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
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.
I've never had a game where you had an all-time high to an all-time low and then have a guy who rarely misses a field goal miss one and go back to an all-time high again. We don't want to have to go through this many feelings again.
At this point, mentally, the season's been long for both teams. Physically, we're fine. At this point, everybody's banged up. What motivates us is we're one game away from the Super Bowl.
There's no question this is a big game for him. You don't know how many more opportunities you're going to get.
You just sit there and watch Ben and he has played night and day from last year's playoff time to this year's playoff time. He's just going out there and having fun playing the game of football.
I'm sure Cleveland is going to be looking to knock us out of the playoffs. It's a playoff run from here on out. We have to play on the road, and what better way to get that experience than to go out and approach each game like it is your last game?
We have a lot of confidence. Maybe the world doesn't believe that we can go out and win, but to beat the No. 1 and No. 2 and No. 3 seeds, you've got to have confidence. We felt like with the guys and coaching staff that we have in this locker room, we could get the job done. We've just got to go out and execute our game plan and make plays, and everything will take care of itself.
That was great timing between Ben and I. He threw it to me before I even made my break. That's the timing we're starting to develop. We felt that we had control of the game at that point, but we just couldn't finish it off.
If this is going to be his last year, what better way than to finish his career off where it all started in Detroit? Last year, we were one game short. This year, we're back to that and that's all we ask for is another opportunity. We're in that position to put him back in the Super Bowl.
Since then, we've played in every type of ball game you can think of. We've learned a lot from it and hopefully it'll carry over into the playoffs and get us to where we need to go.
Of course, all wide receivers want to catch all the balls, ... But the game plan that day was for us to go out and run the ball. I only had two attempts, so I made the most of it.
We've put ourselves behind the 8-ball as far as the playoffs go. I think we've got to win all four of our games left.
We're not just a one-dimensional team. We can throw the ball down the field. Now we're one game from the Super Bowl, and we're taking the mentality that it's us against the world.