latest investigation falls out. If the allegations turn out to be nothing and he's cleared, then no, I think he has several good years ahead of him.
latest investigation falls out. If the allegations turn out to be nothing and he's cleared, then no, I think he has several good years ahead of him.
Right now, all we know is that Ben is guilty of a lack of good judgment. If you have one sexual misconduct civil suit hanging over your head, the last thing you can EVER do is put yourself in a situation where you could get in trouble for inappropriate sexual misconduct again. If you have to stay home and play Nintendo every weekend to avoid getting in trouble again, so beit. For crying out loud, get a grip on reality. Congrats to Big Ben for failure to keep little Ben in his pants yet again. (and this coming from a die hard Steeler fan)
Simply, this is an embarrassment to Steeler nation, who, from the ownership down to its passionate fan base, prides ourselves as a model franchise. We (as a season ticket holder, I feel I can say "we"!) are a very steady conservative franchise who likes to fly under the radar. I am sure the Rooney family is steaming over this one (and they should be). You can not have your franchise QB acting like an idiotic college freshman. I don’t know if he's guilty or not. Either Ben is guilty of sexual misconduct and should serve time in the big house (in which case Dennis Dixon will be under center opening day, 2010...sorry, I digress) or he is just the unluckiest guy in the world to twice be wrongly accused of the same thing. But I will tell you this, his latest plea to the world that he is innocent of these allegations (and you all know its coming) will hold a lot less credibility in the minds of the public and be met with much more skepticism.
But to say he is done (I assume you mean playing football) is a ridiculous query. Of course he is not done. He is a two time Super Bowl winning QB, entering the prime of his career. He prob. has 7-10 years of high level football ahead of him (assuming his offensive line can protect him; but that's an issue for another thread) He would have to convicted of a crime and facing jail time before the Steelers released him (a 3rd string offensive tackle would prob. have already been released based on the above...such is the nature of the beast). He would have to be in jail for prob. over 3 years before teams would shy away (see Mike Vick for example).
If I had to make a prediction, I'd say Ben is under center opening day...but he better change his modus operandi if he wants to have a future in the NFL.
-- Modified on 3/8/2010 3:14:05 PM
It's not fair to look at the conduct of players in the 70's (Bradshaw) 80's (Montana/Marino/Elway) and compare them with today’s players.
The media scrutiny that today's athlete faces is SO MUCH greater than what the athletes of those decades and earlier faced. Did Terry Bradshaw have to worry if his late night carousing (not saying if he did or didn’t) would be captured on someone's cell phone and put all over You. Tube the following day? Of course not.
We live in a different world, where even the smallest transgression (let alone the large ones) are recorded for the entire world to see.
Some of these athletes of yesteryear may have acted far worse than anything Big Ben has done...yet it was never reported or, if it was, not to the degree it is today (with the internet and cable TV, the coverage and scrutiny is everywhere).
There is no point in trying to compare the transgressions of past athletes to today. We just don’t know because the coverage simply was not as pronounced.