Time heals all wounds, except in the case of Pittsburgh Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey.
Sure, that idiom holds true from a physical standpoint. The season-ending meniscus tear that Pouncey sustained against the New York Jets in Week 16 has sufficiently healed without offseason surgery.
But emotionally? Pouncey is still smarting nearly six months after the NFL players’ association agreed to a contract that he vehemently opposed.
“I still feel the exact same way,” Pouncey said Thursday on a video conference call. “I think we should have waited to get everything we wanted.”
With one year remaining on the contract players agreed to in 2010, Pouncey wanted the union to maintain the status quo until after this season. He posted a profanity-laced video to his social media accounts in late February imploring players to reject the deal, saying “if you all are hurting for rent money or anything while we go through this lockout, call us.”
The membership, however, narrowly approved a contract in March that runs through 2030. The players got higher minimum salaries and a 1% increase in overall revenues, but not guaranteed contracts, and they will play a 17th regular season game starting in 2021.
The agreement came at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic and was signed before the NFL knew revenues would be drastically slashed with few or no fans in attendance this season. The result is a salary cap that could decrease to $175 million next year.
“I’ve been in this game a long time,” said Pouncey, who is entering his 11th season with the Steelers. “To sit here and say the NFL is going to be hurting for money, I find it hard to believe. … To say the NFL won’t hit numbers as far as TV, as far as advertisements, to make up some of that money that they say they are going to lose, I find it hard to believe.
“I think there are a lot of good owners in the league, but they are billionaires for a reason. They are very smart financially.”
Named a team captain in 2019 for the third time in his career, Pouncey is one of the team’s most outspoken locker room leaders. He spoke out against Le’Veon Bell’s holdout in 2018, and he implored fans to give the Steelers a second chance after the national anthem fiasco in Chicago early in the 2017 season. His criticism of the CBA was not a surprise.
“To say the NFL is hurting and guys are signing multi-million dollar deals, for me I just don’t understand where the whole narrative is,” he said. “If that was the case, then why are guys getting paid? We’ll see how things turn out.”
On Wednesday, Pouncey also had his chance to speak out on social justice initiatives taking place in the NFL. He works closely with the Pittsburgh police department, donating tickets for officers to take children from the city’s neighborhoods to home games. He also donated to the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police Fund last year as part of the team’s social justice grant program.
“I think it’s kind of obvious what my stance is,” Pouncey said. “Obviously, there are some bad apples in every organization. It’s hard to pinpoint and say every cop is bad. That truly is not the case. I work with a lot of them. I’m friends with a lot of them. I know there is an issue we can clean up. Hopefully we can all get on board.”
Some NFL teams canceled practice in protest of the Jacob Blake shooting, while NBA and NHL playoffs were postponed for several days. The Steelers responded by having coach Mike Tomlin make a three-minute speech before a scrimmage last week, with players locking arms in a show of unity.
Pouncey doesn’t see anyone on the Steelers sitting out a game as a form of protest.
”Football is our main objective in our lives. We can’t ever forget the simple fact that football is a game, and there are people having real issues,” he said. “Sitting out a game would be hard to say in my eyes.”
Pouncey, 31, sat out the 2019 finale but that was only because of the meniscus tear he sustained one week earlier. After missing the 2015 season and essentially all of 2013 because of injuries, Pouncey opted against having surgery at this stage of his career.
“I think it was a smarter decision for me to rehab it,” he said. “I had a lot of time to work and get strong in that area. I got lucky with the aspect of it not being a lingering issue. Hopefully, it stays that way during the season. We’ll see how it turns out.”
Joe Rutter is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Joe by email at jrutter@triblive.com or via Twitter .
Categories: Sports | Steelers/NFL
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