Ed Bouchette On the Steelers: The Steelers' Way

[stillers4me]

Two high-profile wide receivers switched teams in free agency last week. The Washington Redskins signed DeSean Jackson. The Steelers signed Darrius Heyward-Bey.

The Redskins had room under their salary cap to sign Jackson for three years at $24 million. The Steelers had enough room to sign Darrius Heyward-Bey to what looks like a one-year minimum.

What if the situations were reversed, and the Steelers had the room? Should they have tried to sign Jackson?

It's likely Steelers management would have squelched the idea. There is a reason the Steelers have won two Super Bowls and been to three over the past nine seasons and the Redskins have won two playoff games in the past 15 seasons.........

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/s...#ixzz2y7dkBBii


Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/s...#ixzz2y7dQ9utk

[Steelerette]

Ostensibly the Steelers could have made the room if he would have wanted to wait until June 2nd to sign.

I would have been vehemently against it.

[salamander]

I would've been PISSED if the Steelers signed Jackson. We don't need that shit here.

[fansince'76]

I would've been PISSED if the Steelers signed Jackson. We don't need that shit here.

Yep. Money wasn't the only reason they let Wallace walk.

[steelreserve]

We tend to get the punk-ass diva wide receivers in the draft and then let them walk after 3-4 years to become someone else's problem. Not the other way around.

I don't really believe that much that there's a "Steeler Way" in the sense that we're adhering to some ethically superior code than other teams. I mean, let's not fool ourselves; if a guy with some character issues is legitimately going to help our chances of winning, we look the other way just like everyone else. The only difference is that we tend not to jump into signing free agents with already-documented attitude problems, which is a smart move anyway.

[Mojouw]

Yeah. I don't buy that the Steelers do much different other than have a patient ownership that doesn't meddle in football decisions too often.

Ben, Porter, Llyod, Plaxico, Santonio, Mike Adams, Pouncey, and Harrison, to name a few all had off-field issues. All were kept until their performance or other players on the roster made them expendable.

[Moose]

Ben, Porter, Llyod, Plaxico, Santonio, Mike Adams, Pouncey, and Harrison, to name a few all had off-field issues. All were kept until their performance or other players on the roster made them expendable.

You do make a good point with the last phrase ! Kinda 'what can you do for me'? business sense.

[Craic]

Yeah. I don't buy that the Steelers do much different other than have a patient ownership that doesn't meddle in football decisions too often.

Ben, Porter, Llyod, Plaxico, Santonio, Mike Adams, Pouncey, and Harrison, to name a few all had off-field issues. All were kept until their performance or other players on the roster made them expendable.

Don't know about that

• Ben: for all the other issues, at the end of the day, there weren't any convictions so it still remains a he said she said issue, regardless of what one thinks actually happened.
• Porter: his dogs got out. His other issues happened after he left the Steelers. (He got shot in Colorado, but he was just standing in the entryway when someone drove by and opened fire. Chances are it was completely random).
• Plax: never as a Steeler, if I remember right. And then when they brought him back, he was much older and much more mature.
• Santonio: team is very limited in what they can do when it comes to drugs, due to the CBA. However, they actually cut their number 1, star receiver a year or so after he won the SB for us. I'd say that makes the Steelers quite different than many other teams.
• Adams: he failed a drug test before being with the Steelers, and the Steelers removed him from the draft list. Only after Adams came in and basically got on his hands and knees and begged/promised he'd straighten up, was he put back on it. And so far, he hasn't had any off-field issues (alright, he got stabbed, but that sounds like a wrong place, wrong time issue).
• Pouncey? He professed loyalty for a teammate. He did no more than 90% of the people on this board did for Ben R (twice).
• Harrison: He had one, and only one issue. At first, I wanted him gone. But Harrison manned up, went right back to the place when the police were there, confessed, accepted his punished and cooperated with the police, then went through whatever was given him and kept his nose clean.

The only one I can really think that would fall in the NFL badboy why was he still around category, was skippy. And there's part of me that always wondered if he was kept around as a warning to other teams: don't screw with us, even our kicker is a crazy-assed troll doll come to life."

(for posterity's sake)

[salamander]

Don't know about that

• Ben: for all the other issues, at the end of the day, there weren't any convictions so it still remains a he said she said issue, regardless of what one thinks actually happened.
• Porter: his dogs got out. His other issues happened after he left the Steelers. (He got shot in Colorado, but he was just standing in the entryway when someone drove by and opened fire. Chances are it was completely random).
• Plax: never as a Steeler, if I remember right. And then when they brought him back, he was much older and much more mature.
• Santonio: team is very limited in what they can do when it comes to drugs, due to the CBA. However, they actually cut their number 1, star receiver a year or so after he won the SB for us. I'd say that makes the Steelers quite different than many other teams.
• Adams: he failed a drug test before being with the Steelers, and the Steelers removed him from the draft list. Only after Adams came in and basically got on his hands and knees and begged/promised he'd straighten up, was he put back on it. And so far, he hasn't had any off-field issues (alright, he got stabbed, but that sounds like a wrong place, wrong time issue).
• Pouncey? He professed loyalty for a teammate. He did no more than 90% of the people on this board did for Ben R (twice).
• Harrison: He had one, and only one issue. At first, I wanted him gone. But Harrison manned up, went right back to the place when the police were there, confessed, accepted his punished and cooperated with the police, then went through whatever was given him and kept his nose clean.

The only one I can really think that would fall in the NFL badboy why was he still around category, was skippy. And there's part of me that always wondered if he was kept around as a warning to other teams: don't screw with us, even our kicker is a crazy-assed troll doll come to life."

(for posterity's sake)

100% agreed. It's not like we keep known criminals on the team for long periods of time like other teams.

[Steelerette]

We're not the Raiders or the Bengals.

But I don't think we have too much high ground over the other 29 clubs. It is what it is, and we tend to be smart enough not to actively bring in cancers or keep them extended.

I'll take it.

[Mojouw]

Don't know about that

• Ben: for all the other issues, at the end of the day, there weren't any convictions so it still remains a he said she said issue, regardless of what one thinks actually happened.
• Porter: his dogs got out. His other issues happened after he left the Steelers. (He got shot in Colorado, but he was just standing in the entryway when someone drove by and opened fire. Chances are it was completely random).
• Plax: never as a Steeler, if I remember right. And then when they brought him back, he was much older and much more mature.
• Santonio: team is very limited in what they can do when it comes to drugs, due to the CBA. However, they actually cut their number 1, star receiver a year or so after he won the SB for us. I'd say that makes the Steelers quite different than many other teams.
• Adams: he failed a drug test before being with the Steelers, and the Steelers removed him from the draft list. Only after Adams came in and basically got on his hands and knees and begged/promised he'd straighten up, was he put back on it. And so far, he hasn't had any off-field issues (alright, he got stabbed, but that sounds like a wrong place, wrong time issue).
• Pouncey? He professed loyalty for a teammate. He did no more than 90% of the people on this board did for Ben R (twice).
• Harrison: He had one, and only one issue. At first, I wanted him gone. But Harrison manned up, went right back to the place when the police were there, confessed, accepted his punished and cooperated with the police, then went through whatever was given him and kept his nose clean.

The only one I can really think that would fall in the NFL badboy why was he still around category, was skippy. And there's part of me that always wondered if he was kept around as a warning to other teams: don't screw with us, even our kicker is a crazy-assed troll doll come to life."

(for posterity's sake)

I will always believe that Holmes was pushed off the roster not out of some moral stance by the team and/or ownership, but that Ben and Harrison were chosen as far less expendable and more valuable the the team. Steelers chose to deal with those 2 "scandals" and put Holmes out.

I think your review of each issue is fair, but biased. Think about how we view the "criminals" and "thugs" on other teams. Is there really so much less evidence damning "our guys"? As for Pouncey, I think he is a likely a far better player than he is a human being. I can't believe he is that different from his brother - who has demonstrated himself to be a degenerate.

The bottom line is that the Steelers are the only team starting a guy who is/was one step short of being a convicted rapist at QB.

The Steelers make business decisions like every other team in the league. They may be less likely to bring in problems via the draft or free agency than other teams, but once they problems are there, they are dealt with the same way. Performance versus roster depth with a little bit of salary cap thrown in for spice.

[SteelerFanInStl]

There are many more steps than one to go from not even having been charged with a crime to being a convicted rapist.

[Mojouw]

There are many more steps than one to go from not even having been charged with a crime to being a convicted rapist.

Put it this way, if you had a daughter would you want her hanging out with Ben and his friends?

Other than the Steelers having a stable patient ownership situation and believing in their coaches long enough to let them engage in rebuilds/reloads, they are not some special moral paragon of virtue.

Remember, Ray Lewis was never convicted or charged with anything, what is your viewpoint on him?

[steelreserve]

There are many more steps than one to go from not even having been charged with a crime to being a convicted rapist.

Be that as it may - and I realize everyone has their own, often very strong opinion on Ben - how many of you really think that if he was any player other than a Super Bowl-winning QB, he'd still be on the team? Regardless of whether anything was true, proven, disproven, whatever; if he was some random running back or defensive lineman, at best he'd be suspended by the team while they waited for reactions (legal and otherwise), then quietly released at the end of the season "because the distraction was not worth it." And judging by the fact that many in the public (again, justified or not - all the same; not the point here) have not gotten over it and it's still an uncomfortable subject, my guess is that's the way it would have played out. Not just with the Steelers; that goes for virtually any team in the league.

So no matter how you look at it - yeah, we bent the rules for that, because the alternative would've been the competitive equivalent of blowing your own brains out. We're not any more ethical or high-and-mighty than anyone else. Just less stupid about signing guys who are already known to have attitude problems.

My personal thoughts on Ben, since surely someone will take the above as "saying he's a rapist even though there was no conviction," is that he very likely was a lousy human being for his first few years in the league (which was fairly well-documented), then finally learned his lesson and straightened himself out after all of this. Did he rape anyone? Not that I know of. Did he act like a boorish frathouse douchebag that I probably wouldn't like to hang around with? Sure sounds like it. At any rate, the point is not "guilty or not guilty," but what a team will put up with, whether it's criminal or just PR. Because of the Ben situation, a lot of people would put the Steelers near the bottom of that list.

[Craic]

Don't get me wrong: I am not claiming moral high-ground for the Steelers. Rather, I'm claiming that they don't put up with the crap because those distractions take away from what happens on the field.

W/Ben, yeah, I'd agree the rules were broken by the Steelers regardless of what actually happened. But really, that's an exception that proves the rule.

[tihmtahm]

Put it this way, if you had a daughter would you want her hanging out with Ben and his friends?

Other than the Steelers having a stable patient ownership situation and believing in their coaches long enough to let them engage in rebuilds/reloads, they are not some special moral paragon of virtue.

Remember, Ray Lewis was never convicted or charged with anything, what is your viewpoint on him?

At the time the allegations were made, I was shocked and appalled that the NFL would allow him to play. As time passed, I saw that he was changing as a person... I believe that any person who truly changes their lives, deserves a 2nd chance. During his prime, I would have jumped at the opportunity to have him as a Steeler!

[steelreserve]

Don't get me wrong: I am not claiming moral high-ground for the Steelers. Rather, I'm claiming that they don't put up with the crap because those distractions take away from what happens on the field.

W/Ben, yeah, I'd agree the rules were broken by the Steelers regardless of what actually happened. But really, that's an exception that proves the rule.

I think you're right in that they don't actively seek it out; e.g., they won't go out and sign someone like that. But when it comes to their own players already on the team, I don't see a lot of difference between them and other teams.

Remember when James Harrison and Cedrick Wilson were both in trouble with the law for domestic violence within weeks of each other - and with Harrison, it was "Let the process play out," but Wilson got shitcanned immediately? Then they asked the ownership why one was treated differently from the other, and Dan Rooney said straight up, "Harrison is a Pro Bowl defender, so we're not going to do anything hasty." (I'm paraphrasing the quote, but you get the idea.)

I mean, there was even an easy out - all they had to say was "Wilson was the second one to get in trouble, after everyone's attention was already focused on us, so something had to be done," or, "The Wilson incident was more shocking because it happened in front of 50 people in public." Or even just give a no comment. But they actually said that on-field performance was the difference.

I guess there are other bits of evidence that go both ways. Like keeping Ta'amu around after his COPS-style incident. Or on the other hand, sending Holmes packing, or dumping Anthony Smith for a selfish attitude. It seems to me like the one common thread is that they'll put up with legal problems if you're a contributor, in an amount directly proportional to the difference you make on the field. But if you're a punk with an attitude problem, you're out of there. Maybe not a moral or ethical code, but a wise move IMO nonetheless.

[SteelerFanInStl]

Put it this way, if you had a daughter would you want her hanging out with Ben and his friends?

Other than the Steelers having a stable patient ownership situation and believing in their coaches long enough to let them engage in rebuilds/reloads, they are not some special moral paragon of virtue.

Remember, Ray Lewis was never convicted or charged with anything, what is your viewpoint on him?

You're wrong, Ray Lewis did have charges filed against him and was convicted. He made a deal to testify against the other 2 and got the murder and assault charges dropped, pleading guilty to obstruction of justice and getting 12 months probation.

Your reply also has nothing to do with my statement. You said that Ben was "one step short of being a convicted rapist" and that's not close to being true. It has nothing to do with personal feelings on the matter.

[Mojouw]

You're wrong, Ray Lewis did have charges filed against him and was convicted. He made a deal to testify against the other 2 and got the murder and assault charges dropped, pleading guilty to obstruction of justice and getting 12 months probation.

Your reply also has nothing to do with my statement. You said that Ben was "one step short of being a convicted rapist" and that's not close to being true. It has nothing to do with personal feelings on the matter.

He was one step away. That step was having a DA file charges. For reasons that we will all never really know, that didn't happen. If it would've went to court, he would have lost. My point was not to debate what did or did not happen in a crappy dive bar in some podunk town in Georgia. My point was is that as big of a Steelers' fan as I am, I think the idea that this franchise is somehow "special" or morally superior than large portions of the rest of the league is false. If you can play, play well, and at a $$ amount the team is comfortable with, then you will play and the Steelers, like every other team, will find a way to justify it.

- - - Updated - - -

I think you're right in that they don't actively seek it out; e.g., they won't go out and sign someone like that. But when it comes to their own players already on the team, I don't see a lot of difference between them and other teams.

Remember when James Harrison and Cedrick Wilson were both in trouble with the law for domestic violence within weeks of each other - and with Harrison, it was "Let the process play out," but Wilson got shitcanned immediately? Then they asked the ownership why one was treated differently from the other, and Dan Rooney said straight up, "Harrison is a Pro Bowl defender, so we're not going to do anything hasty." (I'm paraphrasing the quote, but you get the idea.)

I mean, there was even an easy out - all they had to say was "Wilson was the second one to get in trouble, after everyone's attention was already focused on us, so something had to be done," or, "The Wilson incident was more shocking because it happened in front of 50 people in public." Or even just give a no comment. But they actually said that on-field performance was the difference.

I guess there are other bits of evidence that go both ways. Like keeping Ta'amu around after his COPS-style incident. Or on the other hand, sending Holmes packing, or dumping Anthony Smith for a selfish attitude. It seems to me like the one common thread is that they'll put up with legal problems if you're a contributor, in an amount directly proportional to the difference you make on the field. But if you're a punk with an attitude problem, you're out of there. Maybe not a moral or ethical code, but a wise move IMO nonetheless.

Exactly. I wasn't saying I had a problem with it either. It is a competitive business and you can't be doing things totally different than you competitors.

[SteelerFanInStl]

He was one step away. That step was having a DA file charges. For reasons that we will all never really know, that didn't happen. If it would've went to court, he would have lost. My point was not to debate what did or did not happen in a crappy dive bar in some podunk town in Georgia. My point was is that as big of a Steelers' fan as I am, I think the idea that this franchise is somehow "special" or morally superior than large portions of the rest of the league is false. If you can play, play well, and at a $$ amount the team is comfortable with, then you will play and the Steelers, like every other team, will find a way to justify it.

Again, he wasn't "one step away" from being convicted. Filing charges is a LONG way from convicting someone. Charges get dropped, plea bargains happen, people are found innocent, all the time.

I guess that I'm just one of those people who believes in the old "innocent until proven guilty" mantra.

[LLT]

Remember, Ray Lewis was never convicted or charged with anything, what is your viewpoint on him?

Wrong.

Ray Lewis was on the Ravens practice field having had murder charges against him dropped a week earlier as part of a plea bargain agreement.
http://www.artclu.com/crew/bfoley/la...&story=10&pg=1

People often think that if you are not convicted, you were never actually charged. Thats incorrect. If you were to run Ray Lewis criminal record through NCIC, it would show the charges with a 0 conviction notation after.
Ray was charged, and as part of his plead agreement they did not puruse conviction.

[Mojouw]

Again, he wasn't "one step away" from being convicted. Filing charges is a LONG way from convicting someone. Charges get dropped, plea bargains happen, people are found innocent, all the time.

I guess that I'm just one of those people who believes in the old "innocent until proven guilty" mantra.

Fine. Bottom line is something shady and at best borderline legal happened in that bar that night. If it was a 3rd string guy or a borderline starter, they would have been cut. Since it was the franchise QB, it was handled and his image was rehabbed.

If the Steelers were truly doing things a "different way" they would have straight-up cut him. But they don't. They do things the same way as every other sports franchise does. Talent trumps almost anything. Especially young championship talent at one of the hardest positions in sports to find quality players at. Heck, if the mythologized aspects of the "Steeler Way" were as true as some make them out to be, Ben would have been cut after he tried to eat a Buick.

[Steelerette]

Fine. Bottom line is something shady and at best borderline legal happened in that bar that night. If it was a 3rd string guy or a borderline starter, they would have been cut. Since it was the franchise QB, it was handled and his image was rehabbed.

If the Steelers were truly doing things a "different way" they would have straight-up cut him. But they don't. They do things the same way as every other sports franchise does. Talent trumps almost anything. Especially young championship talent at one of the hardest positions in sports to find quality players at. Heck, if the mythologized aspects of the "Steeler Way" were as true as some make them out to be, Ben would have been cut after he tried to eat a Buick.

This is why I had Shembo in one of my mock drafts. We don't even know for sure that he's implicit but a lot of people have him written off. We're not the Raiders, we don't go looking for troublemakers... but other than where you can say we don't tend to put up with malcontents, I don't feel we hold much moral high ground over any of the other clubs, and I don't think the front office pretends any different.