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 whole holdout was strictly business, and for me it was about getting the opportunity to retire as a Steeler, ... It was not about money or greed, it was about me wanting to retire as a Steeler and to have that chance to retire as a Steeler. Thats all I can really ask for.
Making the Super Bowl, you are going to have more media requests. For him, it can be overwhelming. It's even overwhelming for me to look at all (the media) here wanting to ask me questions.
When you're that No. 1 seed, teams are gunning for you, everybody wants to be that team to knock you off. For us, we get a chance to face the No. 1 team for a second time this year, so let's see what happens.
As players and coaches, we all want to reach our goal. It's up to us to go out there and perform.
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.
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.
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.
Things can get overwhelming and hit you by storm in the playoffs. But he's calm and collected.