“It was tough. It was crazy tough, especially with Michele and the closeness we have with her,” Roethlisberger said after Sunday’s game. “I told the guys during the postgame prayer, we’re thankful for the victory, but we also understand there are bigger things — there’s life. I’m glad we could gift people three hours with a break.”

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Tomlin spoke emotionally Sunday as “a member of the Squirrel Hill community personally,” and said he lives about 800 yards from the synagogue. “Words cannot express how we feel as members of the community. We are prayerful.”

Defensive end Cam Heyward grew up a Steelers fan and his late father, Craig “Ironhead” Heyward, starred at Pitt. “I grew up in this city. I started texting my cousins, grandparents, started thinking about how it could have been anybody. It’s just innocent people shouldn’t have to suffer for that. I know we play football, but that was so much bigger,” he said Sunday (via the Athletic).

“For the families involved, that [pain] never goes away. We have a lot of human … our city can overcome this, but everybody’s got to love, everybody’s got to care, and we’ll continue to do our part. I know everybody in this locker room cared so much for everybody who was involved in that. And we’re going to continue to care. It just doesn’t happen overnight.”

Cecil Rosenthal, 59, and his 54-year-old brother David had intellectual disabilities and loved being part of the Tree of Life community, the Post-Gazette reported. “[Cecil] went every Saturday,” David DeFelice, a mentor from the Best Buddies program, said. “He absolutely loved going to synagogue.”

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So did his brother. “When it came time to take the Torahs out, Cecil always stepped forward to carry it, and David was right behind him. The rabbis knew: You’ve got to give them a Torah to carry,” Barton Schachter, a past president of Tree of Life, told the Post-Gazette, adding, “They were just part of the fabric that every group wants to have. They’re there all the time, and they’re just two wonderful kids.”