If you are a big back, then Pittsburgh is not a bad place to be drafted. At a bare minimum, you know that you are going to have a large segment of the fanbase rooting for you, simply because they love the idea of a boulder of a man imposing his will on a defense.
That is what Jerome Bettis was, and what Chris Fuamatu-Ma’afala aspired to be under the Hall of Famer’s tutelage when the latter was drafted by the team in 1998, playing for the organization through the 2002 season.
While the Hawaii native finished up his career with two seasons in Jacksonville, and now resides in his home state, Pittsburgh still means the world to him, and helped shape who he is, as he communicated during an interview with the team’s website recently.