AUBREY BRUCE
Last Sunday night was the official beginning of fall and the Halloween season for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Steelers nation. Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger officially donned his Peewee Herman costume and played like he was in the playground at pre-K. I am in my snitchin’ mood. I am, I gotta, I refuse not to tell it.
What is wrong with these P-burgh scribes? A few of them have become linguistic alchemist’s using and twisting the English language to misinform and distort the truth into nothing but…well, you know.
Gene Collier of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had the nerve to title his Monday morning column; titled; “No more leaning on Big Ben.” As far as I am concerned, “Big” Ben Roethlisberger resembled the “Leaning Tower of Pisa” far more than he looked like a top fight NFL quarterback based on his Sunday night performance against the Chicago Bears.
As of Monday the Steelers were the 26th ranked offense in the NFL and the 7th ranked overall defense. It appears to me that the team is leaning on the defense…not Ben Roethlisberger. The defense is forced to nullify or at least help cancel out negative decisions and plays that the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback makes game after game and year after year.
Collier had the nerve to spew out this bit of mis-info, “So it’s no longer correct to scream about the Haley offense failing to produce points. Sunday night it pounded out about 44, 23 of its own and essentially 21 of the opposition’s.” Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley did not fumble away the football almost guaranteeing the “Chi-town” Bears victory. Collier also had this to say. “All the truths we hold as self evident in the floundering season of 2013 were on display again for the bemusement of NBC’s national Sunday night audience.”
Well maybe just, just maybe; the truth is nowhere self evident to Gene Collier because judging by his self-centered and slanted assessment of the game; the actual distance from his mind and the truth may be farther than the distance between Earth and the planet Pluto. The only thing that is and has been floundering is Ben Roethlisbeger.
What is up with this media love affair with Ben “do no wrong” Roethlisberger. There is nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with Todd Haley or his offense. Roethlisberger has held the ball far too long from his rookie year to the present. “Big Ben” could be playing behind an offensive line with five All-Pros but he can’t continue to hold onto the ball as if it was a magnet extracted from an MRI machine. How many overthrows, under-throws and no throws plus fumbles were committed by this man who the Steelers have to lean on, game after game?
If the Steelers have to lean on him that is relative to two “four legged” people using one crutch. Or as we used to say; “like a pegged, legged centipede.” Some people pretend just not to know any better. This is the last of the info freely given by Monsieur Collier describing the current makeup of the men of steel; He had this to say. “Maybe this will all look better if they pick it up and put it on another continent. Maybe in London the Todd Haley offense will finally make sense, being accustomed as it is to the fog ’n ’at, right?
Maybe London seems like a long way to go just to have Adrian Peterson run up 150 yards against you, but few would disagree today that the Steelers might as well leave the country for a little while rather than try to impersonate an NFL team in these United States.” How would Gene Collier feel if someone said or wrote that he was a football writer impersonator? There are many reasons that the Pittsburgh Steelers are in a rut and the main reason is not the defense. Folks had better get off the soapbox and wash their filthy and dishonest trains of thought.
Alan Robinson from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review wrote; “They rallied behind the Ben Roethlisberger-to-Antonio Brown passing combination to get within four points midway through the fourth quarter, but two late Bears touchdowns secured Chicago’s 40-23 victory.” How did the Bears get two late touchdowns and what was the circumstances preceding those touchdowns? Rallied, rallied what you talkin’ about Willis? Rallied. Even some of the most notorious arsonists in history stuck around to gaze with admiration at their handiwork before they lent a smudged hand to attempt to snuff out the blaze.
Ya can’t finish any game anytime anywhere unless you have the football. You can’t fumble, bumble and stumble the football and expect the opposing team not to take advantage of your miscues. If Ben Roethlisberger plays a mistake free game, then guess what? In all probability, the Steelers win the game. The Temptations once had a hit song titled, “Just My Imagination” (running away with me). It appears to me that the imagination of some of those who cover the Steelers is not just running away, it has crossed the finish line.
(Aubrey Bruce is at: 412-583-6741.)
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