“To have a Hall of Fame quarterback work with me, reach out to me. It would have been so easy for him to say this guy got here seven days before the first game. I don’t trust him, I don’t want to work with him. But he didn’t do that.” — Ryan Switzer.

From Teresa Varley, Steelers.com:

You hear it from NFL players time and time again. Sometimes it’s when they are traded, or cut, or not re-signed.

It’s the standard line you come to expect.

They understand things happening because football ‘is a business.’

But it’s more. Yes, football is a business. But for those who play the game, it’s a passion. It’s been a part of their life since they were kids. It’s something that brings them happiness, brings them joy.

And when it’s disrupted because the sport ‘is a business,’ it can hurt like you can’t imagine.

Just ask Ryan Switzer.

Switzer was traded not just once, but twice in a five month span, landing with the Steelers before the start of the 2018 season from the Raiders, who happened to acquire him from the Cowboys just months earlier.

Looking back at it, it was tougher than he could have ever imagined. It was the low point of his career and something that brought him pain he never expected.

“Moving out of a house, to the West Coast, back to the East Coast. I lost a lot of money moving. It was a mess. I was newly married. There were a lot of factors that went into why I was feeling how I was. When I got here I didn’t expect too much. My mind hadn’t settled down. I was processing everything that was going on. That was the state I was in. I was in a really bad place mentally.”




That was until he spent a few days in the Steelers locker room. That honestly changed everything.

“It was no question the lowest I have ever been in my football career,” said Switzer. “The lowest without a doubt. Just to go from the lowest I have ever felt to potentially the highest, being integrated into this team, such a strong group of guys. It went from the lowest to the highest. That is a credit to Coach (Mike) Tomlin, the veterans in the locker room, the organization. […]

Our Fan Spotlight is on Jaxon Domyslawski. This tough 8-year old is a 2nd grader at Deer Lakes and his mom says, “He loves the Steelers, especially Big Ben!”.


Kaitlin Domyslawski @Kaitlin0409
Spring School Pictures…most kids dressed up but Jax insisted on wearing his Big Ben Jersey 😂 💛🖤 @_BigBen7 @steelers


Hmmmmm….We’re thinking Jax looks like a Super Bowl winning quarterback himself! This could just as easily be him posing for the annual Steelers player portrait!

The Denver Sheriff Department’s K-9 Taylor retired Wednesday after nearly seven years.

Taylor joined the department as a partner for deputy Patrick Hynes in November 2012. She was trained in detecting explosive odors.

Taylor and Hynes also assisted other jurisdictions over the years in the Denver metro area, and the K-9 was a representative at several community events.

Taylor is a chocolate Labrador who was born on May 26, 2010. She came to the Sheriff’s Department from the Ben Roethlisberger Foundation.

“It’s very awesome the things [Ben] does for law enforcement and still does to this day. Any place they go on an away game, he supplies a dog for that state.” — Deputy Patrick Hynes.

Taylor received certificates from the Denver Sheriff Department and the Front Range Explosives Detection Team, as well as a special pin from Mayor Michael Hancock.

“The second half of the season Ben had a talk with me and it really helped me a lot. It helped me to relax…I think my production went up after that talk. I was able to be more relaxed and play the game that I’ve being doing since I was a kid. He hadn’t given up on me, because in my eyes it had felt like that. When he told me that it was like a second lung. Every day he challenged me. It was like he gave me tough love. He explained things to me. And he kept believing. I appreciated it.” — James Washington.

From Teresa Varley’s interview with James Washington at Steelers.com:

A rookie season is one filled with lessons learned.

And for receiver James Washington, the biggest lesson he learned came from a play he would likely rather forget.

Against the Broncos, in a 24-17 loss, Ben Roethlisberger threw deep to Washington. Washington dove for the ball, resulting in a dropped pass. Washington knew he should have run through it, something Roethlisberger said he should have done, and something he wish he would have done.

“I’ve always been a guy that it’s my actions, it’s my bed I have to lay in it type of deal,” said Washington. “I’ll never run from my mistakes. I like to look at myself as a man and I’ll own up to my mistakes and try to correct them and do what I can do to get better.”

Getting better was delayed slightly. The following week, Washington found himself on the sideline against the Los Angeles Chargers, inactive and not having the opportunity to redeem himself.

“It stunk,” said Washington. “But you learn a lot that week because you’re sitting there watching the game, watching the guys who are playing. You see how those guys are executing in situations that you had and maybe you can take something from. That really got me. It gave me time to think about it and how I could do this better.

“It lit a fire under me. It makes you mad, but you are mad at yourself because it’s about what you do.”

Washington definitely responded. Before the Chargers game he had eight receptions for 77 yards. In the last four games of the season he had eight receptions for 140 […]