Former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall tried to play the victim on Monday after he directed criticism at White people for commenting on football.
After receiving a ton of criticism on X, Mendenhall followed up with another post later in the evening.
“Simply tired of being berated by people who arent experts in de game,” he wrote. “We jus pretend like I’m the only athlete tired of fans talking trash? You dis upset over a single tweet. What about us? Like me or not, I’m a GREAT in football. This proves my point, u can’t speak on ball alone.”
Mendenhall was on the Steelers during the 2008 season, when the team eventually went on to win the Super Bowl. His season was cut short due to injury. He was on the team when they went to the Super Bowl in 2010 against the Green Bay Packers, but he had a crucial fumble in the fourth quarter that set up a Packers touchdown.
However, he took exception to some of the analysis he was seeing online – specifically from White people.
“I’m sick of average white guys commenting on football,” he wrote. “Y’all not even good at football. Can we please replace the Pro Bowl with an All-Black vs. All-White bowl so these cats can stop trying to teach me who’s good at football. I’m better than ur (sic) goat.”
Former Houston Texans star J.J. Watt joked about what an “All-Black vs. All-White bowl” would look like.
“We’d get cooked at corner, not gonna lie,” Watt wrote. “Nobody on our squad is covering Tyreek (Hill).”
The former Steelers and Arizona Cardinals running back talked about Steelers coach Mike Tomlin in a post prior to that.
“I don’t understand how you can talk about Tomlin’s playoff record, without acknowledging that Kenny Pickett has only played one year,” he added. “Who was the QB for all those playoff loses?!! Literally all of them. Make up your minds. How you arbitrarily separate Mike & Ben in de (sic) W/L column?”
Mendenhall was a standout running back at Illinois before turning pro. He played for the Steelers from 2008 to 2012 before spending his final year in Arizona.
He was on the Steelers when they defeated the Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII. It was Tomlin’s first Super Bowl championship.