Ike Taylor took a hefty pay cut this offseason to remain with the Pittsburgh Steelers and is not too pleased about losing $4.25 million in the process.
"I'm pissed off about it, still am pissed off about it and I'm going to be pissed off until the end of the season about it," Taylor told The Jim Rome Show on Monday. "Did it hurt me? Hell yeah. Does it still hurt? Yeah, it hurts, but hopefully I can go in and bounce back this year, do what I need to do on the field and we will see what happens after."
NFL veterans often lament teams leveraging a "take a pay cut or be cut" ultimatum, but Taylor said he'd seen too many peers change teams and wash out of the NFL.
"I had seen a few guys who didn't take pay cuts and went to other teams and it didn't work out for them," said Taylor. "So, at the end of the day, I didn't want to leave Pittsburgh, point blank, period. I've got a lot of relationships -- I have a lot of friends, I gained a lot of business relationships in Pittsburgh. Just hearing from other guys coming from other teams and being on the team with Pittsburgh, they say it's like no other; it's like day and night, so I'll listen."
Taylor is entering his 12th season and coming off a year in which his play drastically diminished as the Steelers' matchup corner.
The 33-year-old said he was surprised the team would force him to take a pay cut.
"It's like you get to a point, why me? Like, I didn't show my loyalty?" he told Rome. "I've been a good guy -- not saying I'm flawless, I have my flaws, but you want to talk about a standup guy, who takes the blame even when he doesn't have to. You want to talk about a guy who's going to come in in-shape, not waiting to build up into shape when he gets to camp.
"Or you want to talk about a guy who's unselfish and puts his team before his family and friends, you want to talk about a guy who has loyalty, yeah it's me," Taylor continued. "It's me you're talking about. When you come to me and ask me for a pay cut, I'm like 'Damn, out of all these people, you want to ask Ike.'"
And a plethora of over-30 NFL veterans nod in agreement.
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