The heated rivalry between the Cincinnati Bengals and Pittsburgh Steelers took an ugly turn on Saturday night.
From multiple incidents between coaches and players to game-changing personal foul penalties late in the matchup, it simply wasn’t a good look for either team.
Now that both squads have had time to cool off, we figured cooler heads would prevail.
Wrong.
No Christmas cards will be exchanged between #Bengals, Joey Porter. DC Paul Guenther: "Porter an embarrassment to the coaching profession."
— Paul Dehner Jr. (@pauldehnerjr) January 11, 2016
For those of you who were hiding under a rock on Saturday evening, Steelers assistant coach Joey Porter took to the field during an injury timeout late in the fourth quarter.
In an act Steelers’ supporters would like us to believe was simply Porter checking in on the well-being of Antonio Brown, the former linebacker got into a scrum with Bengals defenders — an altercation that led to Adam Jones being penalized 15 yards.
Check all the drama out here:
Joey Porter should have been flagged here. https://t.co/XKVevV4D1g
— Sportsnaut (@Sportsnaut) January 10, 2016
Reports on Sunday indicated that Porter himself will be fined for the altercation.
That doesn’t change the fact that he did get into the head of Bengals corner Adam Jones, leading to a 15-yard penalty and a chip-shot game winning field goal from Chris Boswell.
This comes on the heels of Bengals offensive lineman Andrew Whitworth indicating that he had no respect for Porter.
The rhetoric here is unlikely going to die down. These teams meet one another at least two times per season, a sure indication that their next game will be met with some of the very same hard feelings we saw on Saturday.
It’s unlikely that Guenther’s comments are going to do anything to quiet this overt animosity between the two division rivals.