PITTSBURGH —It takes a village to tackle Darnell Washington . A few Cincinnati Bengals defenders made the mistake of trying to do it on their own on Sunday and were put on a poster by the massive Pittsburgh Steelers tight end.
Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers got to sit back and delight in watching a runaway train pick up yards after the catch. Washington gobbled up 31 yards of real estate after hauling in a crosser late in the second quarter, stiff-arming Bengals linebacker Barrett Carter into oblivion, trucking safety Geno Stone and blasting cornerback DJ Turner II into the sideline.
"They're getting scared of him, for sure. They should be," Rodgers said on Wednesday. "He's a mammoth. He jumped over a guy. He stiff-armed a guy to the ground, ran a guy over, made another guy miss a tackle. Then he had a block where he knocked two guys down. … I'm just so proud of him, really just his approach and the growth I've seen since training camp as he's continued to get his body in shape, get his mind in shape."
Washington cleared Stone and cornerback Dax Hill on a hurdle earlier in the frame. Washington's preparation impresses Rodgers as much as his yards-after-catch abilities.
"He's a guy you don't worry about the details at all," Rogers said. "He's very detail-oriented, a super smart player, and I just think that the play, the catch and run, the awareness level that he had (like) 'I've got a guy close to me. I'm gonna catch this and then I'm gonna turn, then I'm gonna stiff arm this guy.' He's faster than people think because he's so tremendously large and he's also shifty.
"Third-and-17, to drop it off on a check down and have him make a guy miss and then fall forward and get a first down, that's not what you expect, but those are game-changing plays, and he's consistently, most of the season, made those plays.
Alan Saunders contributed reporting from Pittsburgh.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now : Defenses 'Getting Scared' of Humongous Steelers TE Darnell Washington
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