The Pittsburgh Steelers are a sexually assaulting, drunk-driving, bin Laden-loving, gun-toting, head-hunting, in-fighting, gay-bashing, finger-pointing rogue outfit. And most of that was just in the past couple of months.
Some of it is just allegations and some interpretation. And this is certainly not a statement on gun control, but instead just about image.
The Steelers' image as the gold-standard of NFL righteousness was always mythology anyway.
But with Hines Ward’s arrest for alleged DUI, Rashard Mendenhall’s tweets about the U.S. not hearing Osama bin Laden’s side of the story and Ben Roethlisberger’s lingering bad-guy standing, things were changing. Now, after James Harrison’s cover story in the upcoming issue of Men’s Journal, it has all added up to a new image for the Steelers. They have touched on, danced on, stomped on, just about every part of the stereotype of athletes behaving badly. It tops off with Harrison’s cover photo.
Imagine what NFL commissioner Roger Goodell must have felt Wednesday morning when he saw Harrison, the guy he has held as an example of dirty play, on the cover of a magazine, arms folded across his chest, holding a gun in each hand under the headline: “Confessions of an NFL Hitman.”
Highlights in the article include Harrison calling Goodell a devil, a thief, a dictator and a puppet, and saying “If that man was on fire and I had to (urinate) to put him out, I wouldn’t do it. I hate him and will never respect him.”
And this about Harrison’s own quarterback, Roethlisberger, who threw big interceptions in the Super Bowl: “Hey, at least throw a pick on their side of the field instead of asking the D to bail you out again.
“Or hand the ball off and stop trying to act like Peyton Manning. You ain’t that and you know it, man; you just get paid like he does.”
And this about the 2004 season and the AFC Championship Game: “ … (T)he Patriots, who we beat during the regular season, stole our signals and picked up 90 percent of our blitzes. They got busted for it later, but, hey, they’re Goodell’s boys, so he slapped ’em $500,000 and burned the tapes.”
The whole article isn’t out yet, but only lengthy excerpts. Reports are that when the article actually comes out, it will include Harrison gay-bashing, complaining that black players are fined heavier than white ones, and saying that Houston linebacker Brian Cushing is “juiced out of his mind.”
But from those first statements, about Goodell and Roethlisberger, and the photo with the guns, Harrison comes off as an image-killer. A truth-teller, but an image-killer.
James Harrison called Roger Goodell a 'devil' and had harsh words for Ben Roethlisberger, too, in a Men's Journal article. (AP photo)
The truth is, a lot of players feel this way about Goodell. Among the players, there is league-wide distrust and dislike of him.
Roethlisberger really isn’t Manning. Goodell did destroy tapes of the Patriots’ transgressions in Spygate, covering up for Bill Belichick. What can Goodell do now? He is the one who locked out the players, and basically took away all the rules. He created this wild west, and now maybe we’re going to start getting some honest feelings from players. Plenty of them surely agree with Harrison, but just don’t know how to say it.
Harrison doesn’t know how, either. But it’s a dream moment for most people to be able to tell their boss to stick it without repercussion.
And in this case, Goodell is the one who allowed it. He cannot punish Harrison for this, after locking him out, and had better not take a grudge into the season.
But he will. How couldn’t he? In one interview, Harrison did serious damage to the image of the Teflon League, and also put the final nail into the myth of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
There is no point to going over all the details of Pittsburgh’s past. But Steve Courson, Mr. Steeler, detailed his steroid use, and told Sports Illustrated years ago about the use during the Steelers' dynasty, alleging that coach Chuck Noll and team founder Art Rooney tolerated it. It’s not that the Steelers are lower than other teams, but only that their good-guy image was always concocted.
That happens all the time in sports, where athletes or teams are built too high and inevitably come crashing down. Running with a ball, throwing a ball, dribbling one or hitting one hard doesn’t automatically reveal good character. The Steelers have been portrayed for years as a mom-and-pop organization that builds teams the right way, through the draft and development. It stands loyally behind its coaches.
Well, Harrison’s distaste for Goodell is nothing new, not after Goodell built his anti-cheap shot campaign around Harrison’s hits. Actually, that was a good thing Goodell did, taking immediate action to try to curb brain injuries, and their long-term effects.
It will be interesting to see what happens to Harrison’s credibility in his own locker room, where plenty of players aren’t wild about Roethlisberger, but unwritten code insists you don’t publicly rip your teammates.
Code also tends to forgive great, great players, such as Harrison.
In the end, much of this will pass for Harrison, who is a Twitter legend today. But he has created damage that the commissioner won’t be able to overlook.
It’s OK, though, Goodell can be a fair man: If Harrison is on fire, be sure that Goodell will gladly (urinate) on him.
