Porter Wants Stevens to Eat His Words, but He Isn’t Biting

Jerramy Stevens’ 15 minutes of fame lasted closer to five.

The Seattle tight end, who found himself in hot water with Pittsburgh linebacker Joey Porter after making a relatively innocent comment two days earlier, clammed up Thursday.

“I’ll be ready to play on Sunday, just like my team will be ready to play on Sunday,” he said. “I know Joey’s a great player. I look forward to the challenge. I have since we found out we are playing Pittsburgh. They are a great team, so the challenge is what I look forward to.”

Stevens wasn’t quite so tame during media day Tuesday, when he said of Steeler running back Jerome Bettis, a Detroit native: “It’s a heartwarming story and all that, but it will be a sad day when he leaves without that trophy.”

In an atmosphere of otherwise guarded and mild observations by players from both teams, those sounded like fighting words when they got back to Porter, perhaps the most combustible Steeler. On Wednesday, Porter referred to Stevens as “soft” and warned, “He’s going to have the opportunity to back up his words.”

Porter announced Thursday he had found his “huckleberry,” a reference to the movie “Tombstone,” in which Val Kilmer’s character indicates that he’s a willing participant in a confrontation. “I’m out for anybody in blue, but definitely him,” Porter said of Stevens.

Stevens, meanwhile, wasn’t about to fan the flames. Although he was originally scheduled during Thursday’s media availability to sit at a table that could accommodate about 10, he was moved to a dais usually reserved for higher-profile players.

Reporters quickly lost interest in Stevens, however, when it became clear he wasn’t going to respond to Porter’s taunts.

“I know it’s Super Bowl week,” Stevens said. “It seems to be a lack of stories. Obviously, if something like that has gotten blown up, the game is going to be the story, and that’s the exciting part for me.”

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Seattle quarterback Matt Hasselbeck isn’t happy about the league’s policy of using a new football for every play of the Super Bowl’s first half, before switching to a 12-ball rotation in the second half.

“It’s a major concern,” he said. “It wasn’t a concern of mine, but talking to former Super Bowl quarterbacks that was the No. 1 thing they all said to me: ‘Hey, get ready ... because the balls are bad.’ And they’re brand new and they cycle in a bunch, because they want to give them away to different people.

“That’s unfortunate because, in the biggest game of your life, you want to play with the balls you’ve been playing with all season.”

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Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, who will perform at halftime Sunday, was told during a news conference that a long-running joke claimed only he and the world’s cockroaches would survive a nuclear holocaust. Then he was asked what he would do to outlive the cockroaches.

“I’ll eat them,” he said.

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Pro Bowl safety Troy Polamalu said he “tweaked” an ankle during practice Thursday and was added to the Steelers’ Super Bowl injury report as probable.

The cause of the injury wasn’t immediately known.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.