“I said, ‘I can’t write this book. I don’t know enough about the space shuttle. I don’t know what happens when the payload bay doors won’t shut and you have to get back within a certain amount of revs, but they can’t land at White Sands. They have to land at Cape Kennedy.’ And he’s like, ‘Just listen to yourself. You know so much more than you knew a couple months ago. Keep doing what you’re doing.’”
“I would say I was my biggest enemy sometimes, thinking about the future when really I had to just lock into what was going on that day,” Fautanu said. “But I felt like once I did lock in and really just focus on the day to day, I really like turned a corner on my recovery.”The Steelers feel confident enough in Fautanu’s recovery that they have finally executed a long-gestating plan to have Fautanu start at right tackle with Broderick Jones — their top pick in 2023 — moving to left tackle. (The real beneficiary of Fautanu’s misfortune may be Dan Moore Jr., who held down left tackle all of last season when Jones was forced to stay on the right side with Fautanu out. Moore signed
with Tennessee in March.)The plan is to bring Fautanu along slowly. It’s a plan Fautanu is fully on board with, though he’d be lying if he wanted to throw caution to the wind when that familiar adrenaline spike hit the first time he lined up when OTAs began on Tuesday.“Once I took that first rep, it’s like ... ‘I don’t want to get out. I don’t want to want to get out,’” Fautanu said with a laugh, covering his mouth briefly after uttering an expletive to punctuate his point. “So yeah, it’s also like trying to be smart, but I’m a competitor, man. I love being out there.”
So do the Steelers, who have invested heavily in the offensive line in recent years while their search for a franchise quarterback continues. If all goes as planned, Jones and Fautanu will serve as the bookends, with second-year center Zach Frazier in the middle, flanked by second-year guard Mason McCormick and veteran Isaac Seumalo.Fautanu doesn’t think it will take long for the group to gel, in part because they’re already “super tight,” a bond that firmly took hold last fall as he navigated an uncertain path back to the field that was for more daunting than he anticipated.
It wasn’t fun. But it might have been necessary for someone who believes everything happens for a reason.
“It made me more hungry than I already was, and I was pretty damn ready to play,” he said. “But yeah, I mean those nights sitting in my room like man, am I gonna come back, this, that and the other. There’s a whole lot of thoughts going through my head, but at the end of the day I made it through and I feel like that’s what made me stronger. That’s what’s going to make me and feel me to play the best that I can for this team.”PSG fans are known for their stance against the war in Gaza. They previously displayed a giant banner saying “Free Palestine” in November during the Champions League
The latest banner was likely to lead to disquiet among local authorities in Munich. Munich’s city hall displays an Israeli flag as well as a Ukrainian one, and German support for Israel is strong for historical reasons.PSG could also face a fine. UEFA bans the use of gestures, words, objects or any other means to transmit a provocative message that is judged not fit for a sports event, particularly provocative messages that are of a political, ideological, religious or offensive nature. Financial penalties are typical for a first offense — 10,000 euros ($10,700) for a political banner or disturbances.
Israel’s nearly three-month blockade on Gaza has pushed the population of over two million to the. It has allowed some aid to enter in recent days, but aid organizations say far from enough is getting in.