Why Pittsburgh Steelers fans hate Terrell Edmunds Jersey , but respect the Baltimore Ravens I might not be the elder statesman of the BTSC community, but I’m close. I remember when a game against Baltimore meant facing a quarterback from Louisiana (Bert Jones) and a running back from Penn State (Lydell Mitchell). They were Terry and Franco, only less so. The Baltimore Colts won their division three times during our glory years. But they were never a rival.I go back far enough to remember when we had only one real rival — the Oakland Raiders. Five times in the 70s we met them in the playoffs. Twice they sent us home. Three times we sent them home. Though I admired several of their players, I had no respect for the team. They were cheaters before the Cheatriots, the “criminal element” that marred the game.We had some tough-fought games along the way with the Cleveland Browns. But during those years, the Browns never made it to the playoffs. As such, though they were in our division, they weren’t really in our league. True rivalry was something the Browns, like today’s iteration, could only aspire to. When Art Modell packed up and moved the Browns to fill the hole left by the Colts’ departure for Indy, it was just weird at first. It only got weirder when Cleveland was awarded an expansion team not long after. How then did the rivalry come to pass?Because the Ravens have been good. Like the Raiders of years past, how we did against the Ravens served as a bellwether for how our season would go. We’ve played them four times in the playoffs Authentic James Conner Jersey , sending them home three of those times. Of course, during that same time span, the Patriots have also been quite good, and we’ve met them a time or four in the playoffs. But that rivalry isn’t quite so intense.Which brings us to why we respect the Ravens. They, like the Patriots, have been quite good for a long time. They, like the Patriots, have been frequent opponents come playoff time. But they, unlike the Patriots, play the kind of game that any Yinzer can respect. They play hard hitting, old-school football. You can, in fact probably should, hate big hitters like Ray Lewis, Ed Reed Youth JuJu Smith-Schuster Jersey , and Terrell Suggs. But you have to give them their due. They come to play. They bring along their want. They’re a team that, like our Steelers, thrives less through technical prowess and more through a hunger to win. The Patriots are Apollo Creed — the Steelers are Rocky. But the Ravens are Clubber Lang.The sum of the matter? We hate them because they are the Ravens. We hate them because they are the Browns. We hate them because they’ve ruined a season or three for us. But we respect them because they’re an awful lot like us — just a little bit less so. Here’s hoping on Sunday night we’ll notch the first of three victories against the Ratbirds this year.Maurice Jones-Drew suggests Todd Gurley’s new contract and teammates’ comments altered Le’Veon Bell’s return plans While there are many names within the national media who attempt to speak on behalf of Le’Veon Bell, few of them actually have any intimate knowledge of his situation with the Pittsburgh Steelers. However, one exception to that statement might be NFL Network analyst and former Jacksonville Jaguars’ running back Maurice Jones-Drew. Having had the same agent as Bell and also one of his friends with whom he speaks fairly regularly, Jones-Drew probably has had more contact with the Steelers’ absentee running back than anybody else in the organization in recent weeks. If we assume his insights have more value than most, then his appearance as a guest on the Rich Eisen Show revealed some telling information about Bell’s current thought processes. Perhaps his most interesting revelation was his take on why Bell didn’t show up for the start of the season. As Eisen observed in his opening question, his agent, Adisa Bakari, had always implied the plans for his client would closely follow the way he had approached the 2017 season when playing under the franchise tag, barring something exceptional happening. When it became obvious Bell wasn’t going to arrive in Pittsburgh for opening day, Bakari appeared on a radio show suggesting something out of the ordinary must have occurred to change his client’s mind, but no answer was ever given to questions about what that incident was.Jones-Drew did his best to explain what this exceptional circumstance had been when speaking with Eisen, and it turns out Bell’s continued absence is not inspired by only one event.With Johnson signing a three year deal that included a $30 million guarantee and Gurley a four year extension with potentially as much as $45 million guaranteed http://www.steelersauthorizedshops.com/authentic-joe-haden-jersey , Jones-Drew is clearly voicing Bell’s displeasure when he noted the level of guarantees the Steelers were offering.It’s worth noting that $19 million is a much lower figure than the $33 million in guarantees reported in July, when Pittsburgh made their last offer to Bell. But perhaps Jones-Drew is referring to the signing bonus amount the Steelers offered him and a number more in line with the figure expected. Citing James Conner’s 37 touches in Week 1 as proof his friend was right to sit out, Jones-Drew was quick to explain Bell’s continual appearances on TMZ’s website as a consequence of being a “music artist” doing “other things.” Claiming Bell was still training, despite how he looked when last filmed in Miami, laughably, Eisen concurred, adding that he “looks great.”Jones-Drew’s suggestion that he wouldn't show up until Week 11 if he was in Bell’s shoes gives a fairly strong indication that this is probably his friend’s intention too, but it seems clear that Pittsburgh should see their star runner return by then, if Jones-Drew really is repeating what Bell has already told him.While we’re wary of putting too much stock in the words of an analyst from the NFL Network, much of what Jones-Drew said appears to fit with decisions Bell has made to this point. And if the Steelers’ running back is listening to the advice coming for the former NFL back, it seems obvious his holdout will not be ending anytime soon either.