Former Steelers safety Ryan Clark spoke for a lot of Steelers fans last week when he called for a halt to the negative banter between former teammates.

Retired Steelers linebacker Joey Porter recently panned fellow Steelers Hall of Honor inductees James Harrison and Ben Roethlisberger for having critical things to say about the end of Mike Tomlin’s tenure prior to his resignation.

Then Maurkice Pouncey joined the fray online and ripped anyone who was going after Roethlisberger.

“Do we need to bring our old (butts) to former-player therapy?” Clark said Thursday. “Do we need counseling? Do we need to have these conversations? Because we’ve got to stop, y’all. Not us. Not the Steelers. We got the rings. What are we doing? We’re the greatest organization ever. Or, at least we were. Now we’re just old, bitter (jerks) that talk about each other. Come on, y’all.”

Clark is right. The headlines are unsightly. The tone is distasteful. The squabbles are uncomfortable for fans to watch. After all, these are high-profile heroes of those who root for the franchise.

No one wants to see a once-bonded team tear down its own image of unity under the emblem.

Based on all the traction this story has gotten, it certainly seems to be holding the interest of the fanbase. It’s not just the soap opera, “he said, he said” element either. It’s not just because the content began with a timely conversation about whether Tomlin should be out as head coach or not.

There’s something deeper here.

For Steelers fans, I bet a lot of them are echoing Clark’s words because they want to preserve good memories. They don’t want three Super Bowl appearances in misty, water-colored days of yesteryear sullied by in-fighting that resulted from something that happened during this current ugly playoff drought.

Boys, let’s not cross the streams between the glorious past and the ignominious present day. Those two worlds should never mix!

Aside from maybe the New York Yankees or Boston Celtics, I can’t think of a pro sports franchise that wraps itself tighter in its own cloak of history more than the Pittsburgh Steelers.

There are 10-year-olds in Pittsburgh who will hear the name Mel Blount and will immediately say, “You know, they changed the rules because of him!” In this region, it’s more important that kids learn Roman numerals before they learn their multiplication tables, so they can easily recite which Super Bowls the Steelers have won. If the mayor’s office implemented a Pittsburgh citizenship test, it’d require you to name all the Hall of Famers from the 1974 draft.

For one generation of Yinzers, every “Where were you when” conversation at dinner parties used to start with the Immaculate Reception, not the moon landing. Now they begin with Harrison’s 100-yard interception return in Super Bowl XLIII.

No, things weren’t perfect with the sainted Steelers of the 1970s. It was bumpy at times while ending Chuck Noll’s tenure. There was melodrama surrounding Terry Bradshaw’s relationship with Noll and the organization long after his retirement.

But we usually avoid talking about those things out loud, don’t we?

Unfortunately, Porter, Harrison, Pouncey, Roethlisberger and now Steven Nelson won’t allow us to stop talking about this recent carping.

The present day isn’t all that promising for the Steelers. Pittsburgh hasn’t seen a playoff win since 2016. The immediate future isn’t too bright either. The Steelers need their glory days and pure nostalgia of the past now more than ever.

Yet if we are worried about a fistfight breaking out anytime there’s a Super Bowl reunion, it’s not going to resonate as much.

The history associated with those early 2000s teams is consecrated. No one wants to see those moments, or people who made them, re-adjudicated on social media.

Especially when the players themselves are playing judge and jury with each other.

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WATCH: This week’s “Madden-Benz: Unfiltered” on some recent Steelers squawking, QB & WR draft plans, Olympic hockey.

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