After the last meeting between these two AFC teams, the NFL handed out over $140,000 in fines from their week 14 match up. In that game, the fighting began in the pre-game warm ups before the Bengals lost QB Andy Dalton with a broken thumb. Bengals Vontaze Burfict was fined for a nasty hit on Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger. But the trouble didn’t begin there.
The troubles between these two teams began in week 8 after Burfict applied the hit that knocked RB Le’Veon Bell out for the season then proceeded to celebrate. After that incident, Steelers Guard Ramon Foster had this to say.
“He’s that type of guy,” Foster said. “That type of guy will get his sooner or later. … If you’ve played against him, you know what I mean by it. He’ll play it off, act dumb about it, but you don’t run across the field acting hyped, celebrating, running up and down when a guy goes down like that.”
Now playing for their playoff lives, coaches on both sides hope that this will be a cleaner game.
“They kind of got it out of their system there in the last game,” Defensive Coordinator Paul Guenther said.
Not so sure about that after RT Marcus Gilbert put out a tweet before the holiday:
All I want for Christmas is the bengals. Would love to see them in the playoffs where they choke. The talking is done between the lines <<
Marcus Gilbert (@MarcusGilbert88) December 14, 2015
No we are not thugs. We are professionals that seems to own the bengals =/ don’t get mad bro =
Marcus Gilbert (@MarcusGilbert88) December 14, 2015
Cincinnati, OH 45202