{"id":80361,"date":"2026-01-07T16:31:31","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T16:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/80361\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T16:31:31","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T16:31:31","slug":"thought-the-crowd-was-a-bit-iffy-jerome-bettis-calls-out-acrisure-stadium-atmosphere-against-ravens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/80361\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Thought The Crowd Was A Bit Iffy:’ Jerome Bettis Calls Out Acrisure Stadium Atmosphere Against Ravens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Pittsburgh Steelers RB Jerome Bettis was one of many team legends in attendance for the team\u2019s Week 18 win over the Baltimore Ravens. Despite it being a de facto playoff game, with the winner taking the AFC North and advancing to the playoffs and the loser going home, Bettis thought the Acrisure Stadium crowd wasn\u2019t what it needed to be. On Cam Heyward\u2019s Not Just Football podcast<\/a>, Bettis talked about his disappointment in a crowd he thought lacked energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought the crowd was a bit iffy in Pittsburgh. I say that in a little bit of a disappointment because our crowd has been phenomenal for decades,\u201d Bettis said. \u201cAnd this was of those games where I truly felt like a lot of the crowd didn\u2019t feel good about us winning the game. A lot of people went into that game like, \u2018I\u2019m here, but I\u2019m here to see us to go down.\u2019 And you could feel the energy wasn\u2019t a true Pittsburgh Steeler-Ravens end-of-the-season, winner-take-all game. The energy should\u2019ve been at a fever pitch, and it wasn\u2019t that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It certainly appeared on the broadcast that the crowd had a lot of life, but it\u2019s different not being in stadium. There were some boos early in the game as the Steelers\u2019 defense allowed an opening-drive touchdown and the offense was slow to get going, and maybe that\u2019s what Bettis is referring to in his comments. But unlike earlier this season, there were no \u201cFire Tomlin\u201d chants and late in the game, after the Steelers\u2019 offense picked up the pace, it seemed as if the crowd was engaged.<\/p>\n

With the Steelers hosting a playoff game though, Bettis thinks the fan base will be more engaged and \u201cnot gonna doubt these boys again.\u201d With another primetime game in Pittsburgh \u2014 the team\u2019s Wild Card Round game is on Monday Night Football \u2014 it should be a raucous atmosphere.<\/p>\n

Personally, I wouldn\u2019t call a crowd booing a team that, at the time, was failing to do much of anything right one that went into the game expecting a loss. It\u2019s a sign of a fan base that cares, wants to see its team succeed, and is frustrated when that doesn\u2019t happen. So if that\u2019s what Bettis is referring to, then I would disagree with his opinion. But maybe the crowd noise or engagement just wasn\u2019t there, even though it seemed to be while watching on TV.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s different being in the stadium, and Bettis has been in the crowd and played in front of the home fans a whole bunch. If he sensed something was off, it likely was, but that shouldn\u2019t happen again on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Pittsburgh Steelers RB Jerome Bettis was one of many team legends in attendance for the team\u2019s Week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[8206,22432,17215,40760,73,75,74,1833,995],"class_list":["post-80361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-acrisure-stadium","tag-cam-heyward","tag-jerome-bettis","tag-not-just-football","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-trending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}