Williams didn't jump on Steelers bandwagon – he was born on it

Perhaps because he wasn’t battling a sinus infection today, Deron Williams was less reserved in talking about his favorite NFL football team when the topic of the soon-to-be Super Bowl XLIII champion Pittsburgh Steelers was brought up than when he was last week.

With cameras and microphones rolling, Williams proudly (as he should be) admitted that he’s been a Steelers fan “all my life.” He was born in 1984, so the fact that he jumped on the bandwagon in the Mark Malone days as opposed to guys like me who jumped on the bandwagon during the Terry Bradshaw days is impressive.

Equally as impressive is how Williams, born in Steelers-friendly West Virginia, didn’t bail out during the Bubby Brister years.

“I’m not one of these guys who jumps from team to team,” he told reporters. “I stay with my team. I was in Dallas and they didn’t get me converted to a Dallas fan.”

That speaks volumes about his judgment, taste and integrity, quite frankly.

Williams admitted being a Pittsburgh fan growing up in a rival’s town was “different – got a lot of crap from people.”

Though nobody in the Jazz locker room is a true Cardinals fan, per se, Williams said some guys are pulling for the underdogs just to give him grief.

“Of course. As I would do to them.”

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The topic of Saturday’s Jazz-Cavaliers advance is – shocker – LeBron James. I found it interesting that the person who gave the most glowing praise about James was Jazz coach Jerry Sloan.

Here are a couple of extra quotes that didn’t make the final cut for the story but are interesting nonetheless:

Quote 1 – “He’s just a wonderful player. Watch how he played in the Olympics. It looked to me he had a lot to do with how they (Team USA) played. … He went there to win the Olympics, get it (the gold medal) back in our hands. To me that’s the way it’s supposed to be. It shouldn’t be a surprise.”

Quote 2 – “You have to guard him with a guy who’s 220. We can’t do anything about that. You just try to play hard. Hopefully you’re not intimidated by his play, that’s the biggest thing. You hope that players don’t come and be intimidated by him because he is a wonderful player, but you’ve still got to do the best you can to play against him.”