After the Steelers lost the wild card game to the Baltimore Ravens, Steelers safety Mike Mitchell told reporters that he had been playing with a groin tear.

https://twitter.com/AKinkhabwala/status/551604775239024640

Mitchell started training camp on the PUP list due to a groin injury he reportedly suffered during offseason training. This might explain some of Mitchell’s shortcomings on the field this year. Not the boneheaded penalties or obvious mental errors, but perhaps he took a bad angle or two that was a direct result of being hampered by a groin injury.

Earlier this week, Mitchell said he wasn’t trying to use it as an excuse. “It would be like having the brakes on your car not be right,” Mitchell said via ESPN. “I’m not making excuses, I’m not apologizing for anything. One thing we don’t do here in Pittsburgh is we don’t seek comfort. Everyone plays hurt.” He added, “I hate that this is even a story…we all play hurt. Everyone on the team has injuries so I’m no different than any other player.”

When asked about Mitchell’s groin yesterday during his press conference, Coach Tomlin took a stern tone. “I’m not into the excuse making,” said Tomlin. Adding, “I’m not gonna speculate on how it might have effected his performance.”

Earlier in the press conference, Tomlin listed Mitchell as one of the players who are on the short list for requiring off season surgery. Mitchell played 977 snaps for the Steelers defense this year, just 20 behind Worilds and Timmons, and was 3rd in regular season tackles with 57.

It’s being reported by 93.7 The Fan, and multiple media outlets, that the Steelers have banned Safety Mike Mitchell from social media. The reported banning centers around a heated Twitter exchange after last night’s victory over the Titans.

First, some immature fan tells Mitchell what he thinks of him via Twitter during last night’s game.

https://twitter.com/Tomkatf14/status/534547850026573824

He allegedly gets a direct message (private message for you non-tweeters) reply from Mitchell. The Twitter user,  @Tomkatf14 tweeted a screenshot of the DM to different crew members of the 93.7 The Fan.

This wasn’t the only alleged fan who received a mean reply from Mitchell. Another user posted this DM, but after perusing their timeline, it’s pretty evident that they deleted their initial tweets to the Steelers Safety.

A couple things here. There’s a bit of bad journalism that deserves some finger pointing. Using the headline ‘Mike Mitchell tweets go kill yourself to fan’ is misleading, and probably purposely so. He didn’t “tweet” that to anyone, he private messaged it (allegedly). There’s a huge difference, and I’m sure the author, though unnamed in the article (oddly enough), is well aware of that. Furthermore, posting these screenshots of Mitchell’s DM’s without posting screenshots to show the context is a little bush league. (See what I did there?)

Look, I’m not condoning Mitchell’s actions. Any professional athlete should know that Twitter and Facebook are riddled with trollish fans, and if they can’t refrain from sinking down to their level, then they should stay away from social media altogether. Having said that, this guy (kid?) Tomkat is an ass. An ass who went whining to media members hoping to get attention- and he got it.

While the author might think Mitchell’s comments were “disturbing”, it may help he/she/robot to know that “kill yourself” is an extremely popular thing to say on social media. Not something a Pittsburgh Steeler should be messaging to a “fan”, but highly doubtful he meant it in the literal sense. From UrbanDictionary:

Lastly, the Steelers can’t “ban” Mitchell from using social media. They can ask him nicely to not use it or behave a certain way, but they don’t have the power to outright ban a player from using social media. The only authority the league has against social media usage prevents players from posting on social media 90 minutes before a game until following the conclusion of media interviews after a game. In theory, a team could use the personal conduct policy to discipline a player if they deemed their actions to be unbecoming.