The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens make up two halves of one of the greatest rivalries in NFL history. Maybe it is fueled by the fact that the Ravens were the Cleveland Browns before their owner, Art Modell, snuck the team out of the city in the middle of the night and relocated them to Maryland. That almost gives them a double hit of two bitter rivals in one.
Regardless of their hard-fought battles on the gridiron, the two teams have always displayed a lot of respect for each other. That's why it was so surprising to hear former Ravens player, Robert Griffin III, completely disrespecting Steeler legend Ben Roethlisberger on Twitter.
This started when Roethlisberger spoke on his podcast, Footballhin' With Ben Roethlisberger, about the Ravens adding wide receiver, Odell Beckham Jr. to their lineup, while still trying to iron out details for quarterback, Lamar Jackson. Roethlisberger said adding Beckham would be a boost to the offense. He answered the question of whether this is going to be a problem for the Steelers.
"It's gonna be a problem, it's a big deal, that's a big boost. You know with Lamar, you want to bring safeties down to help stop the run because you don't really fear Lamar's arm, his accuracy all the time. Sure he's got a huge arm, he can make things happen when he scrambles, but you don't fear him just sitting in the pocket and picking you apart. So you bring safeties down because you do fear him running because he's a different level runner, so you fear that. It definitely creates some potential opportunities for that offense and for Lamar to run if he has to, or to take those big shots down the field if he needs to."
Steelers' Arthur Moats Feels RGIII Overreacted
Griffin, apparently hearing one sentence out of context, took to Twitter to absolutely bash Roethlisberger. He somehow flipped the narrative and threw out a straw man argument comparing Jackson and Roethlisberger. Roethlisberger never once said anything comparing the two of them to each other. He didn't compare Jackson to anyone in fact.
Now former Steelers linebacker, Arthur Moats is speaking up about the comments on his podcast, The Arthur Moats Experience. He was unimpressed by Griffin's comparison and feels it's invalid when the sample size and style between the two are so different. Jackson needs to develop some career longevity before he can be compared to players who have spent 15+ years in the league.
The commentary on passer rating is highly subjective when you consider the number of variables that go into it. To that point, one only needs to compare Aaron Rodgers at 103.6 and Tom Brady at 97.2, almost the whole world would still rather have Brady. According to the stat Griffin uses, Jackson is almost equal to Brady in passer rating, and Brady is widely considered the GOAT.
Moats feels that Griffin took the comments Roethlisberger made out of context.
"I think RGIII is coming to the defense of Lamar because he looks at this as somebody taking a shot at Lamar, but I don't think seven is taking a shot at Lamar. Seven has no need to shoot at Lamar. He didn't think from a pure passing standpoint, that teams fear Lamar because they don't."
"I think who RGIII talks to every day on NFL Network or ESPN, he's talking to people on the national scale that get paid to attack and bring up certain negative things so he's going to be hypersensitive to any comments that aren't 100% clearly in favor for Lamar. Ben is saying what I've been saying, like I'll believe it when I see it, that you're gonna target Odell 10 times a game and have Lamar throw 40-50 times because you have not done that with Lamar and we haven't seen that yet. And it takes away one of his greatest assets."
"As far as RGIII goes, it's about the narrative you're trying to push, some people will take that and understand that's still a legit positive, talking about yeah we don't need to throw 40 times a game. His best times have been when he wasn't doing that."
Moats says that Jackson won his MVP because of what he has been able to do with his legs, and that is fine. It is not a knock, not designed to take anything away. Some quarterbacks are more mobile than others, but that doesn't negate the skill of one or the other.
"Until you show us that you can be an MVP caliber thrower, not MVP caliber player, then it will be a different conversation. Then people will fear the passing part, but right now, they fear you as a player because you are a weapon and there ain't nothing wrong with weapons."
Roethlisberger has never spoken of Jackson with anything but respect, this was an honest evaluation of how a future Hall of Fame quarterback sees a roster change helping the Ravens out, not some kind of dig at Jackson. It is pretty disappointing that former Ravens players chose to make puerile statements without listening to the whole segment. Maybe this former Raven has a little of that Browns behavior peeking out?
More must-reads: