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3/07/2010 1:30 AM ET
Excuse me for mixing sports metaphors, but for Ben Roethlisberger -- who quickly has evolved into the dumbest quarterback ever to win multiple Super Bowls -- it's three strikes, and you're out.
Yeah, you heard right.
He's definitely dumb, and he most certainly is out.
That's dumb, as in how could Roethlisberger possibly put himself in a position to face another allegation of sexual assault within two years? And that's out, as in, this guy no longer should get the benefit of the doubt regarding anything else that could make his growing list of offseason woes.
FILE - In this Jan. 5, 2008 file photo, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger reacts as the Jacksonville Jaguars kick a game-winning field goal during the fourth quarter of an NFL wild card playoff football game in Pittsburgh. A 20-year-old college student has accused Roethlisberger of sexually assaulting her at a nightclub early Friday, March 5, 2010, during a night on the town near where he owns a lake home.(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
If you're running the Pittsburgh Steelers, you need to do a couple of things, and you need to do them fast. First, even with the judicial system still trying to determine fact from fiction in Roethlisberger's latest mess, you need to pull the guy aside, tell him to enter a closet at Heinz Field and order him not to leave until further notice. Second, you need to start looking for another quarterback -- you know, just in case, or in an attempt to scare Roethlisberger back into reality.
This is lunacy. I'm talking about what Roethlisberger keeps doing, and how the combination of the Steelers, the sporting public and much of the national media keeps dealing with it as just a star player with a frat-boy mentality.
You had that motorcycle silliness four years ago when Roethlisberger ignored his coach's orders by, not only riding the thing, but doing so without a helmet. He broke and bruised several body parts after crashing just shy of death. You also had that woman filing a civil lawsuit in July after she claimed Roethlisberger raped her two years ago at a Lake Tahoe casino and hotel. He refutes the allegations, and no criminal charges were filed, but neither party denies that something happened.
Whatever happened, this much is true: Roethlisberger got lucky, because he got another chance, and he blew it. I mean, there is no way he should be within three punts and a couple of bombs of whatever happened during the early hours of last Friday in The Middle Of Nowhere, Georgia -- otherwise known as Milledgeville, a city of mostly nothing but trouble.
While Milledgeville is the proud home of Georgia College and State University, everything else is bad. The unemployment rate is ridiculous at 14.2 percent, about five points higher than the national average. And for years, it was known as a place that housed some of Georgia's worst criminals in its state pen.
Now you can add this Roethlisberger situation to the city's list of infamy, and the reason begins and ends with ... Roethlisberger.
Yes, these are only allegations.
And, yes, no criminal charges have been filed.
But, no, Roethlisberger isn't innocent until proven guilty in this case, because he is at least guilty of stupidity before the first judge's gavel.
Here's what we do know about Roethlisberger's latest controversy, and it shows he won't be designing space shuttles any time soon: He left his home in Lake Oconee, Ga., and he eventually met two or three of his friends 30 miles away in Milledgeville. It was sort of a birthday celebration for the recently-turned 28-year-old Roethlisberger, and they went to a sports bar in the city to watch a basketball game. Then they ate dinner -- and then, as often is the case for young men in these situations, they searched for women.
Either that, or the women found them.
No problem there. Well, unless your name is Benjamin Todd Roethlisberger, and you already have a bull's-eye to cover your rather large back.
In addition to those legal issues and that motorcycle accident, Roethlisberger also has been a target for football-related things. Just last season, he suffered a concussion in a game against the Kansas City Chiefs, but he practiced all week before announcing that Saturday that he couldn't play the next day against the Baltimore Ravens. He was ripped by teammate Hines Ward, and that wasn't the first time.
After the 2007 season, Roethlisberger caught the Wrath of Ward when the quarterback said he needed bigger receivers. Ward wasn't amused, and neither was Santonio Holmes, who joins Ward as a smaller receiver.
There also were all of those Roethlisberger-created questions about his ribs during the week before the Steelers' last Super Bowl victory in 2009. As a result, he slowly has become known as a drama king who nevertheless has a powerful arm.
It's just that he can't think as fast as he can throw.
For instance: No way Roethlisberger was using many brain cells when he decided to finish last Friday night by joining his pals at a Milledgeville nightclub with some of those women that they apparently had just met. Worse, they went into a VIP area, which always is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
For one, these VIP areas give celebrities even more of a sense of entitlement than they already have. For another, with security around to keep folks out, those celebrities are left inside with their guests to do mostly whatever they wish.
The thing is, even if those celebrities chose to spend their VIP time eating popcorn and watching the Disney Channel, they are setting themselves up for somebody in the room claiming more than that happened. Such is especially true if one of those celebrities is, say, an NFL quarterback with two Super Bowl rings. And he is in the midst of an eight-year contract worth $102 million. And he already could be on the hook for giving somebody big bucks for something that he said he didn't do.
And he just doesn't get it.
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