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
Im here. Im just glad to be back, ... Im very passionate about football and just driving back to the stadium today, seeing all the fans in their black and gold, a lot of chills went through my body. For me, this whole holdout situation was to show good faith to an organization and (respect) their policy that they dont negotiate with players under contract (who are not in camp).
I got so upset at myself on the touchdown pass that I dropped. I make that catch in my sleep a hundred times a night.
The play-calling was aggressive. They thought all we can do is run the ball. We can pass the ball, too.
The ball is getting spread around, and everybody's happy. We're still trying to find our identity. We're still a running team, but, when it's time to make plays in the passing game, we've got confidence all three of our guys can go out there and get the job done.
We're here without him. We never made it to this point with him. So, I don't think that we miss him. That was a big question mark coming into this year: What could we do in the passing game? Well, consequently, our passing game is the reason why we're here in the Super Bowl. So, I can't sit there and say that we miss him.
Wow, this is amazing. You guys make us go out and play with passion in our hearts each and every Sunday.
We're still going to run the ball first and set up our pass game through the run game. That's our identity, and we're not going to change that because Duce or Jerome's injured.
We're not going to change our ways. We're not going to change our identity, we're still going to run first and set up our passing game through the run.
We'd love to have more pass attempts, but it all depends on how the game is going, ... If we run the ball well, why stop? But when we're called upon, we've got to make the plays in the passing game.
As a receiver, you just have to continue blocking to help the running backs out, and when called upon on third down and passing situations, you got to come up big like we did.
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.
If that's how you judge me as a football player, then you need to go continue judging me. Me not hitting 1,000 yards doesn't make me any less of a receiver. It would have been an accomplishment to go over 1,000, but we didn't even pass the ball but once or twice in the fourth quarter.
I have a big problem with scouts. There's a standard for a receiver-you have to have a certain size, run a certain speed, and what not. I disagree with that. You can have a lot of heart, a lot of passion for the game, and be a great receiver. Everyone's looking for that prototype guy, and it shouldn't be that way.
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.