Matt Schaub's recent struggles have brought about some pretty severe reactions for Houston Texans fans. The quarterback has had his jersey burned in the parking lot. He has been confronted at his own house. He was even booed after suffering a gruesome ankle injury in Week 6. Now the quarterback has other players coming to his defense after he called the Texans fanbase "classless."
When Schaub went down in the third quarter during the team's game against the St. Louis Rams, the injury looked bad. He had to be helped off the field and spent the remainder of the game being tended to by the training staff. Instead of supporting their fallen player, fans showered boos down on him.
"I'd hate to think anyone out there, regardless of who was injured -- on our team, on the visiting team, whatever the situation is -- that people would be like that and act that way," Schaub said, via Sports Radio 610. "There's no place for that in this game and there just really isn't."
The Texans were down by 25 at the time of the injury. Schaub had not thrown an interception at that point, but his recent string of pick-six passes had fans nervous and also angry. Schaub did not enter the game, instead replaced by TJ Yates who was met with cheers.
Multiple players on the Texans roster spot up in support of Schaub and the treatment he has received. Linebacker Brian Cushing called the fan reaction barbaric. Andre Johnson said there is no place in football for fans to act like that. Now, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is supporting Schaub.
"It's truly, truly unfortunate," Roethlisberger said on 93.7 The Fan during his weekly radio show. "Booing when somebody gets hurt, it was just sickening. It's just so hard to understand, especially your home crowd. When people were showing up at his house to do negative things, that's cause for some action from the player. That's your family. When we're on that field and we're in that stadium you can boo, you can yell at us but when we step outside we're human beings just like everybody else. We've got feelings, we've got family."
Schaub was concerned enough about his safety after he threw four consecutive pick-sixes that he called Houston Texans' security to watch his house. Roethlisberger is hopeful that Schaub is able to put all of the distractions behind him and simply go out and play football for his team and teammates.
Head coach Gary Kubiak has not made a decision on who will start the next game for the Texans. He is waiting to see how Schaub's health progresses. In the meantime, Schaub is preparing like he will start on Sunday.
"I can say this, I'm going to do everything I can to be ready to go," Schaub said. "I'm spending day and night working on things, getting treatment, doing things at the house, in the training room early, making our trainers get up in the middle of the night so we can do a little extra ...That's where we're at as a football team, and that's the way I'm built."
