It never takes much to stir up bad blood between the Cincinnati Bengals and Pittsburgh Steelers, especially the group from the mid-2010s when Vontaze Burfict and Pacman Jones became public enemies No. 1 and 2 in Pittsburgh. James Harrison’s recent recruiting pitch to Bengals QB Joe Burrow was enough to quickly stir up some online drama.

“James Harrison had a comment talking about talking to Joe Burrow to go to Pittsburgh — the shitty-ass state,” Jones said via BetOnline’s Politely Raw podcast. “We are orange and black, not yellow and black. Our roads do not have big ass potholes in them when you driving around…But he had the nerves to come out and say that he had to talk to Joe Burrow? I talked to Joe Burrow. Ain’t no way in hell. Joe is an Ohio boy. We do not want to go to Pittsburgh.

“This organization that had all Fs on this G-damn report card? It seems like it would be a downgrade to anybody that’s leaving Cincinnati to go to G-damn Pittsburgh,” Jones continued. “This shit has gotta stop and it’s gotta stop right now. And I called James and I told him, ‘Hey, stop tampering with our fucking players.’”

I am just going to ignore the fact that Jones doesn’t know the difference between a city and a state. Or that only 12 percent of Cincinnati residents are satisfied with pothole road repairs.

Getting this upset is the natural reaction when Jones knows Harrison is making a recruiting pitch to join a much better situation. Join the tradition of six Super Bowls, or toil in the mediocrity of an organization that has won zero? And if you want to call that ancient history, how about the fact that the Steelers have been above the Bengals in the division standings in each of the last three seasons?

We don’t have to make projections. The Bengals have been bad with Burrow, while the Steelers have been good despite a QB carousel including Kenny Pickett, Mason Rudolph, Russell Wilson, Justin Fields and Aaron Rodgers. Plop Burrow into the Steelers current roster, and they’d be considered one of the best teams in the NFL.

It’s also comical that Jones pointed to NFLPA survey results as a dig at the Steelers, especially when the Bengals did poorly in the most recent iteration. By the Cincinnati Enquirer’s own headline, they finished “near the cellar.”

This kind of trade would never happen, but it’s funny to see former Bengals squirm in discomfort at James Harrison’s obvious attempt to rile them up.