Jones: I’ll apologise to Brown if he misses play-off game

Burfict was suspended three games by the National Football League on Monday for his hit on Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown during Cincinnati’s AFC wild-card game on Saturday.

The Pittsburgh Steelers only just squeezed past the Cincinnati Bengals on Saturday night, and now they’ll face the Denver Broncos this weekend with a compromised quarterback – if he plays at all. Burfict’s hit on Brown “placed his opponent at unnecessary risk of injury and should have been avoided”.

The two penalties moved the Steelers from the Bengals’ 47-yard line to the 17. Bengals corner Adam Jones received a personal foul penalty for shoving Steelers coach Joey Porter, who came onto the field and was reportedly jawing with Bengals players after the Brown injury.

“Fitz Toussaint and Todman did a nice job of allowing us to maintain the personality that we wanted to maintain in the run game, but equally as impressive was their inclusion in the passing game”, Tomlin said. But there was also more chatter about retaliation for Wallace hit on Bruton that drew a flag for unnecessary roughness.

Brown got a concussion from the play. He admitted after re-entering the 18-16 win over the Bengals on Saturday night that he couldn’t throw the ball more than 10 yards down the field.

Burfict was fined four times for safety-related violations during the 2015 season.

“It didn’t hurt when I reached back to throw”, Roethlisberger said of the drive. Though players are usually just fined for helmet-to-helmet hits, Burfict is a repeat offender and thus subject to a multiple game ban. “But penalties here or there, one play here or there, is the difference in playing another week and not playing at all this time of year”, Kubiak said, “and our guys understand that”. If Ben is a go at practice on Thursday he should be able to play this Sunday. In his interview with Marshall, Jones held firm to his belief that Brown was faking.

“I can’t tell you anything about what Antonio Brown did in the past, I can only tell you that statement was outrageous”, Kasdan said.

“Coaches are supposed to be held to a higher standard when it comes to stuff like that”, Jones said.