Monday night was a rough one for Buccaneers safety Chris Conte. It all started well enough; Tampa Bay's defense intercepted Ben Roethlisberger on the Steelers second series and five plays later, the Bucs led, 7-0. But things took a turn for the worst three plays into Pittsburgh's next possession. Facing 3rd-and-10, the Steelers lined up three receivers on the right side of the formation, leaving tight end Vance McDonald alone on the left.
At the snap, McDonald found himself wide open and, yada yada yada, 75 yards later he was in the end zone. At least that's how we imagine Conte recounting a play that will, fairly or not, likely come to define his career. Because what really happened was much more brutal, even by the standards of professional football.
Conte was the only thing between McDonald and the end zone and, well, things couldn't have ended worse for the Bucs safety.
Sweet mercy.
Even McDonald's teammates were astounded at what they had just witnessed. Look at Cam Heyward:
And right guard David DeCastro admitted that he was "shocked," and had to ask himself, "Did that really happen?"
Unfortunately for Conte, yes, yes it did. And in what had to feel like the longest walk of his life, Conte made his way to the sidelines and didn't return. And it wasn't for the obvious reason -- overwhelming embarrassment -- but because he had aggravated a knee injury he suffered the week before. (Apparently, Conte had been playing on a torn posterior cruciate ligament.)
Either way, what McDonald perpetrated against Conte remained a story days later, and on Wednesday the Steelers tight end expressed empathy for the man he humiliated on national television.
"I actually had time this morning thinking of it in the training room while I was getting ready for the day," McDonald said, via the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's Joe Rutter. "I was thinking, 'Man, he's got to walk across the field and to be on the other side of something like that is obviously not the place you want to be.' Outside of the game situation and atmosphere, I feel for him. We all have those kind of plays in football."
Meanwhile, James Harrison, the former Steelers linebacker who appeared on "Undisputed" this week, contends that he never, in fact, had "those kinds of plays" happen to him.
"First thing I thought was what does he go tell his kids?" Harrison said. "You just had another grown man stiff-arm you like that; you have to go home and explain this to your wife or your girlfriend."