Last night, the Steelers faced off with the Bengals for the second time this season. If you were up late enough watching you would have seen the 38-yard field goal that won the game for them. Although I was not at this game, I was there the last time the two teams faced off. On October 22, the Steelers were preparing to face off with the Bengals in Heinz Stadium at 4:30 in the afternoon. I was preparing to attend the game as a guest of one of the owners of the team who had invited my family to watch the Steelers from the box that day.
The lavish training facility is made up of brand new state of the art machines all in black and yellow, the Steeler's signature colors. The lines of machines seem to go on in endless rows, massive weights filling each one. This is where all of the players work to build strength and condition themselves to crush their opponents on the field.
Above the training facilities and the fields is where the coaches offices and meeting rooms are located. There are endless rooms filled with plays, motivational quotes, statistics, and lots of paperwork. Each office displays how every coach has a different way of teaching and motivating the players to continue to better themselves in that position.
Not only do the elite athletes of the Steelers practice in this facility, but they are neighbors with the University of Pittsburg football team. The UMPC Sport Performance Center is the only complex in the United States that trains both a NFL team and a NCAA Football team.
After seeing how the players spend most of their time off the game field, we headed to Heinz Stadium get a view of the field and stadium before the fans stormed in. From the middle of the field you can feel and experience what the players feel every game day under the eyes of all of their loud and spirited fans.
The enormous Heinz stadium holds 68,400 people all of whom get to sit in their vibrant yellow seats. Whenever a home touchdown is scored the giant Heinz ketchup bottles pour the new score onto the big screen (which has been happening a lot this year).
Soon after the fans were allowed into the Stadium, the teams took the field to warm up. All the players came out and did passing, catching, receiving and blocking drills to warm up their skills.
Hopefully Ryan Shazier will recover after his spinal chord concussion from last night, but in the last game against the Bengals he completely shut down their offense on the field.
Many players and famous people filled the sidelines of the field such as Lynn Swann and Seth Meyers. My sister and I got the picture with him below. The players were all extremely friendly and took many photos with their excited fans. Le'Veon Bell, left, passed to fans in the stands and Ben Roethlisberger, right, took photos with some his younger admirers. Bell even tossed me the ball at one point, which thankfully I caught.
All of the players ran out of the tunnel exciting and pumped up for the game to begin. They were all spread out on the field stretching as a team. Then they split up into their positions to do more drills to keep their muscles warm.
In the end the boys stole the game beating the Bengals by a score of 29 - 14. As the season is coming to the end, the Steelers seem to be playoff bound and have a great chance of going far in the post-season. I think they are going all the way this year. Super Bowl win number 7, here we come!