Kyle Long started from Day One as a first-round pick of the Chicago Bears in 2013, which saw him play the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 3 for his first road game. They won handily, 40-23, but he recalls that game for a different reason.
“You know what I remember for eternity was my introduction to the Pittsburgh Steelers football team. It was my rookie year, 2013. We went up the Heinz Field on Monday Night Football”, he recalled on the Green Light podcast with his brother, Chris Long. And then Brett Keisel happened.
“The play ended, and I’m trying to walk back to the huddle. I’m walking by a pile, and Keisel tabletops me over a pile,” he said. “I go to put my hand up to pick me up and he sikes me out. I got up and I was like, ‘You’re that guy, huh?’, and he was like, ‘I guess so!’ In my brain, I was like, ‘I guess all the Pittsburgh Steelers are just assholes.’”
By 2013, Keisel was very much winding down his career. He turned 35 that season and nearly retired the following offseason but returned for one more year. He never struck me as the bullying type on the field, personally, and his quip sounds almost comedic. Long perhaps didn’t think so based on his tone, but it seems to fit with Keisel’s humor.
Long wasn’t crying crocodile tears over the incident, to be sure. If anything, he brought it up as a fun reminiscence. They had Cameron Heyward on the podcast talking about the Steelers, and both Long and Heyward participated in that game. Chances are that Long drew Heyward as his blocking assignment on that play in question.
The two of them met in the NFL for the first time that day, and it marked Long’s first game on the road, so it’s likely to stick out in his memory. He didn’t specifically say so, but it feels like a bit of a “welcome to the NFL moment.” This is what it’s like when you’re in somebody else’s stadium, rook.
Keisel recorded four tackles, including one for loss and a sack on that day, but his offense didn’t help. The Bears scored two defensive touchdowns, though the Steelers allowed the first 17 points the old-fashioned way. The pick-six made it a 24-3 game. Surprisingly, they crawled back into it, drawing to 27-23, before Jay Cutler and crewed sealed the deal. Ben Roethlisberger took a strip sack, and Julius Peppers returned the recovered fumble for a touchdown to complete the blowout.
As for Long, he earned three Pro Bowls in his first three seasons, though he never made it again. He retired after only seven seasons but at the age of 31. By the time he entered the draft, he’d already turned 24 with a birthday coming up later that season.
He learned over time, of course, that not all of the Pittsburgh Steelers are assholes. Not even Keisel, who pushed him over a pile, is an asshole. But he knew how to treat a rookie, certainly, and evidently did so in a memorable way.
