Though they remain one of the top organizations in all of sports, the Pittsburgh Steelers display from time to time a trait common to every level of every form of athletics.
When great players do something wrong, excuses get made. When it’s a guy who doesn’t add much to the bottom line, he gets a shoe in the hind quarters.
The best example? Linebacker James Harrison and receiver Cedrick Wilson both engaged in alleged domestic violence. An excuse was made for Harrison; a path out of the building was made for Wilson.
More recently, the Steelers have looked the other way in the face of two off-field incidents by kicker Jeff Reed, whose reward for beating up a paper towel machine and being drunk in public (allegedly) was the franchise tag and the top-five guaranteed salary that goes along with it.
As to quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, it’s still not clear whether the player will get a pass, or a swift kick in the ass.
If it were his first incident, the Steelers surely would be circling the wagons. But this is the third time in less than four years that Roethlisberger finds himself in an avoidable jam. And the Steelers are getting sick of it.
Commissioner Roger Goodell’s remarks from Monday made it clear that the league is taking the situation seriously. On Tuesday, coach Mike Tomlin seemed to suggest that Ben could be dangerously close to the Cedrick Wilson category.
“I think it’s well known that we’re very, very conscious about how we do business,” Tomlin told reporters in Orlando, per James Walker of ESPN.com. “We have a very high concern about our image and how we conduct ourselves that I think is above and beyond our peers, and we embrace that.”
They embrace it when the player is expendable. They ignore it when he isn’t. The mere fact that the Steelers aren’t blindly touting phrases like “presumption of innocence” and pushing to the media talking points that trumpet Ben’s virtues at a time when the fans are writing him off tells us that the Steelers don’t currently regard Roethsliberger as a player who is absolutely necessary to the short- and long-term interests of the team.
Innocent or guilty, charged or uncharged, it tells us that Roethlisberger likely will be the former quarterback of the Steelers far sooner than anyone ever would have imagined.
