Roethlisberger fine after blow

Carolina safety Reid flagged, ejected after hitting Steelers QB in the head

They were quick to come to Ben Roethlisberger’s defense. Panthers safety Eric Reid wasn’t back on his feet for a second before he was confronted by All-Pro guard David DeCastro. Center Maurkice Pouncey arrived shortly thereafter and then the other nine members of the offense gathered around the scrum.

Moments earlier, Reid went headhunting on Roethlisberger, who had scrambled for 18 yards and slid to give himself up. Reid was ejected from the game after being assessed a personal foul penalty, and that was for the best because the Steelers didn’t take kindly to their franchise quarterback being hit.

“That’s unacceptable for any offensive lineman,” Pouncey said. “You have to protect your quarterback at all costs. We all reacted in the right way.”

“Anytime a guy gets hit like that, especially your quarterback, you kind of have to go support him and show him you have his back,” DeCastro added.

Pouncey said he had respect for Reid because he apologized to Roethlisberger, but DeCastro was irked that he lied about the play. DeCastro said Reid claimed he did not hit Roethlisberger, but replays clearly showed contact with Roethlisberger’s head.

“I didn’t see the whole play,” DeCastro said. “I just saw the reaction. I assumed it was bad. The crazy part was he said he didn’t hit him. Then you see the replay and you’re like, ‘Are you straight up blind like that? What do you think, no one’s watching?’ So that was pretty crazy.”

Reid and DeCastro both attended Stanford, but at different times. They don’t know each other. Even if they did, it doesn’t take a Rhodes Scholar to understand the reaction of Roethlisberger’s teammates.

The NFL has rules in place to protect quarterbacks. The best ones are the most expensive and the most important players for franchises. If Reid had connected flush with Roethlisberger on a helmet-to-helmet hit he could have given Roethlisberger a concussion.

“It’s crazy that you do that in this day and age,” DeCastro said. “He was sliding, going down. To come in there like that … he must not like his money.”

Reid told members of the Carolina media that there is no consistency in personal foul calls. He said Panthers quarterback Cam Newton was contacted with the crown of the helmet of a Steelers player, but there was no penalty called. He did not specify which play, but T.J. Watt’s helmet hit Newton’s shoulder when he sacked him in the first half.

Either way, Reid couldn’t have been surprised to be accosted the way he was. Pouncey pushed Reid’s head back with his hand to deliver the message: No one is going to endanger the franchise quarterback.

“Don’t like the hit,” offensive lineman Ramon Foster said. “That’s why you have to run over there and protect that guy. He’s the leader of this organization. We’ve seen it time and time again. If teams don’t have a good quarterback the organization goes down.”

Roethlisberger was no worse for wear. He threw two more touchdown passes after absorbing the hit, including an 8-yard touchdown pass to Jesse James just two plays after it happened.

All’s well that ends well, but Roethlisberger and the Steelers know they dodged what could have been a major injury.

“Ben is a franchise quarterback,” DeCastro said. “He means a lot to the organization and obviously to this football team. I could see it if he was just running down, putting his shoulder down, trying to hit a guy, but he was giving himself up. It really shouldn’t have happened.”