Just Watch the Game Blog

This is my first posting on the JUST WATCH THE GAME blog. The plan here is to blog at least once a day and probably several times a day. JUST WATCH THE GAME is the title of the book that I’ll be releasing in a few months and you’ll be able to read excerpts at justwatchthegame.com.

I guess I should get my two cents in on Ben Roethlisberger:

First of all, none of this surprises me. Ben is a bad citizen. He doesn’t know how to treat people and he definitely doesn’t know how to handle being the quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers. In my more than 30 years of working in the Pittsburgh sports media, I have never had any player come close to generating as many unsolicited questions from fans as Roethlisberger has. They want to know why he’s such a jackass. And these aren’t just Steelers fans who got turned down for an autograph. It’s men and women from all walks of life.

Most of the accounts of the incident in Georgial mention that Ben wasn’t drinking much. The implication being that he wasn’t high. Let me be the first to point out that he could very easily have been high on something other than alcohol. If that turns out to be the case, will you be surprised?

If this jackass is charged with sexual assault, the NFL should immediately suspend him for several games next season. If the league doesn’t, the Steelers should. We hear all the time about how the Rooney family does things differently. This is a chance to prove it. It’s one thing to suspend or cut a third receiver or a backup lineman. Suspending a $100 million quarterback would really set the Rooneys apart.

Roethlisberger is a punk who needs to be knocked down a peg or two.

A couple of years ago I heard from a woman who said that Roethlisberger blew off a Make-A-Wish kid. When KDKA-TVs News Director, John Verrilli, was shown the email, he made it clear that it was a story that his news department would not be pursuing. I eventually got in contact with the parents of the little girl who the jackass snubbed. They said the story was true but they didn’t want to go public with it for their daughter’s sake. The little girl had cystic fibrosis.

As I said, Bad citizen who needs a comeuppance.