The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Haden settles in as Steelers’ cornerback
There are worse things in life for a professional football player than being cut by a perennial bottom feeder and winding up on the roster of a Super Bowl contender hours later.
Joe Haden, cut on Aug. 30 in his eighth summer with the Browns, is listed as the starting left cornerback on the Steelers depth chart for the season opener against the Browns Sept. 10 at FirstEnergy Stadium.
Haden was always classy as a person when he played with the Browns from 2010 to 2016. He did not trash his former employer on Sept. 7 during a conference call with writers covering the Browns, but he did say there is a different feeling around his new team.
“It’s a different vibe, but they
have guys who have been doing it,” Haden said. “On offense, you have Ben Roethlisberger, who has been in the league for such a long time with so many accolades and so many credentials, and (wide receiver) Antonio Brown, (running back) Le’Veon Bell, people who’ve been league leaders at their positions on offense.
“The flow goes a little bit different at practice. That’s one thing that I could just see from the beginning. For the Steelers to be one of the teams (to want to sign Haden), it was the best team that wanted me. I was just looking forward to trying to get to the playoffs, trying to spread my career to play where I haven’t played. With them, I knew the opportunity was going to be there. It had really nothing to do playing against the Browns twice a year.”
The Browns were 29-83 in the seven years Haden was with the Browns. The Steelers were 72-40 and made the playoffs five times in the same sevenyear span.
Haden hopes to follow the path of some of his former teammates who went on to success with other
teams; Barkevious Mingo and Jabaal Sheared won the Super Bowl with New England last year. T.J. Ward was with Denver when the Broncos won the Super Bowl after the 2015 season. Alex Mack and Taylor Gabriel were in the Super Bowl last year with the Atlanta Falcons.
“I think some of the good guys that we let go, they go to better situations for them,” Haden said. “Speaking of one like Taylor Gabriel,
he was a bright slot receiver, but when you have a quarterback that is giving it to him like (Falcons quarterback) Matt Ryan and the offense that they have, they’re able to shine. I think a lot of times when they left, they just put themselves in better positions.”
So now instead of going against Corey Coleman in practice, Haden will go against the Browns top receiver in the opener and in the final game of the season
Dec. 31 in Pittsburgh.
“We know Joe very well just from competing against him over the years and always had appreciation not only for his talents but just how he carries himself,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said Sept. 7 on a conference call. “The professionalism, the way that he represented that organization, just always had a great deal of respect for him. When he became available, obviously, we had an interest and it was able to come to pass.”
Haden said he has “no hard feelings with anybody, but I feel like I’m the best corner in the division.”
That is a step of humility for Haden; on April 18 he said he was out to show Browns defensive coordinator Gregg Williams that he is “the best corner in the game.”
The Browns, who say they want to win this year, apparently concluded Haden wasn’t even the best cornerback on their roster.
“It’s going to be weird,” Browns coach Hue Jackson said. “I think it will be weird for everybody, but at the same time, he’s part of their organization now and he is on the other side. We’ll wave before the game and wave after the game, but in between the white lines, it’s football, so we have to play.”