You could see the emotion from Steelers players when Ben Roethlisberger went down with a knee injury in the third quarter of Sunday's game against the St. Louis Rams after he was sacked by Rams safety Mark Barron.
They were by his side on the field, as he was brought to the sideline, and they reached out to him as he headed off the field on a cart to be evaluated.
After the game players were still concerned about Roethlisberger, and shared their take on seeing one of the team captains go down.
Quarterback Mike Vick:
" I was kind of stunned. You never want see a guy like that go down. We were so in the game on the sidelines that I was looking at the defense, and I didn't see Ben go down. When you see him down, I just grabbed my helmet and got ready to go. Hopefully things will work out for him. We all want it to work out for him. We just gotta keep our fingers crossed.
"I spoke to him at the locker when we got into the locker room and we talked, and he congratulated me. My concern is his health and how he's doing. Ben's a great guy. He's the guy that we all look up to in this locker room. He's the centerpiece. I was brought here for a reason, so I have to hold it down until No. 7 gets back."
Running back Le'Veon Bell:
"Obviously my prayers and thoughts are with him. I hope the best for him. But it obviously sucks. I know how it feels to be hurt and not out there with your team."
Wide receiver Antonio Brown:
"It's always disheartening when your leader takes a fall and goes down. I've never seen him down so it was a little shocking, so I just asked him how he was doing. He said he was alright and he'll be back."
Defensive end Cam Heyward:
"We rally around him. He's our captain and we're going to pick up the slack in other ways. We don't want there to be any let-off because he's out. We want him to come back and do something special, and we've got a chance next Thursday.
"Ben's injury is a tough one because he's our starting quarterback of this team, but it's time for other guys to step up. We're not going to shy away from any competition. We accept every challenge. Through this journey we understand that guys are going to get hurt."
Rams safety Mark Barron:
"I stumbled on the way in and just caught his leg. Some kind of way, he ended up hurt. I caught him down around his lower leg. He was grabbing his knee. I didn't have anything to do with his knee. I saw him fall. I didn't see how he fell, I just saw him fall. I don't know exactly what happened to him. Like I said, I just caught him down around his ankle and he fell and grabbed his knee."
