CINCINNATI -- Football is essentially vicious, if we're being honest. In both spirit and execution.
The finish to every snap that doesn't result in a score sees one elite athlete slam another forcefully into the ground. The contact comes in the scope of a car collision. And as such, its participants require an energy, an anger, that's partially under control but mostly unhinged. It requires an emotion, even if momentary, that some newcomer to our civilization could far more easily equate to animals than the only mammals capable of rational thought.
My friends, Ramon Foster was afraid.
One of the largest men anyone could encounter, all 6 feet 3, 330 pounds of him, one of those elite athletes who's lined up helmet to helmet since the last time anyone dared to call him little ... he was afraid.
"Never. Never in my life," the big man was telling me at his stall late Monday night at Paul Brown Stadium. "I have never once, since I was this big ..."
His right hand was lowered to knee height.
"I have never been afraid of football. Until that one moment."
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Of course, that moment ...
The Steelers would overtake the Bengals, 23-20, on Chris Boswell's field goal, one kicked at the last second and one that improved their AFC-best record to 10-2. And to understand the most muted victory celebration one could ever conceive -- barely anyone on the visiting sideline so much as raised a thumb -- that horrific sequence above would have to be seen first.
Ryan Shazier's firm but otherwise innocuous hit on Cincinnati wide receiver Josh Malone left him prone and, then, after reaching his left hand around to his lower back ... my goodness, just look away from the rest. Seriously. Because that's the sight of a man realizing he can no longer feel his legs.
We don't know how Shazier is. Not all the way. But the first official word afterward was at least cautiously encouraging, that issued by team spokesman Burt Lauten at 1:23 a.m. via Twitter:
Statement by #Steelers GM/VP Kevin Colbert on LB Ryan Shazier pic.twitter.com/WEp6wktNCu
— Burt Lauten (@SteelersPRBurt) December 5, 2017
In his postgame press conference, Mike Tomlin declined to discuss any aspect of Shazier's status beyond that he didn't have "any updates."
Our site's cumulative reporting -- that of Dale Lolley and myself -- collected several team sources as citing a spinal cord concussion as the injury. We also heard some of those sources speaking of Shazier in terms such as "He'll be fine" or "He's OK," with one of those going well above the rest in that regard.
But not one of them appeared to have solid, specific word that he'd regained feeling in his legs. All kinds of other reports are out there, too, but not one of those has that, either.
Where it sits now, it's unspeakably sad. Although Tommy Maddox famously bounced right back from his spinal cord concussion while with the Steelers, his case was the extraordinary exception. A football player who loses feeling in his legs for any significant time -- and Maddox's was briefer than most -- generally is through. Even if he's healthy enough to walk and have a normal life, the risk of returning to the sport is seen as far too great.
But again, that's where it sits now, with our not knowing yet how long Shazier lost feeling or even if he's regained it.
Maybe the outcome will be better. Maybe not.
Tomlin, Art Rooney II and Kevin Colbert visited Shazier at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, before getting a police escort back to the team's charter plane in Kentucky. Maybe more will be known in Tomlin's Tuesday noon press conference back in Pittsburgh since, by all accounts, doctors' top priority is observing the spine once the swelling subsides overnight.
In the meantime, all the rest of us can do is offer our best, whether through prayer or positive thoughts.
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Back to Foster.
"Seeing Shazy down, seeing how it happened, seeing him just on the ground like that ... it didn't last long, but I had all kinds of thoughts go through my head," he said. "About Shazy. About my own family. About what it is that we do for a living. I'm sure that I never felt anything like that before."
It couldn't have been clearer that most of the Steelers were in that same category.
"Terrifying" is what Vince Williams called it.
Vinnie, who's the default life of any party but especially one that leaves the Bengals miserable, was a wreck. He wouldn't budge from the small stool in front of his locker, clinging with both hands to a towel draped over his head like a tourniquet, staring either straight ahead or down at his shoes over to his right where Shazier's No. 50 locker had long since been cleaned out.
Three days ago, Shazier, Williams and I were sharing a laugh in looking back at some memories that this season, now 10-2, had brought for the defense. Shazier had his right ankle iced that afternoon but didn't sound the least bit discouraged that he might miss this latest mashup with the Steelers' legitimately most despised rival for a while now.
"I'll be there, man," Shazier repeated for us. "I'll be there. I wouldn't miss that game for anything."
And then, with a single, simple tackle that these two best friends combined to make that wouldn't look any different than so many others, one half of the Steelers' starting inside linebacker duo but also one of the best-composed, brightest, most vital young gentlemen you'd ever meet ...
"I just saw my boy get carted off," Williams would say in a series of uncharacteristically short answers. "That's something you never want to see."
What was he thinking about through the night?
"All I was thinking about was Ryan."
How does he think Shazier will be?
"I'm pretty sure he's going to be all right. He's battled through injuries his whole career. This is going to be no different. He'll do this, too."
Not even my mention of the two-touchdown comeback against a team Williams detests more than most altered the tone:
"It's tough anytime anybody goes down," Ben Roethlisberger said. "It's scary ... sad ... emotions are running like crazy. You feel for their families at home."
"It's hard to describe," Bud Dupree said in trying to do exactly that. "He's out there, and then he's not. And all you're thinking about is him. You're scared. You're really scared."
So Foster wasn't alone.
Even as the first half proceeded, the Steelers were talking among themselves, on the sideline, even on the field, about Shazier. Some could be seen shedding tears, in particular the older members of the defense who know Shazier best. Our photographer, Matt Sunday, texted us up in the press box that the Steelers were "in a different place." Meaning different than the game.
That applied to the men in charge, too. The moment that Colbert, in an exceedingly rare appearance on the sideline, personally broke the news to Tomlin of Shazier's status -- roughly a half-hour after the ambulance had left the building -- Tomlin's climactic blink spoke volumes:
This head coach, Mr. Tough Guy in nearly every setting, seemed close to cracking a time or two in his press conference.
"This is a tough game and a tough business," Mr. Tough Guy would remind us. "Fifty is our brother, and our thoughts and prayers go out to him."
Asked if it was hard for him to refocus immediately: "Yeah, you care about that man. You care about all the men."
But when asked how he had to refocus his players: "Guys, I'm not getting into that. It's the job. It's what I'm required to do."
That energy. That anger. That emotion. All that's required.
"He told us," Cam Heyward recalled of the coach, "to lock in and play football."
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Maybe Williams' most stark answer came when asked about getting back into a football groove.
"It was kind of hard in the beginning," he replied, "But I got over it."
There wasn't a hint of apology in that latter part. Nor should there have been. Williams is what Shazier is and what we all hope they'll both continue to be: He's a football player.
And though the actual football at hand had its highlights -- Roethlisberger's 290 yards that made him the eighth quarterback in NFL history to 50,000, Antonio Brown's bullishness matching his brilliance with the evening's pivotal play, Le'Veon Bell lowering his horns and running as hard as I've ever seen him, Williams himself taking the defensive lead for his friend with nine tackles, a sack and two quarterback hits -- it was all overshadowed by the brutality.
No, Shazier's injury doesn't count. Again, that was innocuous.
I'm talking about helmet after helmet smashing like bighorn sheep, about player after player being helped or carted off, about barking and taunting and "yapping all through the game," as Maurkice Pouncey would put it. I'm talking about maybe the most frightening display of football I've covered at any level.
And for once, it wasn't just the Bengals' bad boys instigating.
This was JuJu Smith-Schuster crushing the usual villain, Vontaze Burfict, arguably legal though it was flagged as unnecessary roughness. But the rookie then childishly towered over the fallen Burfict to taunt him. No one weeps for Burfict, probably not after he's stretchered off and pronounced as concussed. He is, after all, an idiot. But good for David DeCastro for rushing over to be the first to chide JuJu. And good for Tomlin for making a point to do likewise afterward: "That's not how we play. That's not reflective of the sportsman he is, and I'm sure he's sorry for that."
Schuster-Smith sounded that way.
"I saw a Bengals jersey, and I didn't even know it was Burfict," he said. "I didn't mean to stand over him. I apologize for standing over him."
He should. JuJu isn't the angel that his social media presence paints. Kid's got a lot of growing up to do.
That wasn't all, either. Roethlisberger was cheap-shotted from behind by Carlos Dunlap. Williams arrived low to knock out Joe Mixon. George Iloka hogtied Bell to the ground with a pro wrestling maneuver. Oh, and Iloka topped everything by going right at AB's head in the end zone. Absolutely sickening. In both spirit and execution.
It produced an amazing -- if it were it anyone but AB -- tying touchdown in the fourth quarter. Holding onto that ball through an attempted decapitation has to rate among his best catches of, oh, the past couple weeks. But there's no place for that type of physical assault in football or any sport, and variations of it took place from kickoff to final gun.
And that, in its own way, was sickening from the broader view. Because for whatever little the NFL's done to address head injuries, concussions and the like, a nightmarish evening like this, one that probably would have occurred no matter how the game was officiated or how big the threat of suspensions or fines ... it can strike fear into the hearts of people who'd probably prefer to watch for, you know, a good time.
"That was something, huh?" Alejandro Villanueva said, and this was after he, three other Steelers and Andy Dalton were the only ones meeting at midfield for the standard two-team prayer. "All night long. It's crazy how a game can just get away from everyone like that."
And the prayer itself?
"That was a rough one. Lots to cover."
It was ugly. But hardly unexpected.
"You know, this rivalry is real," Cincinnati linebacker Kevin Minter said of the punishment. "We come for them, and they come for us."
He's right. Amid all the silliness back home about possibly looking past opponents toward the Patriots in three weeks -- including the head coach's own contribution, it should now be noted -- the Steelers' players had zero chance of doing that. Not with the Bengals this week, the Ravens the next. Cincinnati might have looked like another .500 schedule-filler to the outside but not to those involved.
But these things can go too far, as once happened between the Steelers and the Ray Lewis-era Ravens. And this was much, much too far.
Tomlin long has embraced such clashes, and he seemed to almost admire the Bengals' all-out approach in this one, saying, "We faced a lot of adversity tonight, a lot of it created by Cincinnati. They came to play, and they got after us. ... We've been under duress in that stadium against that team before." He praised his group for its resiliency, calling them a "no-blink team."
In another media room, his counterpart, Marvin Lewis, was being peppered with very different questions, some of them focusing on the general violence. One Cincinnati reporter asked if some plays went too far.
"I'm not going to comment on that," Lewis replied. "It was a football game."
Pressed on whether NFL players should police themselves since suspensions and fines evidently aren't working, Lewis shot back, "I don't understand your question. Football is a physical sport."
Both coaches' positions are fair. But it should never reach the point where the dominant wish through what should have been a fun, fantastic-finish-type 20-20 tie is that, my God, don't let this disaster last one snap longer than necessary. And that's how this felt. It was frightening.
Yeah, bring those prayers, those positive thoughts.
