Steelers Larry Foote is Michigan through and through

Steel City Insider publisher Jim Wexell has a great piece on Michigan native and Wolverines product Larry Foote, who also happens to be the only player involved in Sunday's game who's played for both the Lions and the Steelers.

Foote mentioned the Lions' curse - an insult given to the franchise in 1958 by Bobby Layne, the last Lions QB to win a championship, who said the team wouldn't win for another 50 years after they traded him to Pittsburgh.

The Lions are 1-11 in the postseason since then, and finished 0-16 in the 50th anniversary season of that trade.

In wake of recent speculation that Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger might ask the Steelers to look into trade options this offseason, it's sort of odd that Roethlisberger will turn 32 this offseason - the same age as Layne when he was unwillingly traded to the Steelers.

We'll take Roethlisberger at his borderline overstated response (apologizing for rumors that he didn't create?), and assume he doesn't want to be traded. Also, we'll choose to simply not get into the borderline impossibility of any team wanting to give up the chance to draft an elite quarterback for one that costs five times as much and is 10 years older.

It's fun to talk about though, right?

Same as Foote's comments. Writes Wexell:

"We shoulda beat the Steelers," he said. "They got lucky. We couldn't pick up the blitz. Will Gay kept hitting (Daunte) Culpepper."

The Steelers were mired in a similar (although not as severe) funk in 2009, the last time they played the Lions. It would be hard to complain about that funk in front of Lions fans, though. Daunte Culpepper was their quarterback, and when an offense doesn't succeed because William Gay is hitting their passer too much, there are likely lots of problems.

Luck, apparently, is involved in a team's ability to pick up a blitz. Who knew?

Perhaps it wasn't luck the Lions let then-pro scouting director Kevin Colbert interview for the Steelers' director of football operations position in Pittsburgh. Granted, it was his hometown, but Pittsburgh is also the hometown of Matt Millen - and the Lions hired him as the team's CEO one year after Colbert left.

That decision does not appear to have been a good one for the Lions.

The history between these two clubs is dotted with little tidbits like that. And Foote seems to know all about it.

More from Behind the Steel Curtain:

• Lions vs. Steelers: Everything you need to know
• Weekend Checkdown
• Swirling rumors not distracting Steelers locker room
• Steelers injury report: Keisel, Woodley, Foster miss again
• Defenses are full of bullies, who's stopping them?
• Ike Taylor faces big challenge, but that isn't anything new
• Emmanuel Sanders says Steelers won't be bullied

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