Ryan Clark’s hit on Willis McGahee (video)
Ryan Clark put a hard hit on Ravens’ running back Willis McGahee during yesterday’s AFC Championship game. The hit left both players lying on the field for an extended period of time. McGahee had to ultimately be carted off on a stretcher. Clark left the field under his own power, but he was clearly wobbly.
Before being taken to the hospital, McGahee had movement in his limbs, and he was talking. He said that he had significant pain in his neck. Both the Ravens and the Steelers joined in praying for the downed players.
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I can’t wait until Feb. 1. Ken W. is going to remember that he is just an offence line coach and he doet not have what it takes to beat the STEELERS ever.
1The Steelers really showed some class with obvious concern for an injured opponent. Thanks for posting this. Good luck in the Super Bowl!
2Steelers are one of the dirtiest teams in the NFL at this time. They take cheapshots whenever possible and Clarks hit on McGahee was a cheapshot. The NFL is allowing helmets to used as weapons, but then again the NFL officiating crew obviously wanted the Steelers to win the game and the flags and lack there of prove it.
3Richard Daly…sorry to read that you are still chewing on sour grapes. The Steelers are no different than any other team when it comes to hitting, with the exception that they hit much harder. The Ravens hit the Steelers just as hard and justifiably they were not flagged for it. A good hit is a good hit.
All the best to Willis and a full/speedy recovery.
4Pittsburgh Cheap Shots Reign Supreme
by John Molori on January 20, 2009
Carson Palmer knows it, so does Tom Brady and Matt Hasselbeck. Now, Willis McGahee knows it too. The Pittsburgh Steelers are cheap shot artists, plain and simple. They have been since Bill Cowher became their head coach in 1992, and they remain so with Mike Tomlin at the helm.
It is intrinsic in the game plan devised by defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau to take every opportunity to hurt the opposition whenever possible. Latter day Steeler football is all about blindside hits and helmet first shots. They rely on the consistent ignorance of NFL officials and the blind eye of the league to get away with it.
Steeler fans and the national media who seem to genuflect at the mere mention of this organization should stop sidestepping the issue and embrace what their team is, a band of thugs, no more, no less.
The media is especially guilty. In the wake of Ryan Clark’s dirty hit on Baltimore running back Willis McGahee late in Sunday’s AFC title game, announcers Jim Nantz and Phil Simms immediately exonerated Clark calling the hit perfectly legal. Their replays showed that Clark’s hit was clearly helmet-to-helmet, but Steeler love had taken over the broadcast booth. Clearly, this legendary team could never administer a dirty hit. Please.
It’s no surprise that Simms let Clark off the hook. He has, in the past, cowered, or shall I say, Cowher-ed similarly. In the first half of the 2002 AFC title game between the Steelers and New England, Simms failed to take a stand when Steelers linebacker Jason Gildon rolled over onto Tom Brady’s legs nearly injuring the Pats’ QB.
Later in the half, when Lee Flowers delivered his infamous dirty hit to Brady’s leg knocking him out of the game, Simms was again mum.
In the second half of that game, New England’s Ty Law shoved Hines Ward while the two were out of bounds. Referee Ed Hochuli tagged Law for unnecessary roughness, but failed to call Ward for a blatant facemask.
CBS showed several replays of the call, and not once did Simms remark on the obvious facemask. But this is Steeler football, baby. Smile to the cameras. Hire a coach that sucks up to the media and loves to be on TV, and you can get away with anything.
Monday, on SIRIUS NFL Radio, Randy Cross and Solomon Wilcots also defended Clark’s hit on McGahee. Wilcots said that there was a little helmet to helmet contact, but stood up for the Steelers. Cross actually said that helmet to helmet hits on a runner do not exist, whatever that means. The pair then chuckled about Willis McGahee being “liquified.” Yeah guys, seeing a player carried off on a stretcher always tickles my funny bone. Later in the show, Cross and Wilcots seemed more concerned about the health and state of Clark than McGahee.
Pittsburgh’s recent history of cheap shots is the stuff of which championships are made. The Steelers’ only Super Bowl title since the Reagan administration was a direct result of perhaps the most fiendish hit in recent memory.
Flash back to the 2005 NFL Wild Card playoffs, Pittsburgh at Cincinnati. The Bengals had finally put together a great season led by quarterback Carson Palmer. They looked every bit the championship team until Pittsburgh’s Kimo von Oelhoffen delivered a vile hit damaging Palmer’s ACL, MCL and PCL. The cheap shot ended the Bengals title hopes and changed the balance of power in the AFC North for the rest of the decade.
Once again, the Steeler apologists immediately absolved von Oelhoffen of any wrongdoing. In true Steeler fashion, von Oelhoffen said he did not mean to hurt Palmer, the same way Ryan Clark sat on the Pittsburgh bench Sunday night seemingly remorseful about his hatchet job on McGahee. Sorry guys, in both cases, the damage had already been done. Palmer has never truly recovered from that hit, and has battled other injuries ever since.
The beloved Steelers of course went on to win the Super Bowl against Seattle in one of the worst officiated games in Super Bowl history. Most of the bad calls, of course, went in favor of Pittsburgh. First time Super Bowl referee Bill Leavy and his crew negatively affected the outcome of the game in embarrassing fashion.
They missed several offside calls against Pittsburgh, called a phantom hold on Seahawk Sean Locklear nullifying a big reception by Jerramy Stevens and called a bogus block below the waist on Seattle QB Matt Hasselbeck.
A called fumble by Hasselbeck was correctly overturned by replay, but a clear helmet first hit by Deshea Townsend on Hasselbeck with 6:20 left in the game went ignored. Another dirty Steeler hit, another non-call by officials, another bogus Steeler victory.
The Steelers are not only dirty, they are gutless. At least the Raiders of the 1970s accepted what they were. Jack Tatum, George Atkinson and the gang admitted that they were out to injure and maim. The Cowher-Tomlin Steelers seem to want it all. They want to be respected as a hard-hitting football team that does things the right way, yet on the field, their record of questionable actions speaks for itself.
The towel waving Steeler fools and the merry band of Black and Gold boosters in the media can try to cloak the cheap shots in fabled glory. Bill Cowher can sit at the CBS anchor desk flapping his chin about hard nosed football, and Mike Tomlin can feign concern for victims of his brand of football. Their words are meaningless. On February 1, the Pittsburgh Steelers may in fact be crowned the NFL’s champs. In truth, they are nothing more than a bunch of chumps.
5Richard Daly,
Thanks for posting the article. But it is completely without basis in fact.
I can assure you that I detest dirty players. And I don’t believe that endangering another player’s life is a good practice. However, the NFL has specific rules. You must make your judgements within the confines of those rules. The league did not throw a flag or fine the Steelers players in any of the incidents mentioned. That should tell you something. Not that the Steelers get a “free pass”. No, it should tell you that they were legal hits.
It was extremely unfortunate what happpened to Carson Palmer a few years ago. But it was not intentional. I have watched the tape literally dozens of times, and it just wasn’t.
The same goes for the hit on McGahee. Clark clearly led with his shoulder. Yes, their helmets made contact, but it was incidental. He did not spear the opposing player.
Fans need to learn to interpret plays based on the rule book, and not on their own emotional reaction to how violent the hit was, or whether someone got hurt.
Roger Goodell has set some pretty firm standards of what’s going to be tolerated in his NFL. He has exonerated the Steelers of any violations. That should tell you something.
6Richard,
The Ravens Defense is all you hear about. Talk about dirty. They (especially Lewis and Suggs) take plenty of shots against players. Did you see the three games against the steelers this year? Ben hit in the back, bounties on Ward. I’m sorry that is just clean fun! Raven standards. Every week teams play hard and that is it. Carson Palmer was hit by a former team mate and he knew it. Football is a contact sport and that is why we watch. For the hits!
7