Foster: Bell's Poor Start Had A 'Little Bit' To Do With Missing Camp
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PITTSBURGH (93-7 The Fan)- Steelers guard Ramon Foster and his teammates are celebrating a win after Week 1, even if it was against the perpetual bottom dwellers in the AFC North, the Cleveland Browns and only by a 21-18 score.
"They're [Cleveland] really young and the new defensive coordinator is doing a lot of stuff, but also on our end, we've got to be a whole lot cleaner in our play and that's just, you know, I'm just going to say that's the first week of jitters," said Foster. "Guys just getting back into the full swing of everything and it just wasn't as clean as we wanted it to be this past weekend, but it's a win."
The Steelers' offense, besides Antonio Brown who piled up 182 yards on 11 catches, was just a little bit off. That includes Le'Veon Bell, who was absent for all of training camp this season and it may or may not have caused him to struggle on Sunday.
"I definitely think it has a little bit to do with it because he's missed all of seeing the way defensive guys are going to play him and the preseason games, as much as we didn't want him to be in them and as much as he wanted to prevent himself from being injured," said Foster. "You kind of need those type of things, he's probably going to have to deal with it for the next couple weeks coming up. Just getting in the swing of getting a defender off of him, being in the right spot, just the whole football IQ thing of just knowing when to leave out of the backfield and check down for Ben. So, we're not complaining, we still got the win and we'll find a way to get him up to speed. But it's just one of those things, we're dealing with it, I'm sure he's going to be a whole lot better because of it."
Ramon also explained the maturity that Antonio Brown showed on Sunday in waiting his turn to get involved in the offense and being a great teammate in the process.
"I think Ben said he and A.B. had a little talk, but it wasn't even a little talk, it was one of those things where A.B. was like, 'OK well I'll get involved in the game when it's my time.' And that's huge coming from A.B. because it was messy early," said Foster. "Ben was spreading the ball around, it was also one of those things to where, like I said A.B. wasn't involved super early. He was actually encouraging guys along the way like, 'We'll get this going, don't worry, don't worry.' So I was super excited to see A.B. like that. I guess it actually prompted Ben more to throw the ball to A.B. and he did what he did. I was amazed to see him catch some of the balls they way he was guarded this past weekend."
The Steelers will take on Minnesota next week at home and the Vikings will be coming off an impressive showing against New Orleans on Monday night.
"They've got a good defense," said Foster. "Sam Bradford was looking like the guy that they [the Rams] drafted in my draft year in '09, he looked like a No. 1 overall pick [Monday night]. [Stefon] Diggs, man, he had a career night, I thought he played really well. That defense is good, we've got our hands full this weekend we have to play our type of game."
"They [the Vikings] look like a penetrate four down defense, I'm sure they're going to try to do some double barrel stuff, they're going to do some stuff to try to get us on different levels," said Foster. "But also I think they have just good personnel right now, Minnesota. It will be interesting to see how we gameplan against them and what they'll send towards us because I'm sure early on they're going to try to send the house and we've got to adjust to it because that's basically what Cleveland did too, it's a copycat league."
You can hear the entire interview with Steelers' guard Ramon Foster on "The Fan Morning Show" above, and you can catch him in his weekly spot on the show every Tuesday at 8 a.m.