When Patriots quarterback Tom Brady lines up Thursday night against the Steelers after avoiding a four-game suspension via the court system, he’ll be facing the last high-profile quarterback to be suspended by the league.
And Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who was suspended six games in 2010 (reduced to four) under the Personal Conduct Policy, knew that a major punishment was coming for Brady.
“Just felt like the league had done something without . . . . I guess it was just more of a feeling, an inkling, of knowing that the commissioner jumped to a pretty harsh punishment,” Roethlisberger told New England reporters during a Sunday conference call, via Mike Reiss of ESPNBoston.com.
Roethlisberger expected the suspension to be overturned.
“I wasn’t surprised at all,” he said, via a transcript provided by the team. “I figured that would happen.”
It’s unclear whether Roethlisberger thought a “pretty harsh punishment” was coming because of the Patriots’ circumstances with the alleged deflation of footballs or because of Roethsliberger’s own circumstances with allegations he faced several years ago.
Roethlisberger, sued for rape in Nevada in 2009 and accused of sexual assault in Georgia the following March, was never arrested or charged with any crime. The harshness of the punishment led to the widespread assumption that the NFL’s investigation determined that he deserved it. (Some, including me, assumed that Roethlisberger avoided prosecution in part by agreeing to a confidential civil settlement.)
Given more recent examples like the Saints bounty scandal and #DeflateGate, who knows whether the investigation was done fairly or properly? While Roethlisberger gains nothing by dredging up those issues now, which the locals who are protesting the arrival of Mike Vick seem to have completely forgotten, it’s a fair question in light of more recent events.
The broader question, to which we’ll never know the answer, is whether Roethlisberger would have gotten his own suspension overturned if, like Brady, Roethlisberger had opted to go to court.
UPDATE 3:23 p.m. ET: A prior version of this story said Roethlisberger “figured” a harsh punishment was coming. Based on the transcript from the team, it’s clear that Roethlisberger said he “figured” Brady would beat the “harsh punishment” in court. The broader point remains the same; does Roethlisberger believe the punishment imposed against him in 2010 was so harsh that he would have won in court, if he’d pushed the issue?
