When somebody’s saying fumble to me, I know they’re intentionally trying to hurt me.”
Ignoring the play, Mendenhall is a human. Years and years of hearing about the worst play he made on a football field and continually having it called to attention is something that’s very clearly bothered him, and as he said, he’s had enough. To be fair, he’s the one who restarted the dialogue by bringing it up on Twitter not that long ago, but it can’t be easy to have your worst moment constantly brought up and replayed over and over.
Mendenhall also said he isn’t sure he subscribes to the theory of being a football is what you do, not who you are.
“When they say to us, football is what you do, it’s not who you are, I don’t know if I believe that. I feel like who and what was made under that helmet, what we created, I feel like that sticks with you,” Mendenhall said.
Given that, it makes a lot of sense why continually hearing criticism and getting blamed for a play that may have cost Pittsburgh their seventh Lombardi Trophy is something that eats away at him so much. Separating the person that he is from the player that he was isn’t an easy thing to do, and it can’t be an easy thing to deal with to constantly be reminded of your worst moment as a player. At this point, Mendenhall also shouldn’t have to be dealing with criticism for the play over a decade later, either. It’s time for everyone to move on.
Hopefully, Mendenhall can have some peace and move on from a moment that still haunts him. If you have the time, take a moment and watch him discuss his feelings on The Pivot. It’s worth the time.
