Justin Fields gave a peek behind the curtain during his Week 2 postgame press conference when he revealed the idea of a “petty game ball,” ones that was given to Russell Wilson and the other former Denver Broncos. He gave one of the ingredients to the hot dog, to borrow from Mike Tomlin’s humorous analogy.
Cameron Heyward further discussed the idea this morning on his Not Just Football podcast when asked if that is a new thing they started this year.
“No, we’ve given out game balls like that before. And it wasn’t just Russell Wilson getting a petty game ball,” Heyward said. “It was Corliss Waitman…they both had played in Denver. And so, you wanna reward guys when you get to play your old team. I’m sure other teams do that as well.
“Mike T. makes sure we deliver those game balls. Even before the game, we knew we wanted to win this one for Russ and the guys who had been there before just ’cause you want to act like…the grass is always greener on your side now. And so we just want to appreciate those guys and make them know that we’re taking care of [them] from here on out.”
Heyward’s co-host, Hayden Walsh, asked Heyward if that means Arthur Smith got a petty game ball in Week 1 for defeating his former team. It is “pretty much” just given for the former team aspect, meaning Patrick Queen and DeShon Elliott could have a small collection of the petty game balls if the Steelers once again sweep the Baltimore Ravens later this season.
If this is something that they’ve done in the past, it is sort of funny that it just now came to light through Fields’ postgame press conference. It is a good reminder that Tomlin seems 100-percent business in his press conferences, but there is a lot more going on behind the scenes that doesn’t see the light of day until moments like this one.
It’s one of the reasons why Antonio Brown going live from the locker room during Tomlin’s postgame speech to the team back in 2017 was frowned upon so heavily. Some stuff is just meant for the team’s ears behind closed doors in the locker room.
There are probably a number of other traditions that we never hear about. Perhaps some of those will come to light during the in-season edition of Hard Knocks later this year.
