Steelers running back Stevan Ridley is preparing to face the Patriots on Sunday, and he’d love to show them they were wrong to get rid of him.
Ridley told the Boston Herald that he felt the Patriots treated him like “trash” after he spent his first four seasons in the league in New England. He suffered a serious knee injury in his fourth year, which was also the final year of his contract, and after that he said the Patriots wanted nothing to do with him.
“I was trashed after an injury,” Ridley said. “I’m just going to put it that way. I’m not going to say specifically, but to be a starter for [the Patriots] for four years, to tear my ACL and never get a call back, that’s a tough pill to swallow.”
It’s been a tough road back for Ridley since that injury. In 2015 he played for the Jets and had just 36 carries for 90 yards. In 2016 he played for the Falcons and had just three carries for seven yards. In 2017 with the Steelers he had 26 carries for 108 yards, and this year in Pittsburgh he has 23 carries for 60 yards. Not exactly the kind of production Ridley would hope for, as a player who once had a 1,263-yard season for the Patriots.
Steelers starting running back James Conner is dealing with an ankle injury, so Ridley may get plenty of opportunities to stick it to his old team.