Exclusive: Williams explains shot at Burfict

Vince Williams is an emotional man, and he does little to mask that.

So when he saw Le'Veon Bell go down at the hands -- or, rather, the swinging legs, of the Bengals' Vontaze Burfict in the Steelers' loss to the Bengals Sunday, he reacted emotionally, on and off the field.

Williams put the following on Twitter two days ago: "I catch Vontez on south beach im painting that boi on sight"

That was a threat, to which Burfict countered: "why wait then u kno were I'm at"

Williams contacted me early this evening because he wanted to clarify his stance on Bell, Burfict and his tweet. Here's his message in full and without comment:



"First of all, anyone who knows me know I'm not a thug. I'm not going to apologize for my words, however. I was infuriated by the fact that one of my closest teammates was taken out by a notoriously dirty player. I got conformation that he was gloating about causing a season-ending injury. I'm confused as to how anyone could be happy about that, especially since they had just gone through the same thing. I was sitting there. The pop was loud. Do you know what it's like to see someone you consider a brother to be in pain and to have something they cherish ripped away from them? Then to watch the player who did it smiling about it? I'm sure that would make anyone want to punch someone in the face. I shouldn't have took these feelings to Twitter, but I did. If caring about my teammates makes me a villain, then I'll be public enemy No. 1 any day everyday."