The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals have played some of the most physical, violent, and gratuitously nasty football games in the NFL over the course of the past several teams, at the height of the modern rivalry between these two AFC North teams.
But on Sunday they face each other for the first time since one of the worst sights on an NFL football field in years, when Pro Bowl linebacker Ryan Shazier suffered a severe spinal injury that has put his career at a standstill, perhaps unlikely to ever resume as a player.