Why I’m cheering for Ben Roethlisberger

Some years ago, I sat down one evening to write what would be the first blog post of my ‘career.’ It was the day of Ben Roethlisberger’s motorcycle accident and while I can’t remember the exact details of the post, I was arguing that Steeler fans should spend more time worrying about the health of Roethlsiberger (who at the time it appeared was in critical condition) than calling into sports talk radio and ripping him to shreads and calling him an idiot. for riding without a helmet.

I mention that just because I’ve been called a “Roethlisberger apologist” and similar things quite a bit the past few years. I’ve defended him when he’s thrown 3 interceptions and when fans wanted Byron Leftwich or Charlie Batch to become the starting quarterback. I defended him again this past offseason when fans wanted to trade the quarterback or even cut him after his legal troubles. And now I’m going to defend him again, as he prepares to come back from suspension to start his 2010 season.

It has to be said that part of the reason I like Roethlisberger so much is because I grew up watching Kordell Stewart, Mike Tomczak, Jim Miller, Tommy Maddox, et al suck for the majority of a decade. Like a lot of Steeler fans my age, I grew up hating the quarterback and blaming almost every loss on them. In a lot of cases, the blame was just. Then the Steelers drafted Roetlisberger in 2004 and everything changed. For once, I was watching the Steelers win games through the air and cheering on a quarterback who could win a game by himself. It was, in a word, awesome.

Starting with Roethlisberger’s motorcycle accident in 2006, though, the bloom began to fall on Roethlisberger’s rose. He had a bad 2006 season and a few stories started going around about his attitude and such. Instead of a happy-go-lucky kid slinging TD passes, he started to turn into an idiotic douchebag who was too careless with the football.

All of this came to a head this last offseason with the sexual assault charges in Georgia. Roethlisberger was officially a “bad boy” in the NFL. Football fans hated him. Steeler fans hated him even more. Roger Goodell wasn’t happy either and suspended him for four games.

I could ramble on and on about why Goodell’s suspension was unfair. All of the charges against Roethlisberger were dropped. There was no proof he did anything illegal in the eyes of the justice system. But  Goodell still suspended him. I don’t like the idea at all of the NFL suspending somebody when they haven’t done anything illegal. All that we are certain of is that Roethlisberger was being a dickhead in a bar, something tons of people do every weekend, including a bunch of NFL players.

Roethlisberger was only suspended to send a message to other players that nothing that could even be perceived as bad would be tolerated. In Goodell’s world, accusations are all he needs to levy a big time suspension.

The bigger point in this, though, is that I don’t care if Roethlisberger is arrogant or impolite or whatever adjective you choose. I just don’t. I like to watch him play football. I don’t like to hang out with him. My attitude would change if he was proven to have done something terrible like sexual assault, but that hasn’t happened yet.

So many Steeler fans buy into the idea that character is most important thing to the franchise and that is patently false. It would only take a few games of losing with a bunch of nice guys for them to realize that they don’t care about how polite their players are to waitresses as much as they thought.

An aside: When you look at the history of Steeler fans and their relationship with quarterbacks, they look exceptionally hypocritical. Terry Bradshaw stunk on the field early in his career and the city drove him to depression and Bradshaw still hasn’t fully gotten over the way he was treated here. Kordell Stewart was rumored to be gay for several years in Pittsburgh after he started to struggle. Tommy Maddox saw his yard and home vandalized several times after bad games. These are the same yinzers who are flipping out because Roethlisberger hasn’t been a saint off the field. It’s a lose-lose situation to play quarterback in Pittsburgh. It is unbelievable.

I really don’t care what the Steeler players do in their spare time. All I want is them not to break the law or any NFL rules. I don’t think James Harrison or Jack Lambert would be the nicest guys to hang out with or sit next to at the bar, but it would be stupid to root against them because of that.

I will cheer for Ben Roethlisberger on Sunday and the Sunday after that and so forth. I have no shame in that. He was accused of a crime and then the charges were dropped. The same thing could happen to anybody. I won’t ever base my rooting interests or judge players on off-the-field hearsay. I like to watch and blog about play calling and blitzes, not ethics and morals. I root for the Steelers as football players, not friends.