Hines Ward

Hines Ward
Hines Edward Ward, Jr.is a retired American football wide receiver, businessman, and television personality. He is the current NBC studio analyst who played 14 seasons for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League. He played college football at the University of Georgia. The Pittsburgh Steelers selected him in the third round of the 1998 NFL Draft, and he became the team's all-time leader in receptions, receiving yardage and touchdown receptions. Ward was voted MVP of Super Bowl XL, and...
ProfessionFootball Player
Date of Birth8 March 1976
CitySeoul, South Korea
The Super Bowl tickets, that's the worst headache. I'm glad they gave us the week off. You really need a couple of days. They say you lose family members over the Super Bowl and I can see why because everybody in the family didn't get tickets. They're mad at me now. That's when I realized we were going to the Super Bowl.
Everybody gets excited seeing him throw. But in our case Tommy right now gives us the best opportunity to go out and win ball games. You can't blow off a year in this league. I'm glad I don't have to make the decision, but right now Ben's not comfortable enough to go out and lead our team just yet. But when he's ready, he's going to get his opportunity.
We have to keep the nucleus together, and plug in some new faces, and we'll be fine. One thing about winning a Super Bowl is that everybody wants a player off that Super Bowl team. They're very hot commodities. Unfortunately for our team, you can't pay everybody.
If anyone wants to play the respect card, be mad at the people that make the odds, don't be mad at us. I don't know how they can feel disrespected when everybody had them going to the Super Bowl anyway. We feel like we're the underdog. Nobody was talking about us.
I told Jerome that whatever I have to do, if it was going out there and blocking linebackers or whatever, I was going to do it for him. Jerome has affected, in some way, everybody on this team. He's someone you can count on. I think our players were rallying behind him and making sure they did their jobs so they could get him to Detroit.
There's excitement that builds up when you have an opportunity to bring another championship back to the city of Pittsburgh. Everybody joins in. I'm a big Crosby fan. I have his jersey. You just hop on. You want to be part of the excitement. We'll be right there with our jerseys on supporting those guys as well. That's just how the city of Pittsburgh is. We're all one big family.
Of course you want to get more opportunities. Today it presented itself to get more opportunities in the passing game. Everybody capitalized on it. Antwaan made some big plays, Cedrick made some big plays. We kept converting and coming up with touchdowns.
He laid it on the line. He did what he had to do to drive us down the field. Everybody made plays. We came into San Diego, nobody really gave us a chance. We fought our tails off and ended up winning the game.
He has touched everybody on this team so much. It was something we wanted to do for all he has done for us.
I don't know how (the Seahawks) can feel disrespected when everybody had them going to the Super Bowl, anyway. We feel like we're the underdog. Nobody was talking about us. For us to do what we have done, people want to jump on the bandwagon now.
The guy is just special. He's touched lives of everybody in the city of Pittsburgh in some way, somehow, some form.
We have to count our blessings. The man above, he really looked down on Jerome and said, 'I'm not going to let you end your career on a fumble like that.' ... We're one game away from getting him to Detroit.
We fell one game short (last year). A lot of guys are focused, real hungry. Things didnt go particularly the way we wanted in the preseason, but you dont game-plan in the preseason. Our whole focus now is Tennessee.
We felt we were in control. But they played 60 minutes and we didn't. So now we've got to regroup and let's try to win 13 straight.