Jerramy Spoke in the Newspaper Today

This year, Jerramy Stevens is the number one target of Hawks backers looking to vent their frustrations. Yesterday, he tried to explain himself to the P-I's Jim Moore.

Following his Super Bowl adventure which included dropped passes and setting off Steelers resident bad man Joey Porter, he has been making bone headed penalties, seemingly squandering his super human talent, getting called out by other teams, and well, dropping more passes.

Stevens claims that as a tight end his primary job is to block. That may be true, but you are a tight end in a west coast offence coached by Mike Holmgren (who would pass to the punter if he could) so guess what, you're going to get the ball thrown your way. When this happens, and the ball hits you in your hands, chest, stomach, and hands again, HOLD ON TO IT!

Sorry, about that. The column goes on to explain that his fellow teammates wish that the fans would lay off Stevens because well, he's their friend.

"What really upset me is that people want to act like he's not fully engaged in the locker room," [Bryce] Fisher said. "But he's as big a part of this locker room as anybody else. He's a great guy. The dude's a good teammate."

Added [Julian] Peterson: "He laughs with everybody, jokes with everybody. You can't expect much more than that."

Since we are supportive of our friends we thought we would share what they had to say after reading these quotes.

I hope Peterson performs Stevens' eulogy, "He responded to humor as if he was human."

"When someone tosses him something in the locker room, then applauds sarcastically when he catches it, Jerramy is the first to laugh. He often says, 'Oh you guys,' afterwards."

"I take this as an indication that he understands and appreciates the jokes about him being scared to catch the ball."

Stevens is in the last year of his contract, and it is unclear if the team will re-sign their former first round pick or let him piss off fans in another NFL city. Personally, we hope that Stevens has a long NFL career, mostly because we wouldn't feel safe if he was out there roaming the streets.