Feb 3, 2018 5 min read

MINNEAPOLIS – There are times as a reporter when you just get caught up in the story and can’t help yourself.

It’s not what reporters are supposed to do. We’re supposed to stay neutral. We’re supposed to keep our emotions out of things. Just the facts, ma’am.

But you couldn’t help but be moved by the photos posted this week by Ryan Shazier on Instagram. There he was, on the day he was released from the rehabilitation hospital, standing.

Sure, he had help in every instance to stabilize himself. But he was standing.

That was different from everything we had seen from the injured Steelers’ linebacker prior to that moment.

We had seen him lying largely motionless on the field Dec. 4 at Cincinnati following a routine tackle that left him with a spinal injury, which robbed him of feeling in his legs.

We had seen him in a wheelchair at Heinz Field after that. And he had been at the team’s practice facility and in the locker room, even though the media wasn’t permitted to take photos or speak to him.

He had been around. And smiling. Always smiling.

But nothing beat the smile he had on his face Thursday afternoon.

To be clear, Shazier isn’t out the woods, not by a long shot. He’s still got a long way to go in his rehabilitation. It’s a process. But it’s working, perhaps more slowly than anyone – Shazier likely most of all – would like.

Whether he ever plays football again doesn’t matter. As teammate Le’Veon Bell said this week, it’s all about living a normal life.

“For him, I’m just glad he’s passing barriers each step at a time,” Bell said. “He’s got to worry about his whole life and what’s in front of him.”

Bell also isn’t ruling out a return to the field for Shazier. Professional athletes aren’t wired like everyone else. It’s part of what makes them special.

“If he wants to, I know he’ll work hard and go do that,” Bell said. “I don’t know how long it will take him, but if he puts his mind to it and he wants to get back on the field, he’ll get back on the field.”

• Super Bowls are suppo
• sed to be a spectacle. They’re supposed to be an event.

This past week in Minneapolis has been that.

The Mall of America isn’t just any mall. It’s massive. It’s got five different Caribou Coffee shops, none of them within sight of the other. It’s got its own amusement park for goodness sakes, roller coasters and all.

But, at the end of the day, it is still a mall.

Then again, it beats being outside, where the temperature dipped to minus-17 Friday night.

• James Harrison said earlier this week he had been promised he’d play 20 to 25 percent of the time this season when he signed a two-year contract to return to the Steelers.

We all know how that ended. He never even played 20 plays in a single game and had 40 snaps for the entire season when the Steelers released him Dec. 23.

“I feel like they could have,” he told me when I asked him about that lack of playing time, “but they didn’t.”

Harrison also didn’t blame his former teammates for essentially kicking him after he had left. In fact, he said it was a natural reaction to him signing with the Patriots.

“They were talking from emotions,” Harrison said. “They were hurt. You don’t get surprised when someone is talking from the emotions of being hurt.”

• So, who wins the Super Bowl?

It’s an interesting matchup. The Eagles have seven players with Super Bowl experience. Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has matched that with seven himself.

Obviously, the experience edge goes to the Patriots.

But the Eagles have a deep and talented defensive line. They have pressured opposing quarterbacks on 40.8 percent of their pass attempts, the highest in the league.

The Eagles also have a very effective running game.

Certainly, their chances would be much higher to win if they had starting quarterback Carson Wentz available. Wentz had 33 touchdown passes in 13 games this season before getting injured.

But Nick Foles has been good.

That’s a big reason why this game opened with the Eagles as 5 ½-point underdogs and has moved to a 4 ½-point spread.

The money has all been going to Philadelphia.

That’s why the pick here is the Eagles, 26-24.

Dale Lolley covers the Steelers for DKPittsburghsports.com and writes a column for the Observer-Reporter.