Hines Ward
Hines Ward
Hines Edward Ward, Jr.is a retired American football wide receiver, businessman, and television personality. He is the current NBC studio analyst who played 14 seasons for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League. He played college football at the University of Georgia. The Pittsburgh Steelers selected him in the third round of the 1998 NFL Draft, and he became the team's all-time leader in receptions, receiving yardage and touchdown receptions. Ward was voted MVP of Super Bowl XL, and...
ProfessionFootball Player
Date of Birth8 March 1976
CitySeoul, South Korea
I think when Champ intercepted that ball and ran it all the way back and (almost) scored, Denver had the game in control.
Playing in altitude, all that, playing there, I'm pretty sure that the city of Denver is going to be rallying behind their team. It's one game away from the Super Bowl. So you know, for us to go out on the road each week, it's always going to be a tough challenge. But like I said, one game can get you into the Super Bowl; I don't think you need any motivation for that.
I'm sure Cleveland is going to be looking to knock us out of the playoffs. It's a playoff run from here on out. We have to play on the road, and what better way to get that experience than to go out and approach each game like it is your last game?
You just sit there and watch Ben and he has played night and day from last year's playoff time to this year's playoff time. He's just going out there and having fun playing the game of football.
That was great timing between Ben and I. He threw it to me before I even made my break. That's the timing we're starting to develop. We felt that we had control of the game at that point, but we just couldn't finish it off.
We're not just a one-dimensional team. We can throw the ball down the field. Now we're one game from the Super Bowl, and we're taking the mentality that it's us against the world.
We have a lot of confidence. Maybe the world doesn't believe that we can go out and win, but to beat the No. 1 and No. 2 and No. 3 seeds, you've got to have confidence. We felt like with the guys and coaching staff that we have in this locker room, we could get the job done. We've just got to go out and execute our game plan and make plays, and everything will take care of itself.
We didn't really plan to go this way. It's been twice I had home-field advantage, and we came up short both times. We're one game away from the Super Bowl. We're right back where we were last year.
We'd love to have more pass attempts, but it all depends on how the game is going, ... If we run the ball well, why stop? But when we're called upon, we've got to make the plays in the passing game.
We beat the stuffing out of them, but turned the ball over too many times. (It was) frustrating because they didn't win the game. We lost the game. We did everything to lose the game and we did that. We shot ourselves in the foot.
We're not going to change our ways. We're not going to change our identity, we're still going to run first and set up our passing game through the run.
We're still going to run the ball first and set up our pass game through the run game. That's our identity, and we're not going to change that because Duce or Jerome's injured.
We're still a great team. It's one loss. We didn't play particularly well but still had a chance to win the game against the Super Bowl champions. We've got to learn from it and get better, and get a lot of guys healthy and come back and make this 13-game run.
We can look back at that game all we want, but I think there was a lesson to be learned in it. You can put up all the numbers, but if you don't hang onto the ball and you shoot yourself in the foot, you're not going to win. It's something for us to keep in mind when we play them this time.