Pittsburgh Steelers’ wideout JuJu Smith-Schuster told reporters on Wednesday that he won’t be doing his pre-game dancing act on opponents’ logos anymore. According to Smith-Schuster, he doesn’t want to be a “distraction” for his teammates anymore.
Whenever Pittsburgh played an away game, Smith-Schuster had a habit of going to the middle of the field before the contest and doing a dance on the logo. He would later post on social media TikTok, where he has a huge following.
The 24-year-old wideout drew some harsh criticism in recent weeks because of this, with many believing he was disrespectful to the opponents. This coincided with Steelers’ three-game losing streak and the fact that the players of the opposing team said Smith-Schuster’s act made them more motivated to play against him. Resulting in the play below.
It is unclear whether the criticism or the hit made Smith-Schuster change his routine, but he decided to stop with the dance for now.
“For the betterment of myself and my teammates, I’m going to stop dancing on the logos,” Smith-Schuster told reporters. “For me, honestly, I was dancing when we were undefeated. I was dancing when we lost our three games. I’m not going to change the person who I am.”
Smith-Schuster is in the midst of a struggling 2020 campaign in which he is averaging a career-low 8.2 yards per catch and failed to have a 100 yards game. He has 82 receptions for 670 yards and seven touchdowns in 14 games.
