Yeah even as a player...c'mon Ben. At this point, it's time to give the baby a spanking. I wouldn't mind seeing him come out and say something to the extent of "I messed up and I've tried to be professional and stay quiet, but enough is enough. AB is a ungrateful selfish individual " lol ok maybe not to that extreme, but some of the things he said kinda made him look a bit soft.Originally Posted by polamalubeast
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I understand your point .... but at the same time, it would have been a horrible idea for Ben to add oil to the fire!
Some would have preferred Ben to say nothing about it, but that would have been almost impossible, since the speculation would have lasted even longer.
I think Ben handled it masterfully. There is now NO way for AB to respond negatively without outing himself as the child in all of this.
There is no more taking sides. No one can come close to criticizing Ben as a human or as a leader. He wins. Period.
And AB is such an idiot, this kindness and maturity on Ben’s part will infuriate Mr. Small Balls into saying more foolish things.
This was absolutely the right way for Ben to handle it. Game over.
Array title="AtlantaDan has a reputation beyond repute">
Maybe ... maybe not
This never stops.
And maybe Ben does not want it to stop.
This on whether we have heard the last of Tuesday morning Radio Ben
“I haven’t made a final decision yet,” Roethlisberger said in a KDKA-TV interview Monday. “We talk a lot about it with my family and my agents and the Steelers. I think people like it. That we can give some inside access. We’ll make a final decision moving forward.”
https://triblive.com/sports/tim-benz...ue-radio-show/
AJRII should have told Ben during negotiations for the new contract that the radio show was over.
Last edited by AtlantaDan; 05-21-2019 at 07:01 AM.
Edmunds is another fucking moron. He’s the safety equivalent of Rashard Mendenhall. He’s just got that vibe to him.Maybe ... maybe not
This never stops.
And maybe Ben does not want it to stop.
This on whether we have heard the last of Tuesday morning Radio Ben
“I haven’t made a final decision yet,” Roethlisberger said in a KDKA-TV interview Monday. “We talk a lot about it with my family and my agents and the Steelers. I think people like it. That we can give some inside access. We’ll make a final decision moving forward.”
https://triblive.com/sports/tim-benz...ue-radio-show/
AJRII should have told Ben during negotiations for the new contract that the radio show was over.
The OTA start today so I hope Tomlin will put some rules for the social media and something like this this year ....Remember the AB comments last year on twitter after the game against the Chiefs ....
Array title="AtlantaDan has a reputation beyond repute">
But the franchise QB says the fans like inside access.
Other than telling players to use common sense when posting, it would appear two faced to set rules for social media when there are no rules for a player continuing to appear on sports talk radio every Tuesday morning during the season even after the player belatedly admits his criticism of another player during such an appearance "probably" went too far
“That’s the thing about media and social media: As soon as you say, ‘sorry,’ it only goes so far. You can’t take it back."
https://triblive.com/sports/antonio-...rgers-apology/
Tomlin needs to show who is the boss on the steelers!But the franchise QB says the fans like inside access.
Other than telling players to use common sense when posting, it would appear two faced to set rules for social media when there are no rules for a player continuing to appear on sports talk radio every Tuesday morning during the season even after the player belatedly admits his criticism of another player during such an appearance "probably" went too far
“That’s the thing about media and social media: As soon as you say, ‘sorry,’ it only goes so far. You can’t take it back."
https://triblive.com/sports/antonio-...rgers-apology/
I mean, I would say that you have the right to be on the social media, but please do not say things that are controversial or emotional on twitter.
Social media is good for the talk shows like Skip Bayless,Shannon Sharpe,Colin Cowherd,etc but this is not good for a team!
There is no putting the toothpaste back in the tube with social media. Each generation of players that comes into the NFL through the draft will be more and more intertwined with it. It is not possible to stop it. Regardless of how it may or may not impact team chemistry, it is (or at least will be viewed as) essential for each player's "branding". No way a player and agent allow a team to screw up their $$$.
Where the massive problem and avenue for change lies, is with the "media". Pouring over social media and dissecting it in order to generate "content" on the cheap is just beyond stupid. It essentially reduces the NFL off-season down to tracking the habits of giant disembodied egos behaving like teenage girls. Then bloggers and "reporters" under pressure to both create content around the NFL and ensure they have everything first simply copy and paste and retweet -- adding nothing in terms of another source, context, independent reporting/confirmation to the story. That is just bad content. You (meaning the "reporter") are essentially only serving as a conduit for people who aren't on social media following the players already to do it from a remove. Then, to double down on terrible, places like blogs and message boards breathlessly "report" social media reports of social media reports. Injecting more speculation into motivations, meanings, and outcomes. "Click here to find out if star QB wants to eat alien farts while watching cut-ups of 3rd down formations!" (Actually that has too much football in it to be real...).
I hate to say this, but honestly and without accusation or animosity, what if we just stopped? Seriously. What if we just stopped having a thread or a post in a thread for every un-sourced, no-content, re-Tweet of some nonsense from Insta or Twitter that says absolutely nothing about football? I don't know - maybe we wouldn't have much to talk about during the off-season. Maybe we would. But wouldn't it be better than just a continual barrage of "information" that means nothing, says nothing, and goes nowhere?
Array title="AtlantaDan has a reputation beyond repute">
As I have posted before, IMO electing to read or reply to a thread is our respective individual calls unless the mods want to shut threads down
Unfortunately social media tweets were a major reason the Steelers were compelled to cut ties to the most productive WR in their history, which in turn was related to Ben going on a sports talk radio show and throwing shade at that WR. So it is not a particularly bright line for me what has absolutely nothing to do with football, since for players who have grown up with social media that now is how often how they elect to get their views out on team related matters (which IMO includes Edmunds liking AB’s clap back tweet at Ben yesterday) without the filters of media dinosaurs like the Post-Gazette
Array title="DesertSteel has a reputation beyond repute">
Douche move by Edmunds. I mean, LIKING a post that calls YOUR Quarterback two-faced... seriously??
I certainly wasn't calling for anyone to prevent anyone from posting or discussing things, but to ask that we question why these things are a daily drumbeat w/in NFL "news" circles?
Your argument that it is news because it impacts team issues that are intertwined with a generation players who are omnipresent on social media is a good one. But take it through all the logical steps. I feel like the NFL news ecosystem goes like this:
1. A player tweets something.
2. It gets retweeted by a small # of people. Mostly small fish trying to drive views towards their NFL related "content".
3. One of the larger aggregators of tweets picks it up. Now there is a "controversy". More like a tempest in a teapot, but whatever.
4. Now a big fish gets ahold of it and tweets about it. This makes it "official" NFL related story content. Still, at this point, nothing has actually happened. No reporting. No corroboration. Just speculation and a modern day game of Chinese Whispers (the more offensive name for "telephone"! Now we can all talk about how MojoUW hates China!).
5. Finally, it breaks all over team specific blogs and has gone "viral" through all the big names on NFL Twitter. Yet, still at this point, no reporting, information gathering, or fact checking has taken place. Speculation, rumor, and blowing smoke are the watchwords at this point. But as long as you are first -- it doesn't matter. Gotta get those page views!
6. Days later, a verified and thought out version of the story comes out. But it is too late at this point. The controversy and drama has already taken root in people's minds. Now players face a incessant drumbeat of questions about the state of the locker-room, their relationships with one another, if somebody should be traded/fired, etc. Essentially, the media cycle/ecosystem has created a drama out of almost whole cloth.
And we are all complicit in that happening. Our desire to relentless consume NFL content and to get the "inside" story creates a market for all this nonsense and actually creates a measurable percentage of the dreaded "drama" that is apparently death to NFL teams. What if it just stopped at Step 1 or Step 2 in the above process? Instead of creating a feedback loop for the thoughts and feelings of every idiot that currently or has previously drawn an NFL paycheck?
An example:
On another thread there is a tweet about how Ben said you would have to ask Juju if he can be a #1 WR. If any of us was prominent enough on Twitter, we could have this on Rappaport and Schefter and ESPN and Steelers Depot by the weekend that Ben R is uncertain if JuJu can be a #1 NFL WR. Next we would see footage of players being seriously asked to address the rift between Ben and Juju and who has confidence in who. Then we could get discussion of it featured on national media outlets and Steelers Depot. Then we could have a dozen threads around here about how drama and controversy are already killing the 2019 season, Tomlin needs to get control or be fired by the end of the week, etc. And nothing would have actually happened.
Array title="AtlantaDan has a reputation beyond repute">
Of course the NFL league office, as is the case for other sports, wants whatever it takes for "the product" to be marketed 12 months a year in order to attract viewers and page clicks.
So you get a situation in baseball (a sport I abandoned decades ago) where the MLB Commissioner calls out Mike Trout, universally regarded as the best player in the game, for only working on being the best player he can be and not actively developing his "brand"
"Player marketing requires one thing for sure -- the player," Manfred said earlier in the day. "You cannot market a player passively. You can't market anything passively. You need people to engage with those to whom you are trying to market in order to have effective marketing. We are very interested in having our players more engaged and having higher-profile players and helping our players develop their individual brand. But that involves the player being actively engaged."
http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/2...b-manfred-says
Same goes for the NFL - Roger & Friends want the social media dust ups to help keep fans engaged between the games during the season as well as in the months between the Super Bowl in early February and training camp in late July
Of course at some point that detracts from what the game used to be exclusively about, which is performance on the field.
So no surprise you are getting push back from some of the Steelers vets who see what social media drama has done to their team.
But good luck with that - it's a business and with the social media controversies business is booming
Atlanta Dan, all of what you posted is spot on.
However, I think that each of us as NFL fans needs to understand and consider how we, even in a small way, contribute to it. It seems that fans and even those that write about a given team continually lament how social media driven issues and drama is overtaking the game and pushing the on-the-field product off the front page (an ironic metaphor to say the least). Well, how does that happen? Cash money. If we, the money spending public, just stopped consuming/paying for the nonsense -- no central office would worry about guys building a "brand".
For my part, I am not on Twitter, Instagram, or anything but Facebook. And there I do not follow or post anything from a money-making entity of any kind as much as I possibly can. I mainly use it follow up with family and distant friends. If we want NFL coverage and discussion to be about the game - -then we have to demand it. When the yelling men come on the TV and start talking about what QB is elite or not; who hates who; who is a "cancer" or a "leader" -- change the channel. Don't Tweet about it. Don't post about it. This crap did not used to exist. We brought it into existence by making it profitable. Sure, we can't put the genie back into the lamp, but we can make the genie less loud and omnipotent.
Ben think that JuJu is a number 1 WR...
Roethlisberger: 'I lacked in leadership' in 2018
Jeremy Fowler
ESPN Staff Writer
PITTSBURGH -- Ben Roethlisberger took accountability for the Steelers' 2018 season in four important words.
"I lacked in leadership," Roethlisberger said after the team's first organized team activities session Tuesday. "Because that's my job as the leader of this team, to get us to the playoffs. I'm gonna need to focus and refocus my energy and time on, how can I be a better leader to get us back to the playoffs?"
to read rest of article:
http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/2...eadership-2018
Array title="AtlantaDan has a reputation beyond repute">
Good points
But IMO what brought it into existence was when the internet took off in the 90s and sports print publishers made the mistake of giving their product away for free while ESPN (TV version) decided shortly thereafter that its business model needed to fill in the time between live games with talking head controversy shows since few were going to sit around and watch SportsCenter highlights they could call up whenever they wanted online.
As far as getting better product, you get what you pay for and if you are not paying anything for it you are going to get lowest common denominator content that attracts maximum eyeballs since that is how the bills get paid.
OTOH, if you want to pay for better football content you can get it through pay subscription sites like Pro Football Focus. In my case, just as I pay for the NY Times and Washington Post (WaPo at a ridiculous discount through Amazon Prime since Jeff Bezos owns the WaPo) while others go with the viable alternative of paying for The Wall Street Journal, rather than rely on USA Today or cable news, I signed up for a one year discounted subscription to The Athletic for $30 a year. I now am reading there a lot of good writers who have left (or been laid off from) print magazines and newspapers. They can write with a less pressing need to generate page clicks and actually inform me since there is no advertising that requires maxing out page clicks for clickbait.
It would be nice if non-subscription coverage on any subject became better, but given my cynical view of internet sites I am not holding my breath until that happens.
Maybe its not HIS Quarterback, but ARIII QB? Possibly Edmunds just liking a comment that he agrees with on social media...people do it all the time.
The safe bet is to not comment at all. The company line would to like whatever opinion opposed the comment. Maybe he is just being genuine in what he likes on social media.
Again, I find myself in complete agreement. But I would only add that we can do little things to "help" the situation. Maybe. Sort of. Probably not, but it is worth a try.
Take a look at the thread on the start of Steelers OTAs. Read through the Tweets in the first post. See if you can spot the "independent reporter" who has zero access to actual information. Got a suspect?
Dov Kleiman. Notice how everyone else had a bit of information or a quote to advance the story - even if it still was about "drama" or "locker-room" stuff? Then look at this guy. All he is doing is cutting and pasting other Tweets together to try and make something out of nothing and keep stirring the pot to get views and clicks. What if we occasionally took an extra minute and filtered some of this stuff before just blindly posting everything the internet has to offer?
Maybe it would be like trying to hold back a river or maybe if we each did a small portion -- it would make a dent. I don't know. But I do think we can all do a better job of asking where "information" is coming from, who is posting it, and why they might be posting it.
Interesting comment from Dungy, especially on Tomlin around the middle of this interview.
Array title="pczach has a reputation beyond repute">
Roethlisberger was supposed to say that he always hated that arrogant, big mouth, demented little shit. That way, the same reporter would say that Roethlisberger hasn't grown up and is obviously the problem.
I have never.....ever...….seen a guy put in no-win situations that way Big Ben is on a consistent basis. He says everything right, but that's not good enough. Now, he's supposed to give the media what they want about the entire relationship to appease the people that want to vindicate AB and destroy Ben.
I say fuck all these people.
I am all for giving people the benefit of the doubt, but I cannot think of a single way that he could justify that as being anything other than a real jerk. I mean, there was no other way to interpret Mr. Big Chest's tweet there other than a straight-up insult, and a pretty low blow at that. Might as well have liked a tweet calling his teammate a motherfucker. That's just ... not smart.
Admittedly Edmunds has not been around long enough to form a concrete opinion on, but so far the only vibes I've gotten from him on the field or off are these occasional little negative moments.
See you Space Cowboy ...
I understand taking the high road, but there's no way I say I still view AB as a friend after all the things AB has said and done if I'm Ben.
You guys realize none of this real, right? Ben basically just cut a wrestling promo the other day. Don't take public comments as any indication of private thoughts.
Ben has an army of agents and consultants he listens to and AB does not. One guy is just shooting from the hip and the other is tossing out practices and honed statements.
It is likely that Ben wouldn't piss on AB if he was on fire, but he's still gonna say that they are friends.
Don’t believe anything the Tooth Fairy says; she’s a liar.
-Sasquatch
Array title="AtlantaDan has a reputation beyond repute">
Once the relationship between AB and the Steelers fell apart for good I doubt AB set up his interview with ESPN, appearance on the LeBron James HBO show and photo op/meeting with AJRII on his own to help finish off his ties to the Steelers. AB is not smart enough to get a new contract that once again made him the highest paid WR in the league 2 years after signing his last deal with the Steelers without being guided there. Drew Rosenhaus was a major player in AB landing with the Raiders and I regard a lot of how the situation developed as due to AB & Rosenhaus working together on how to force a trade to a team of his choice that would meet his contract demands.
OTOH another high profile former Steeler did ignore everyone’s advice - Bell rejected his agent’s recommendation to take the Steelers offer and cost himself millions by not listening to Bakari’s advice
Array title="DesertSteel has a reputation beyond repute">
Why isn't he? There's ONE team.
SM is put into perspective for our generation, but their world is different. There's nothing virtual about it for them. Everything like and emoji has meaning for them. It was a douche move IMO.
- - - Updated - - -
That's a scary thought...
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