The way in which the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals playoff game ended has been well documented. Numerous comments were released on social media by prominent Bengal players about who was to blame for their loss. From their perspective they were innocent victims, cheated by the Steelers and the referees.

To the rest of the viewing world, it was blatant. The actions and behavior of certain Bengals players set up the historic meltdown we all saw. Their actions, not the officials’ flags, ensured the Bengals’ record of 25 years without a playoff victory continued into 2016.

As we all know Adam Jones had plenty to say, calling out Joey Porter and branding Antonio Brown a fake and essentially a liar, despite Brown suffering a concussion that effectively ended his season.

The man at the center of much of the unnecessary violence in that game was Vontaze Burfict, who had strangely kept mostly quiet, until that week that is.

Burfict sat down for a one on one interview this week with ESPN’s Josina Anderson The whole conversation was aired via Anderson’s Facebook page.

Burfict was quick to pass the blame for the loss to an unnamed teammate, presumably Jeremy Hill for fumbling late in the game.

Related Vontaze Burfict blames teammate for playoff loss to Steelers

He did however, make an interesting comment when asked what had happened with Jones and Porter after Brown had been knocked out:

“We all know Joey Porter. Joey Porter, all he does is talk. But, it was nothing going on between me and him. But, Adam obviously got a little bit fed up, like, why are you on the field right now talking to my teammates. Adam didn’t know that he was actually giving me some good words of wisdom. When Joey Porter came on, he was like, man, I really respect your game. And at that point, I didn’t want to hear that.”

At this point Anderson interrupts Burfict to clarify what he is saying and asks:

“He said that to you? So he (Adam Jones) made a mistake.”

Burfict then admitted how wrong his teammate Jones had been in that moment:

“He made a mistake, but Joey shouldn’t have been on the field talking. Adam got my back, 100, 110 percent, I respect him, because I told him, ‘man, he wasn’t saying nothing bad like that’, one of the refs was looking at Adam and right when Adam like kind of pushed Joey Porter, he was like, ‘oh, this is it, he just threw it,’. So I’m like, man, I kind of feel like we were cheated a little bit.”

This paints a very different picture than the one the Bengals players and media ran with after their epic loss.

If you watch the clip below you can clearly see Porter gets pushed from behind into the group of Bengals players by Wallace Gilberry, one of the Bengals own men, then watch as his lips stay shut as Jones starts to lose the plot. More evidence to support this revelation from Burfict:

We strongly suggest you watch the video below to see the whole interview. He responds to questions concerning a past game against the Carolina Panthers when he was seen twisting the ankle of Cam Newton after a tackle.

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