One of the plays of the day for the Pittsburgh Steelers in their blowout loss to the Philadelphia Eagles was Darnell Washington blocking Darius Slay into next week. While that should have been a big moment for the Steelers’ offense, it ended up helping out the Eagles—not just because of the penalties but because it fired up the Eagles’ defense.
Slay had a David and Goliath moment as he threw punches and got in a scuffle with Washington in the back of the end zone.
“I’m the smallest one on the field. And why do all the big dudes always look for me to try to drive me out of bounds?” Slay said via his Big Play Slay podcast. “You know, I think last name Washington or something like that. Buddy is 6-8, and it says 280. We got some guys that went to the University of Georgia. They say he every bit of 300 at 6-8 playing tight end.
“…For him to go hunting for me and trying to manhandle me, that’s — you almost what, 120 [pounds] bigger than me? Come on now. You got a job to do, and you driving, but the play was over with.”
To be fair, Washington drove him so far away from the play that he may not have heard the whistle. I say that only partially jokingly. Washington most definitely did manhandle Slay, and that resulted in Slay throwing fists not once but twice. The Steelers got two penalties on them, while the Eagles escaped any punishment. There’s a decent chance that Slay could end up receiving a fine for his actions even though it wasn’t penalized, but that’s beside the point.
Here is the whole play and scuffle captured by LERS on X.
Slay admitted after the game that the refs “let us get a little hockey moment in.” Yet the replay assist or the refs standing just inches away from the fight claimed no punches were thrown.
He said something similar during his podcast today.
“Everybody keep asking me, ‘Slay, Slay, you [going] get fined’ because the whistle was blown like a long time ago,” Slay said. “And he just kept going. And I’m just not gonna let a dude just trying to handle me like that. I’m a grown man.”
Either way, Slay claims that this moment was a rallying cry for the Eagles’ defense, giving them that little extra motivation to shut down the Steelers.
“The team did a great job, man, of helping with that situation. Calming it down. ‘Cause it could have got ugly back there for everybody,” Slay said. “I think that really just set the tone for the defense. Like, okay, we getting right. It made us get a little extra boost.”
I’m not sure the Eagles’ defense needed an extra boost with the way they were shutting the Steelers down. It was easily the Steelers’ worst offensive performance of the year, with just 163 total yards of offense. The Steelers had three straight three-and-outs to open the game on offense leading up to the scuffle.
Funny enough, the Steelers then scored points on three of the next four drives, including a field goal during the drive that the scuffle happened. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the Steelers’ offensive players said a similar thing about the scuffle providing a boost of energy for the group.
Washington probably did go a little overboard, but if you get the opportunity to throw a defender out of the club like that, I am okay with a player taking it every time. It just so happened to backfire here in more than one way.
