Oct 19th 2008 6:40PM by Michael David Smith (author feed)
Filed under: Bengals, Steelers, NFL VideoTV announcers frequently point to plays when a wide receiver takes on a linebacker and refer to them as mismatches. What they usually mean is that a wide receiver is too fast for a linebacker, but in the case of Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward taking on Bengals linebacker Keith Rivers, it was a mismatch in the sense that Ward drilled Rivers, who never knew what hit him:

Rivers is reportedly out for the season with a broken jaw. Ward has been fined twice this season for hits that the NFL deemed unnecessarily rough, but he wasn’t penalized on the Rivers hit and shouldn’t be fined for it, either. It was a rough block, but it was a clean block. Ward is one of the NFL’s most physical receivers, and while it’s unfortunate for Rivers, it’s part of the game.