Ex-Steelers star slammed after suggesting Black vs. White bowl game
Former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall is walking back remarks he made criticizing white people for commenting on football.
“I’m sick of average white guys commenting on football,” he wrote on Monday. “Y’all not even good at football.”
He then pitched a wild suggestion: “Can we please replace the Pro Bowl with an All-Black vs. All-White bowl so these cats can stop trying to teach me who’s good at football. I’m better than ur goat.”
Some people found Mendenhall’s comments funny, including former Houston Texans star J.J. Watt who joked about what an “All-Black vs. All-White bowl” would look like.
“We’d get cooked at corner, not gonna lie,” Watt wrote. “Nobody on our squad is covering Tyreek (Hill).”
For the most part, though, Mendenhall’s post didn’t go over too well, with many taking to the comments section to call him racist and remind him of Super Bowl XLV when he got “lit up” by Green Bay Packers’ Clay Matthews and the Steelers went on to lose.
Mendenhall followed up his post to explain himself — sort of.
“Simply tired of being berated by people who arent experts in de game,” he wrote. “We jus pretend like I’m the only athlete tired of fans talking trash?”
Mendenhall continued: “You dis upset over a single tweet. What about us? Like me or not, I’m a GREAT in football. This proves my point, u can’t speak on ball alone.”
The Steelers went on to win the Super Bowl over the Arizona Cardinals in Mendenhall’s first season, though his season was cut short due to injury.
The team also went to the Super Bowl in 2010 where they lost against the Packers after Mendenhall had the aforementioned fumble in the fourth quarter that set up a touchdown for the eventual winners.
He played one more season in the NFL, with the Cardinals, before retiring in 2014.