PITTSBURGH -- Alejandro Villanueva wasn't supposed to stand alone at the end of the tunnel for the national anthem on Sunday, Steelers captains Ben Roethlisberger and Cameron Heyward said on Monday.
Roethlisberger said that they asked Villanueva -- a West Point graduate who served three tours in Afghanistan as an Army Ranger -- to stand at the front with the captains for the national anthem. Originally, the entire team was supposed to gather at the end of the tunnel where Villanueva stood.
But Roethlisberger said the players were separated when they came out of the locker room by a crowd of people leaving the field. Villanueva was ahead of the group and continued to the mouth of the tunnel, Roethlisberger said, while the rest of the players stopped walking when the anthem started to play.
"We stopped to show respect for the anthem," Roethlisberger said. "I was talking to Cam, I regret not going down to Al. But Al didn't know that we weren't there. He thought we were standing with him. So, there was no division there.
"We were 20 feet behind him. You can see the picture, we're standing there. When the anthem started, out of habit, you stop and take your hat of. You wait. I wish today that we probably would've continued down. I know there would've been a lot of chaos or commotion because the guys behind us wouldn't have known what was going on but there was no division."
Heyward confirmed that Villanueva was at the Steelers' team meeting on Monday where they discussed Sunday's events. He said the team never had any intention of making it seem like Villanueva was standing alone.
"We never want to single one person out," Heyward said. "We never want to leave one man behind. I know it looked like that in that picture and we wanted to make sure we reached out to Al personally. We didn't ever want to make him feel like we didn't have his back."
Heyward didn't want to speak for Villanueva, but he did say Villanueva was shocked by the picture.
"He never wants to feel like he's an outsider or the center of attention," Heyward said. "I think he'll speak more on that later, at a different time."