The hot rumor at this hour is that the Steelers are talking with the scary-looking character pictured above about a possible trade for troubled QB Ben Roethlisberger.
Never before would I believe that the Rooneys would do a deal with the hated Al Davis, but then again, never before would I have believed that the Steelers were trading Ben Roethlisberger.
Never before would I believe that the Rooneys would do a deal with the hated Al Davis, but then again, never before would I have believed that the Steelers were trading Ben Roethlisberger.
The rumors really got rolling when Jason La Canfora of NFL.com tweeted that the "Steelers have been in contact w/ Raiders regarding Big Ben trade. Might be only real option."
The Raiders have the 8th pick in the draft, and the Steelers want at least a top-10 in return. Oakland's QB chart currently includes the likes of Jamarcus Russell, Bruce Gradkowski, Kyle Boller, Charlie Frye, and Andrew Walter. So, yeah, Ben would be an enormous upgrade from a football angle.
So the Raiders make sense from that angle, at least more sense than some of the other teams (Cleveland, Arizona) that have been floated out there. But I'm more than skeptical of this deal going down, although Oakland has been known to surprise everyone in player acquisitions (re: Richard Seymour, Darrius Heyward-Bey, etc) on a fairly regular basis.
24 comments:
Unless this trade involves Nnamdi Asomugha and the Raiders first round pick this year and next year I say walk away.
Nnamdi's contract is insanely high, unless it was mostly up front money that's already paid...
Come on... Ben is arguably better than Bradshaw was... already won two superbowls. I wouldn't trade him for Bradford or any other QB taken in the past few years. If he can stay out of trouble, he's fine.
I mean... he won us two superbowls! That's got to account for something. Yeah, he did a terrible, despicable thing, but we've never had a QB like him....
I'm praying these trade rumors are just a draft smokescreen and nothing more...
Anytime we get the opportunity to see that image of Al Davis, it's a special treat. What a perfect photograph!
I agree, Josh.
If we trade Ben, we are F'ed. D-bag or not, he can win. (Although I'm pretty sure everyone is leaning more on the 'd-bag' side than the 'not' side though)
My liver can't handle the amount of Iron Cities I'd have to put down to try and deal with another Kordell Stewart fiasco.
I disagree with your thinking Josh, no offense.
Winning a Super Bowl has to count for something? Yeah, let's just show kids that as long as you're good at a sport, it's ok to be a total and complete asshole who is morally repugnant.
I don't like the message that sends at all, and I think it's a problem. I love sports and I love the Steelers more than anybody, but it's a game. Nothing more, nothing less.
If he were dealt, it would be tough at first, but we'd recover.
If the Rams offered us their first pick (which means Sam Bradford) I would injure myself trying to get to a phone to accept the deal ASAP BTW.
God, I hope we don't trade him. Trying to find a good QB is tough, let alone a great one. Bradford isn't a given thing, not to mention he'll come in completely unproven and make almost as much as Ben per year.
Also trading him doesn't teach your kids anything. He'll still play football and he'll still get paid because the reality is, in any job, if you do it well enough you can be an asshole.
Some football players end up millionaires under the age of 25. Some of them are gonna be assholes and in this instance, with a lack of any actual evidence, (including the witness' unreliable testimony) all we know for sure about Ben is he pursues girls a little too aggressively and is pretty damn full of himself.
If we trade him though, we better get 2 first and a 3rd. I want as much as Denver got from Chicago.
So, does each Super Bowl ring give him one free pass on a sexual assault?
Get his ass out of here.
when the Steelers are 0-6 in October, the Heinz Field faithful will be cheering We want Ben
If this happens plus Holmes to the Jets for a 5th round, then the Steelers are no better than the Pirates. Because this reeks of Salary Dump.
RickM, that's really stupid. The Steelers spend basically up to the salary cap every year and the Pirates have competent management for the first time in the losing streak. Put down the Bob Smizik columns.
Nice questions, folks. But, the most pressing one is this: exactly what is the ratio of Jim Beam to Coke in that glass on the table in front of Al Davis????
I just hope the team isn't making an impulse/emotional decision.
Yes, we all agree that what Ben did was wrong. If I'm Art Rooney II, I'd rather keep him on board and work on cleaning him up. Treat him like a project and show that people can turn it all around and become good citizens.
Trading him punishes no one but the Steelers at this point. On top of that, no way do we get fair market value for the guy today. Only trade him if you're 100% confident that he can't clean up his act.
Long time reader, but this stuff finally makes me comment.
Until this year, we all agreed that Ben was a once in a generation quarterback. Now, he's a trade away for Sam Bradford? Please.
This is ridiculous. If Ben should go, then so should Reed, Harrison, Ward, and Bettis should never have a show or restaurant in this town.
No one knows what happened, so can we all stop with the knee-jerk over the top crap?
imagine it was your 20 year old little girl who was taken advantage of by a 28 year old man in a bar... then tell me if you are still ok with this... and whoever said get rid of Reed, Harrison, Ward, etc... i agree with your statement about Reed because his is a repetitive behavior just like Skinny Ben, but getting belligerent in a Sheetz bathroom isn't even remotely in the same ballpark as being a repetitive sociopathic abuser of women.... also, what did Ward do again? play too much XBOX? did i miss something where he was in trouble?
No one wants to imagine their daughter, sister or any relative having sex but they do. You're adding a personal connection that doesn't allow you to be objective.
How about this, imagine that's your 28 year-old son, who had consensual sex with a girl. She regretted it afterward so she accused him of rape, only to take back her statement a few days later. Now every sports fans in the country is calling him a rapist, something that at this point not even the victim is doing.
It's a football team, not the Boy Scouts.
Sure, he got a 20-year old girl drunk, had his bodyguards lock her in a bathroom, and then had sex with her so roughly that he tore her vaginal wall, but remember what's truly important in life - he's really good at throwing a ball around.
It's not like he raped me in that club, so why should I care?
The 20 year old came to the bar on her own and got drunk. Ben bought a few shots but he didn't force it upon her. The bodyguard didn't lock her in the bathroom, what bar bathroom have you been at where the locks on the outside. There's always tearing during any sex, I haven't seen anywhere how bad it was but I have read that the tearing was inconclusive on whether it was rape or not. What's truly important is that there was no crime but people keep changing the facts to make it seem worse than it was.
@Craigo: If that's what actually happened, he would now be facing charges in Milledgeville. The DA has to live with his neighbors every day. If there were even a shred of evidence, the DA would prosecute -- he has to face re-election. If even the pressure of the local community couldn't force the DA to bring charges, it's a safe bet there was no evidence.
think we can nab JaMarcus Russell in this deal?
@Clint Pitts.
As a male one year younger than Ben and childless I'm not adding a personal connection with the daughter comment I just simply want people to realize this is not a money hungry 31 year old woman this is a little girl who was taken advantage of by Ben and his cop buddy (calling these guys bodyguards is a joke, they're cop buddies). Additionally, as being only 1 year younger than Ben and having friends all around our age that I go to bars with, what we all can't wrap our heads around is why he is hanging out with such young people. We purposely avoid certain places on the south side that are known college bars because there is no need for 27-30 year old men to hang out at $2 yager night in a college bar.
Craigo your a tool. No where in the police report given to the DA did it say any of that happened and like others (who can actually read such things) have already said, if any of that did happen, he would have been prosecuted. Also, he didn't even have to buy them drinks as they were intoxicated before they arrived. According to the report, Ben had drunken consensual sex with a girl in a club bathroom and the only suppossed evidence to the contrary are the misleading stories by her drunken friends that are completely contrary to the original report of the girl involved.
Sorry, I'm not going to buy the ramblings and questionable agendas of sexually promiscuous, 20-year old drunk college girls who wear "down to fvck" name tags and anyone who's trying to use their daughter as some moral bridge to this event should only hope she would be a better person than the girls in this situation and not put herself out there, or into an event where this could happen, but you know what?...if she did and it did happen, she's got no one to blame but herself and you should be more angry with your daughter than the guy who took her up on her offer.
P.O. - Can't wrap your head around 28-year olds hanging around 20-year olds? Is there really a generational gap there? What myopic planet do you live on where it's that compartmentalized and structured? Do you not wear white before Memorial day? Should we start segregating bars and clubs based on age now? I have a GF 6-years younger than me, should I be arrested? Really now, I'm happy for you that you have a large collection of friends in your ultra-narrow little age bracket because I don't know how you can ever communicate with someone who only knows about Wii and X-Box and has never experienced Sega...you're just way to mature for that childishness.
Ben wins championships.. keep him at all costs, charges, etc...once he is convicted of something he can go but until then, Im all about the W's!!
We have won superbowls with only 2 qbs in steelrs history, Terry and Ben. Every steeler fan who wants to get rid of him will be eating their shoes when we have multiple losing seasons in a row. WR's are a dime a dozen, special qbs come around only so often.
If the rooneys are smart, they keep him because they are in the business of winning and thats what Ben does.
P.O. if my 20-year old daughter was getting soused with her friends, wearing a "DTF" button, and hanging around "entourages" then I'd say I've already failed as a parent. Having said all that, there is absolutely no PROOF that Ben committed any crimes here other than being stupid and drunk. Does that merit a six-game suspension and the dumba$$ Rooneys looking to shop him to the Raiders? If you answer yes to that, they you are as ignorant as a sock drawer.
Steve
Sorry i date women who i have things in common with like careers and personal credit, not little girls looking for free yager talking about biology class
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