Via the Twitter feed of Sheil Kapadia of philly.com, we’ve become aware of a potential mini-controversy arising from the Titans-Steelers game that launched the 2009 season.
Pittsburgh wideout Santonio Holmes pre-game and post-game attire included a Mike Vick jersey.
In our view, it’s no big deal. A lot of players have voiced their support for Vick, and Vick and Holmes share an agent, Joel Segal. So Holmes likely feels an even greater connection to Vick than other players might, since Holmes likely was getting updates from Segal regarding Vick’s status, during and after Vick’s incarceration.
Also, there’s a chance that Segal gave Holmes a firm talking-to last year after Santonio was pulled over with pot in his car, and that Segal reminded Holmes of Vick’s predicament in urging Holmes to clean up his act.
Still, Pittsburgh fans are fairly zealous about this kind of stuff. I vaguely recall a dustup from the latter days of the Barry Bonds era with the local baseball team (before pretty much everyone hated him) that he showed up somewhere in a Los Angeles Kings jacket, despite the presence of a pretty good NHL team not far from wear the Pirates play their games.
That said, Holmes has plenty of juice right now in Pittsburgh. So unless and until he comes out of the tunnel on game day wearing an Eagles jersey, it likely won’t be a problem.