He’s still in love with Pittsburgh
Safety was a hard-hitting fixture on team that won a Super Bowl
Ryan Clark still can’t escape Steelers Nation anywhere he goes, even in the most random settings.
Once, he was getting a tattoo when a Steelers fan walked in, recognized him and asked for an autograph. Clark signed his arm, and the man proceeded to get the signature inked right in front of him.
Such is the life of a former undrafted free agent who became a fixture in the Steelers secondary and helped lead a dominant defense to a victory in Super Bowl XLIII. Clark said he is generally more loyal to people than places, and the Steelers faithful have forever earned his respect.
“I love Pittsburgh,” he said. “I wouldn’t eat dinner every day at camp so I could sign every autograph I possibly could . ... The unwavering support of Steelers Nation is truly what makes that place special.”
With the Super Bowl coming and his LSU Tigers recently winning a college football national championship, it seemed like an appropriate time to catch up with Clark about the state of his former team, his new life as an ESPN analyst and more.
The past
Clark played for the Steelers from 2006-13 and quickly established himself as a safety who could make receivers’ lives miserable for 60 minutes a week. He — along with cornerbacks Ike Taylor and Bryant McFadden, and potential future Hall of Fame safety Troy Polamalu — comprised one of the most fearsome secondaries in football in the Steelers Super Bowl run in the 2008-09 season.
He is still in touch with a lot of those guys, especially Polamalu, whom his kids call “Uncle Troy.” His fondest memories with the Steelers are those precious moments with his teammates that the cameras don’t capture.
“All of the stupid stuff nobody ever sees,” Clark said. “Time in the hotel. Preparing
to play games, being in the meeting rooms. These dudes are my friends. I still talk to Troy, Ike, BMac, [defensive back] Tyrone Carter. We’ll be friends forever.”
In that Super Bowl run, Clark infamously sent Ravens running back Willis McGahee to the hospital with a hard hit in the AFC championship. According to Clark, his role, as he saw it, was to “make people nervous about throwing the ball down the middle,” and he made McGahee and Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco pay for venturing into his territory.
Though he knows that play would be illegal under current NFL rules, Clark still loves the idea that this is his most indelible moment with the Steelers.
“It’s pretty dope that people still remember it,” he said. “Obviously, you can’t play that way anymore. In an organization that has many iconic plays, the fact I have one play that true Steelers fans remember, it’ll always be a huge honor to me.”
One play he would like to forget: Broncos receiver Demaryius Thomas stiff-arming Taylor into oblivion as the underdog Broncos beat the Steelers in the first round of the 2012 playoffs. The worst part about it for Clark was that he was on the sideline, unable to play in Denver’s high altitudes because of his sickle-cell trait.
He now sees the benefits of his condition, mainly the awareness he has helped raise of the disease. But the way that game ended with him unable to do anything about the outcome will never sit well.
“I see the good in it now, but there’s no good in it when you’re the No. 1 defense in the NFL and you lose to freakin’ Tim Tebow,” Clark said. “That was probably the hardest part about it.”
The present
In 2015, Clark signed a deal with ESPN and since then has consistently made the rounds as an NFL analyst on shows such as “SportsCenter,” “NFL Live” and “First Take.” He majored in mass communication and dabbled in broadcasting at LSU, at one point hoping to become the school’s sports information director once his playing career was over.
He doesn’t find it a conflict of interest when he has to talk about the Steelers, whether positively or negatively.
“I’m definitely not going to be biased,” Clark said. “If they’re not playing well, I have to say it. If they are, I’m excited to say it. One thing that helps me is that I was an undrafted free agent ... so I don’t necessarily feel this unwavering sense of obligation to every team.
“I want to take care of the people, but the places are just places.”
People always will have a place in Clark’s heart in Baton Rouge, La., the home of an LSU squad that just beat Clemson to win the national title. The team was quarterbacked by Joe Burrow, who many pundits already are penciling in as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 NFL draft to the Cincinnati Bengals.
Clark thinks that Burrow could be a menace to the AFC North Division for years to come, but only if he is given the tools to succeed the way a certain two-time Super Bowl champion was early in his career.
“We saw it with Big Ben [Roethlisberger],” Clark said. “Big Ben was able to progress and come along slowly because he was surrounded with a Hall of Fame coach and players. I think Joe
Clark has been outspoken about his opinion on the Rooney Rule, which ex-teammate James Harrison and Art Rooney II each said isn’t being implemented by NFL teams in a way conducive to promoting diversity among the NFL coaching ranks. Clark doesn’t think the rule is the issue; he is more concerned about the “pipeline” of coaches getting interviews being too slim to lead to significant institutional change.
“A lot of those pipelines don’t seem available to African-Americans, so we don’t have the numbers for these interviews,” he said. “You’ll see [Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator] Eric Bieniemy or [Washington coach] Ron Rivera being cycled through, but there’s no new blood. So something needs to be done.”
The rule is named after late Steelers president Dan Rooney, and Clark thinks the franchise his family has owned for 87 years currently has way more questions than answers going into the offseason. The only thing he believes this season proved was coach Mike Tomlin’s ability to lead under extreme adversity.
“I think it was an amazing coaching job by Coach Tomlin to keep this team competitive, fighting the way they did,” he said.
That said, Clark also isn’t sure about a lot of things with the Steelers, including if they “are comfortable right now with JuJu [Smith-Schuster] as a No. 1” receiver or James Conner’s ability to stay healthy for an entire season.
The defense is just fine, Clark said, with “absolute stud” linebacker T.J. Watt combining with young talent such as safety Minkah Fitzpatrick and linebacker Devin Bush to form “your core for a very long time at those positions.” But the offense is a real work in progress.
“They still have a long way to go if you’re talking about competing with the Baltimores and Houston Texans and Kansas City Chiefs from an offensive perspective,” he said.
Of course, the big question is whether Roethlisberger will be able to play quality football after his season-ending elbow surgery. Clark didn’t like what he saw out of Roethlisberger before the injury, so he honestly doesn’t know what to expect from him going forward.
“I too look forward to seeing, can Ben come back in a better position than he was earlier this season?” he said. “Is his arm to the point where he can make all the throws he needs to make? The true answer is, only No. 7 knows.”
He does believe, however, that the passion he still sees from Steelers fans across the country will lead to good things for the team.
“I think they just need to keep being who they are,” Clark said of Steelers Nation. “I believe at some point they will be rewarded with another championship because those cities and those fans deserve it.”