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
It's night and day. Last year, it was overwhelming for him sometimes. I really think he got caught up a little bit with the notoriety and magnitude of the game. This year, he understands the offense and is starting to trust his guys. He's not really putting it on his shoulders.
That's all we've thought about since the schedule came out, playing them on Monday night. That's why I'm here at camp now, that Monday night game. Losing that game hurt. But now we just want to get back there. Starting off with us and them on Monday night? That's classic. That's art.
We had to keep him on a gag order a little bit. But if they start it, Joey is going to finish it. Trust me.
Ben actually looked to the left and I had a hitch route. It was only about six yards, so when he came back to me, I kind of figured Champ was driving on me and that's not how you want to start the game, with a pick for a touchdown.
The quarterback starts everything off. If the quarterback has confidence, the other 10 guys around in him believe in him. We'll go as far as Ben takes us.
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.
This is my second full game, and things are starting to slow down more,
Initially we did not know what to expect out of him. He kind of got thrown into the fire and it is kind of hard to really see and envision what a rookie can do, because not too many rookie quarterbacks can come into the league like he did and win ball games like he did.
Everyone put overwhelming pressure on us. It was overwhelming for everyone, including the veterans.
Nobody believed in us, but we believed in ourselves, and now we're in the Super Bowl. These last three games on the road show a lot about our team and this coaching staff.
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.
It was just deflating. He rarely fumbles the ball and if this had been his last game, you would have hated to see him go out like that. ... I truly believe the man up above had something to do with that.
They won the division. We really wanted to do that, so congratulations to them. But we've got another shot at them and the loser goes home.
They won our division. It's redemption time. We get that opportunity, and we feel good because we won in Cincinnati.