Ward Spins Comments He Made About Roethlisberger

With all the talk about the pregame interview that Hines Ward gave to the media on NBC about Ben Roethlisberger not playing, now he’s trying to spin what he had to say:

If Hines Ward’s words sounded cutting in an interview aired before the game, he later explained they were merely spoken in frustration. Ward talked about lying to team doctors on occasions when he suffered from concussion symptoms and how many NFL players overlook them, statements that league officials won’t relish reading and hearing amid an increased effort to protect players from such life-altering injuries. And he talked in such a way that his predecessor as the player voted the league’s dirtiest, NBC analyst Rodney Harrison, criticized Ward for questioning his team leader’s toughness, and after a 20-17 overtime loss to Baltimore, Ward attempted to set the record straight: “I mean, you know, you really don’t want to mess around with concussions. Guys have concussions and still play. But you got to look at the whole, big picture. When your health comes into question, you’ve got to look at the long-term effect. When I said that, I really wasn’t saying that negative toward Ben. But you have to be concerned about it. You don’t know what the future may hold. … “Wish we had him out there. But we didn’t.” —