Ben Roethlisberger is once again accused of sexual assault
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has been accused of sexually assaulting an unnamed 20-year old female Georgia college student at a dance club. For those counting at home, this is Roethlisberger’s second sexual assault accusation. He was accused of raping Andrea McNulty, a Nevada resort hostess in a hotel room during a July 2008 golf tournament at Lake Tahoe. Andrea McNulty never went to the police and instead chose to sue Roethlisberger in civil court. A lawsuit was filed July 17, 2009.
This case is different in that instead of happening in a hotel room, it is said to have happened in the ladies room of Capital City, a dance club in Milledgeville, Georgia near Ben Roethlisberger’s off-season home. Even Ben Roethlisberger doesn’t want to be in Pittsburgh any longer than he has to. Can anyone really blame him?
The woman also went to the police and filed a sexual assault report, something alleged victim #1 never bothered to do.
Not that it really matters, but how does a 20-year old woman gain access to a drinking establishment? Don’t they card people down in Georgia?
How about those Raiders?
AP Photo/Keith Srakocic
They’ve only beat four teams this season. It’s a shame Pennsylvania doesn’t have any more teams in the NFL for the Raiders to play.
I “watched” the game yesterday on the Raiders official website while I was really watching the Saints beat the Redskins on the TV. The Raiders game was actually exciting, waiting for the browser screen to update with the down and the field position. I was so focused on the actual field position that I didn’t even notice that the Raiders had scored with less than two minutes on the clock. I showed Sheri that they now had the ball on the 2 yard line and she had to point out that they had scored.
The ball was on the two yard line for the extra point.
Journeyman quarterback Bruce Gradkowski had a phenomenal game yesterday. He went 22 for 33 for 308 yards with no picks. He also threw 3 touchdowns. His quarterback rating yesterday was 121.8. I’d be lying if I really knew how that was formulated. All I know is that anything over 100 is pretty stinking good.
I grew up a Raiders fan, but my love for the Silver and Black has faded since I’ve been living in Maryland. At least I thought it did. I felt my fandom for the team rekindle while back home on vacation this past summer. I saw all the Raiders swag in the stores and it took me back to my youth.
Hines Ward has lied to doctors about being straight
Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Hines Ward, voted the NFL’s dirtiest player, called out Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger for missing last night’s game against the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens won the game in overtime, but Ward’s comments came before the game in a taped interview with NBC’s sports gnome Bob Costas:
“This game is almost like a playoff game. It’s almost a must-win. I could see some players or teammates questioning, like ‘It’s just a concussion. I’ve played with a concussion before,’” Ward told Costas in an interview taped Saturday at the team’s suburban-Baltimore hotel as a prelude to the Steelers-Ravens game.
“It’s almost like a 50-50 toss-up in the locker room: Should he play? Shouldn’t he play? It’s really hard to say. I’ve been out there dinged up; the following week, got right back out there. Ben practiced all week. He split time with Dennis Dixon. And then to find out that he’s still having some headaches and not playing and it came down to the doctors didn’t feel that they were going to clear him or not – it’s hard to say. Unless you’re the person [himself]. … I’ve lied to a couple of doctors saying I’m straight, I feel good when I know that I’m not really straight.”
Maybe Ward should not go around saying he’s lied about being straight. Someone might just take that comment the wrong way. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I never thought I’d be doing this, but I feel the need to defend Ben Roethlisberger. He was right to sit out the game. A concussion is a brain injury. Unlike many of the human organs like the lung or the kidney, you only get one brain. You cannot mess around with brain injuries.
When in doubt, sit it out.
Not only is the potential for re-injury much greater with a quarterback than a receiver, a quarterback has to do a lot more in a game than a receiver. Roethlisberger has to orchestrate the entire offense while Ware only has to catch balls that get thrown his way (by Roethlisberger) and dive at the knees of defensive players on running plays.
Hines Ward should just keep his mouth shut.
Plaxico Burress goes to prison
The New York State Department of Correctional Services have released the official mugshot of one of their newest inmates, ex-New York Giants receiver Plaxico Burress. Not only did they take away his freedom for the next two years for accidentally shooting himself in the leg, they made him get rid of this chin hair.
Who knew they didn’t allow facial hair in prison? At least they don’t in New York prisons. Terrorist masterminds held down in Guantanamo Bay are allowed to look like they are members of ZZ Top. I guess that’s different because they hate America and they grow beards because it’s part of their religion, the same religion that inspired them to send airliners packed with innocent people into buildings also packed with innocent people on a September morning.
I feel bad for Plaxico Burress and that says a lot because I’ve never liked him all that much. Not when he played at Michigan State, not when he played with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and not when he played with the New York Giants. I feel bad for him because he has to sit in prison for the next two years simply because he accidentally shot himself in the leg. Prisons should be for criminals. How does shooting yourself in the leg make you a criminal?
Don’t get me wrong, I think Plaxico Burress did an incredibly stupid thing. I think taking a loaded handgun into New York City to go clubbing in an asinine thing to do, especially when you simply stuff it into the waist of your pants and don’t engage the handgun’s safety. It was truly a boneheaded thing to do. That doesn’t mean I think he should go to prison for it.
Putting a bullet in his own leg should have been his punishment, not prison.
Ben Roethlisberger accused of raping a casino employee
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is being sued in Nevada for sexually assaulting a Harrah’s casino employee in Lake Tahoe he lured to his room under the pretense that his television wasn’t working. From WTAE ABC TV:
The story was broken on Monday evening by ProFootballTalk.com, which reported that Harrah’s casino employee Andrea McNulty filed the civil lawsuit last week in Washoe County, Nev., stemming from an alleged incident at a hotel room in July 2008.
Roethlisberger is not facing any criminal charges, and it’s unclear if McNulty ever tried to file a criminal complaint before taking legal action against him.
Roethlisberger was in Lake Tahoe playing in a charity celebrity golf tournament.
The Pittsburgh Penguins win Lord Stanley’s gigantic fancy silver cup
The National Hockey League has a champion and it’s not the Detroit Red Wings. The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Detroit Red Wings, 2008 NHL champions, Friday night in game seven of the 2009 Stanley Cup.
It’s the Pen’s first Stanley Cup championship in 17-years. It makes the third time they’ve won.
The Red Wings beat the Penguins in last year’s Stanley Cup. This year was a rematch with a much different outcome.
I guess I was rooting for the Red Wings. I figured with the collapse of the American auto industry, motor city deserved a win. Plus, I’ve learned that there really is nothing more obnoxious than a Pittsburgh sports fan. I’m of course only referring to the fans of the Steelers and the Penguins.
The Pirates don’t have any fans. Mouth breathing, yellow towel waiving Pittsburgh fans conveniently forget that they have a really bad Major League Baseball team.
I then saw Muhammad Ali in a luxury box wearing a Red Wings sweater (jersey for all you non-hockey nerds) and I suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to root for the other team.
The Steelers beat a 9-7 team in the Super Bowl so they are now World Champains
I was one of the four Americans that didn’t watch the Super Bowl Sunday night. I just couldn’t get enthused about a Super Bowl involving the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals. Neither team was one of the two best teams in the NFL.
One could maybe argue that the Steelers were one of the best, but no such argument could be made about the 9-7 Cardinals. They truly had no business being in the Super Bowl. And to think they actually almost won.
I didn’t want to watch the game because I just don’t like the Steelers. I’ve never liked them. I don’t care too much for their fans either. Growing up in California during the Terry Bradshaw era, every bandwagon kid I knew was a Steelers fan. Those that weren’t Steelers fans were usually Cowboy fans.
Living here in Maryland, I’m surrounded by Steelers fans. It’s as though they never realized that Maryland has two professional football teams and the Steelers aren’t one of them.
I knew that if I watched the Super Bowl, I’d see a game where the Steelers not only would win, but would get at least one “controversial” call by the officials that helped them greatly. How surprising that I turned out to be right on both accounts.
The only football game I’m looking forward to watching today
Most of my fellow Americans are looking forward to watching the Arizona Cardinals (9-7) face off against the Pittsburgh Steelers (12-4) in tonight’s Super Bowl. Though I may (or may not) watch the Big Game™ between these two teams, I could honestly care less who wins. Neither team was the best team this past season. That distinction belongs to the Tennessee Titans (13-3).
Six other teams in the NFC had either better or equal records compared to the the Cardinals. Three teams in the AFC had records either better or equal when compared to the Steelers.
I’ve never put much stock into the Super Bowl. Only occasionally does the winner of the Super Bowl represent the best football team that year. The purpose of the Super Bowl is not to separate the very best from the best football teams in the league, it’s to separate as much money from TV networks, advertisers, gamblers, and attendees as possible.
It’s all about the money.
The football game I’m looking forward to watching today doesn’t involve the NFL. It involves two teams that play real football, Lazio and AC Milan of the Italian football league. Normally we only watch the English Premier League, but now that David Beckham is finally playing (and scoring) for AC Milan, it will be an interesting game to watch.
Ravens advance to the AFC Championship
The Baltimore Ravens beat the Tennessee Titans on Saturday, 13-10, to advance to the AFC Championship game. They will play their AFC North rival the Pittsburgh Steelers this Sunday night for the chance to go to the Superbowl. Once again, the Ravens are relying on their stellar defense to advance in the post-season.
The NFL being the NFL, there was of course an officiating mistake that helped the Ravens. With less than three minutes in the game and the Ravens on offense, the play clock clearly went down to zero before the Ravens could start the play.
Oops.
NFL referees give Steelers the win
Yesterday’s Steelers-Ravens game was decided not by the play on the field, but by the whims of the officiating. With the Steelers driving towards the Ravens’ end zone, Santonio Holmes caught a pass and was immediately tackled by Ravens’ safety Ed Reed just short of the end zone.
Head linesman Paul Weidner correctly ruled that the ball didn’t break the plane. This meant the Steelers would have faced a fourth down from the Ravens’ 1-yard line. Because there was less than two minutes left in the game, the replay assistant in the press booth called for a video review. Referee Walt Coleman then reviewed the play on video and overruled the call by saying that Holmes’ feet were both down in the end zone when he caught the pass so it was a touchdown.
Except the ball never broke the plane. Opps.
It would be easy to just chalk this up to poor officiating. That referees are only human and humans make mistakes. That’s not it. This was not bad officiating. The initial call on the field was the correct one. To overrule the call on the field, the official must see “incontrovertible visual evidence” for a call to be overturned. At no time in the video is the ball ever shown to cross the goal line.
This was a blatant misuse of power of the officiating crew to alter the outcome of a game. A game that gave Pittsburgh not only the win, but the AFC North championship.
Who does Terrell Suggs think he is, Boba Fett?
Last week Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs appeared on a sports radio show where he admitted to the two hosts that the Ravens had a “bounty” on two Pittsburgh Steelers players, rookie running back Rashard Mendenhall and All-Pro receiver Hines Ward. In a recent Monday night Ravens-Steelers game, Mendenhall suffered a fractured left shoulder and will miss the rest of the season. He was injured in the game and required surgery. Ward escaped the game unscathed.
The NFL responded to the talk of a bounty by writing a terse letter to Suggs stating that talk of bounties will not be tolerated and if it happens again, he will face “significant disciplinary action.” Whatever that means.
Maybe the NFL missed the point that the bounty existed with the whole Ravens team. Sending a letter only to Suggs doesn’t really take of the problem. It makes it look as though the real egregious act was not the bounty itself, but talking about it on a radio show.
The NFL has a thuggery problem. Not that this should be news to anyone. What I find to be surprising is how anemic the NFL seems to be at taking care of the problem.
They aren’t going to fix the problem by writing letters.
What has Troy Polamalu being doing this off-season?
I don’t know what Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu has been doing during the off-season, but he needs to stop doing it. Though I commend him for finally getting a haircut, he has really let himself go.
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