AFC North Blotter

For the love of the Chief.  What would Art Rooney say if he saw his beloved franchise piling up more citations than a frat house fight club.  The Pittsburgh Steelers were once the cleanest cut of all sports franchises.  Now, they’ve spiraled into a police blotter laughingstock. 

Maybe they’ve been brought down by the company they keep.  The AFC North division of the NFL continues to produce some of professional football’s finest idiots.  I’m surprised the league hasn’t realigned to get the Oakland Raiders in with the Cincinnati Bengals, Baltimore Ravens, Cleveland Brown, and em’ Stillers.    

 If you ignore these stories, Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger just dodged another legal bullet yesterday when the DA in the case announced no charges would be filed over allegations of sexual assault.  In the meantime, Super Bowl MVP receiver Santonio Holmes got in more trouble for smoking more weed (among other things) and proved that winning doesn’t make you mature when he posted messages to the public which might as well have said, “Dear Steelers, please get rid of me as soon as possible for being such a complete…”  You get the idea.  These events come on the heels of over two years of other legal problems for players Jeff Reed, James Harrison, and Cedrick Wilson.  

Let me be clear about Big Ben first.  He is not guilty of anything more than terrible judgment.  The showboating DA made this point repeatedly and inappropriately during the press conference to announce there would be no trial because there was no evidence and the alleged victim and her family were adamantly against even filing in the first place.  So Ben is innocent of criminality but guilty of stupidity.  College was fun and all, but what is an internationally-known super-millionaire doing in a college bar in Georgia?    

I wish he would talk to