April 22, 2010 - A Day That Changed The History Of The Pittsburgh Steelers?

I think it should be pointed out that all teams will, pre-draft, shop every player and every pick they have. It’s due diligence, because you never know when you’re able to get a first-round pick for Richard Seymour, who has one year left on his contract (nice move, Oakland).

At the risk of getting overly personal, this whole ordeal from the team’s perspective reminds me of a time where a good friend of mine started dating my ex-girlfriend. At first I was pretty upset about it, but maybe after a day or so, I came to my senses, and we hashed things out. We said everything was fine.

It dawned on me not long after that, our relationship had been forever changed. While we said we were cool with each other, and we were still friends, we were never going to be close again. It just wasn’t/isn’t possible.

I really don’t see how they can keep Roethlisberger after all of this. However, I don’t think it’ll be this year; I can see them dealing him before next draft. There’s just too much atmosphere for another team to trade that much capital for a guy with so much negativity surrounding him.

However, Ben knows the team is, at least, floating rumors that he’s available. The Steelers have effectively alienated him – whether that was their intention is beside the point. It’s not going to be long until he says “I need a fresh start.” Maybe he’s saying that now. They can part with no bitterness like my buddy and I, but sometimes there’s just no going back, and both sides can agree parting ways is in everyone’s best interest.

But if we are 12-36 over the next 3 years, what the hell will our integrity matter?

Unless there is a 3rd one on the way, this would be the stupidest move in franchise history. At least give the man a shot this year. Let’s not all be so willing to speed over the edge of this cliff.

I remember the day of the 2004 draft so clearly: we were picking at 11, and I couldn’t watch Tommy Maddox stumble around and then fall down in the pocket any longer, so when Jacksonville passed on Ben at #9 I nearly did a backflip off of the couch (Houston was drafting at 10, and they’d just taken David Carr, so they weren’t going to pick him). From what I’d seen of him in college he just seemed so competitive, so gutsy and such a perfect fit for our team. I remember thinking, this guy is fearless, and that’s what I want in our QB.

Well, it’s six years later, and that fearlessness has certainly paid off on the field. But it’s the reason he’s in this off-field trouble as well. Ben has come to believe that he’s pretty much capable of anything, which has lead him to take some huge risks and make some terrible decisions. It’s who he is and it’s how he plays and lives.

So now, given the fact that he’s backed himself and the franchise into this terrible corner, the question is, how capable is he of change? Can he, or anyone for that matter, really make significant change in the behaviors they have made habit? And will making a change in one area — his personal life — have an adverse effect on how he plays football? Will it have a positive effect? Or will he screw up again and ultimately force the team to dump him for nothing like they did with Santonio? These are questions I think the Rooneys have to be considering. And they’re questions that will linger into the season and that will serve as distractions for a long time to come.

That’s why I don’t think the Rooneys have simply come forward and said Ben’s our guy. Because it’s more complicated than that. I don’t know if they believe in him anymore or if they believe he’s the healthiest thing for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He’s suddenly become an unknown quantity, and that makes keeping him a risk. Ultimately, I don’t think he’ll be traded, but it may be more because they can’t get a deal they think is worth making rather than because they don’t want to deal him. Either way, sitting on my couch in 2004 I never could have imagined it would come to this. It’s the saddest period this franchise has endured in a very long time.

Everybody’s empowered with the technology to capture incriminating moments.

We have allowed a surveillance society to develop around us. Sadly, it’s not some grand institution that’s watching. Instead, we are each others “Big Brother.” We have become voyeurs, mindlessly monitoring and documenting each other in places we might have once felt a sense of liberty born of anonymity. Privacy is dead. All the rules have been changed behind our backs and it is we who have changed them.

I’m not suggesting that we condone criminal behavior. However, we should be able to drink in a bar (among other things) without worrying about who might be capturing the scene for digital eternity on their cell phone camera.

Great balanced post! However, I have a minor disagreement with this:

<<and it’s obvious he’s passionate about being great on the gridiron>>

If he was passionate about being great on the gridiron, why does he look he’s on the “body by Bettis diet”? When Ben cut’s himself shaving, nacho cheese comes out.

Back in the day, I worked with a very mean, but powerful man in the surgery world. He always used to say “no one is indispensable”. It used to really irritate me, that he thought that we all eventually could be replaced.
Unfortunately, in this case those words come to mind. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Rooneys trade him. I think it might surprise a lot of people in the football fan world, but not people who have followed the Steelers for a long time. I know if you look at winning in the near future, it means prospects maybe dismal.
However, if you look at the long run, we will survive this folks, whatever the Rooneys chose to do

In all honesty, this may be the only time we can trade him and get anything in return.

Teams are looking at Ben’s “Best years” right now, and he is not being traded because of production, but off the field issues.

Why am I OK with this, and frankly a little hopeful it happens? A bunch of not conclusive estimates and opinions that you are free to assail.

1. Big Ben is going to drop off faster than other QB’s, He takes hits and is not cautious at all, add in his concussions and I think he’s not going to be great in three to four years.

2. QB’s that take a lot of sacks don’t play well in their 30’s. There are a lot of examples but the best correlative to Ben are Culpepper, Cunningham, Neil Lomax, Ken O’Brien. Big Ben could be the exception, but right now there aren’t any.

3. Look at last year, how often was Ben breaking out of tackles? He wasn’t, not nearly like he used too. His third down magic wasn’t happening. I can write off the third and long lack of heroics, that’s a number you can’t force to be good, but the breaking out of tackles and the failed last minute drives may be signs of a QB just starting down the other side of his peak. That would be a really short high point to a career, but that is not unprecedented.

Like I said not one of these is enough to get a conviction, but I just don’t have a good feeling about the rest of Ben’s career. And like I said, this is probably the only time you can get good value for him.

But are the Steelers using the charges against Ben as a pretext for a trade in which they maximize the worth of Big Ben?

Think about the following:

• Ben is just entering his prime at 28, his selling price will never be higher
• Ben has shown some frustration with the coaching at times last season something we know is a no-no in Pburgh
• Ben has a TREMENDOUS concussion history
• There seemed to be a bit of a rift, even if it was publicly denounced, last season when Ben sat out the Baltimore game

IF you add this up, maybe the Steelers are trying to sell high rather than end up releasing, or worse being forced to see Ben’s career shortened because of his head injuries.

I certainly agree with many of the statements above. In fact, I have regularly compared the Steelers lean years from 81-04 as the Nation wandering in the desert in search of the Promised Land within these pages. Ben indeed was a Moses for the franchise and brought us great joy.

That said, Moses was not aloud to enter Israel. Perhaps our Moses will be banished. That is up to the Franchise God’s. What I will say is that I agree with everything you wrote MB. I always wondered after the 4 Lombardi’s of my youth "Will I ever see another Super Bowl as an adult? Like some dream about dancing at a daughter’s wedding I dreamed “Will I see the Steelers hoist the Lombardi one more time before I die?” I did! Twice. Thank you Ben and thank you Rooney’s.

If Ben is traded I too will soldier on as a proud member of the Steeler Nation. The Rooney’s are guiding this ship. They are human beings and fallible just like Big Stupid. Will they make a mistake? Possibly. But just as Ben will be ultimately judged down the road so will the Rooney’s. They will do what they think is right and I for one will back their play. Amen.

I can certainly appreciate and trust the Rooney’s judgment whichever way we go on this, but there are two things to consider. First, the Steelers sucked until Dan began running the show, and they’ve been pretty good since. Art II is running things now, so he still has to prove himself in terms of being able to carry on the tradition that really started with his father. Second, if the Steelers do get rid of Ben, it will be a lot harder for me to get excited about the season. Of course, I’ll still be interested, but it won’t be the same. Does anyone really expect Leftwich or Dixon to be any better than O’Donnell, Stewart, Maddox, et al? Dixon is untested enough to have hope, but we know what Lefty is.

Blitz,
An issue you didn’t mention about the Steelers brand is that they have the largest fanbase of women of any franchise. Partly that’s due to the football culture of Pittsburgh, where women are watching and routing on Sundays and not just in the kitchen making onion dip. It’s partly because it’s about football – not cheerleaders doing highkicks on the sidelines.

It’s about more than pink jerseys. It’s a fundamental connection to the life of Pittsburghers that gets families involved. It’s key to steelers football being a civic event in Pittsburgh.

Unfortunately for Ben, when Troy Polamalu points to his wedding band on national TV he, Troy, sets the standard by which others in the franchise are measured.

I have stayed relatively quiet on the Big Ben issue. So many mega-bytes have been spilled and people have said some really insightful stuff. But I feel like I need to weigh in before the Rooney’s make a big decision. I for one agree with those that feel comfortable with trading Ben, if that’s what the Rooney’s decide. But I don’t think that’s it’s the only or or even best way for the Steelers to address this issue.

I don’t know Big Ben’s character very well. From the little that I’ve heard, that I feel I can any way trust, he sounds like a spoiled young man, who has some serious issues with how he behaves around women.

I imagine that some of that behavior may come from his life story. Ben’s parent’s divorced when he was 2. He was raised by his mother till he was 8 at which point she was killed in a car accident. No one can know another persons soul from the outside. But we can only imagine the pain and confusion of that type of childhood.

That of course doesn’t condone Ben’s behavior. No more than a childhood selling drugs on the street condones Tones. But we should remember these young men are often growing up under the full glare of the cameras. I think as fans we can demand that they act like adults while retaining compassion for them when they fail to.

As failures go, Ben’s strikes me as serious, but neither completely unforgivable nor uncommon. Although we don’t know what happened behind closed doors, we have a decent enough picture of that night in Georgia. Unless you truly believe that Ben was being maliciously set up by three 20 year old girls, than the story is simple and pretty unremarkable. Ben and his entourage bought drinks for the girls, got them drunk and then Ben had a sexual encounter with one of them in the bathroom. That encounter left no DNA – but likely caused some vaginal tearing. The woman was left confused and upset. Her friends felt so angry that they took her to the police to press charges.

The interesting thing about this story is that something like it happens so often in college bars across the country. Young women and young men drink a lot. Sex takes place without the full consent of the woman. Most of the times it won’t get reported. Most of the times, the woman will have to learn from the bitter and painful lesson – as she should – that one has to be careful and smart about protecting onesself.

But rarely does the guy learn in these situations. Rarely does the guy learn that it’s not OK to push too far when a girl says no, or get her too drunk to say no. My point is that we can hope that some good comes of this situation.

I don’t expect Big Ben to take a tour of college campuses and talk to atheltes about how to avoid getting themselves into trouble. Mind you, he wouldn’t be saying that he raped someone – he would be saying I put myself – and this young woman in a really bad situation. I want to teach you guys how to avoid that. I would be thrilled if he did. But I don’t expect it.

I do think the Steelers can use his situation to pass that very message along though. The six game suspension helped. Trading him would sort of pass that message along. Mainly it would reinforce the message that there are consequences for your behavior. Still I hope that if the Steelers don’t trade Ben, they can find a way to help the guy grow up. I hope too that they can help him help other troubled young men grow up.

Nobody would expect the Steelers to put up with BB if he’s not sincere about changing his behavior. But that’s strictly between the Rooneys and Ben; nobody else can truly speculate as to the nature of their internal discussions. But if being a Steeler still is important to BB, I think the Rooneys will give him another chance.

Ben, has not said anything and it maybe to his advantage. It seems in this world we are so quick to judge. It is based on the top headline. When Bush said, ’ Lets get Bin Ladin.’ the whole world got behind him. Years later rumors are submerging of him know about it before it happened. The world still is foolishly giving him credit as a good Prez. Well, Ben is innocent of rape. he is guilty of being stupid. To trade Ben is to be as ignorant as the people in this world. one of the reasons I like the Steeler’s is because they gave individuals a chance and an opportunity when no one else would. Ben’s name is being ran through the mud because of some young women who was dropping out of school. I said it before and I will say it again for the women sake they better not give been a chance If they do the whole world especially the ones who are writing these comments about cutting Ben etc. They will be on the hunt for this women. Ben will give the Steelers two more superbowls if he stays. As for integrity. I have plenty but my integrity is measured by the facts. Ben was accused and excused. We should all do the same. If he had raped that women he would be in jail. She should be in jail for slander, but she’ll get paid for it. Why because that’s just the way we are as a society. No way can she be a gold digger.

that way we can get a laugh at the both of you.
GO RAVENS!!!!!!!