Tag: Ben Roethlisberger (Page 12 of 34)

Roethlisberger takes responsibility for actions, is a fan of third person phrases

Ben Roethlisberger recently granted separate interviews to Pittsburgh television stations KDKA and WTAE to discuss the allegations of his sexual assault case.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

In the interviews, Roethlisberger repeatedly faults himself for mistakes, blaming it in part on his immaturity while transitioning from his small-town Findlay, Ohio, background to “big city” Pittsburgh.

“Big Ben just kept building up, and I think it ended up coming off the field, and as the years kept going it just kept taking over Ben Roethlisberger,” he told KDKA’s Bob Pompeani.

Roethlisberger appeared relaxed and contrite throughout the interviews, with his most emotional moment coming in description of recent talks with his father, who now has a Western Pennsylvania farm Roethlisberger has visited frequently.

“We were talking about everything and how I got kind of lost, and he looked at me and we both kind of broke down, and he said, ‘It’s good to have my son back.’ And that just killed me,” Roethlisberger said.

I don’t care in what context they do it in: I love when athletes break out the third person. It’s classic.

It’s good to see that Roethlisberger is saying all the right things, but his actions will speak louder than his words in the end. He’s going to be tempted again at some point to go out, have a few adult beverages and check out the “scenery.” Will he do a better job of putting himself in a good situation or will he fall victim to his poor decision-making again?

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Big Ben accuser didn’t fight back because she is “a little girl” and he’s a “big boy”

Video evidence from the Ben Roethlisberger sexual assault case has risen to the internet surface and in one clip, his accuser can be seen saying that she didn’t want to fight back because she didn’t want him to hurt her “any more than he was going to.”

From FOXSports.com:

“I noticed throughout the night he kind of had like a short temper, like he would get really like defensive,” she told police in her second interview with them on March 5, about 12 hours after she said the assault took place. She didn’t elaborate further on what made her think the quarterback had a short temper.

During the first interview, she said she repeatedly told Roethlisberger, “I really don’t think this is OK,” but couldn’t stop him from having sex with her in the bathroom of a bar.

“I don’t know what I can … do,” she said. “I’m a little girl and he’s a big boy.”

In the video, the woman’s face was blurred. She was wearing a navy blue T-shirt and jeans and had her blond hair pulled back. She told police she didn’t think trying to fight Roethlisberger would stop the assault.

“I figured it wouldn’t help anything,” she said. “I didn’t want, obviously, him to hurt me any more than he was going to.”

Hindsight is always 20/20 and you’ll have to excuse me for passing judgment on someone else when I wasn’t involved in the situation. But if she said that he had a short temper, why didn’t she and her friends exit stage left at some point during the night? Why keep following him around to the different bars? What were her intentions that night? If they were to party with a celebrity, then she had already accomplished that. She didn’t have to continue to get drunk with a guy that a) she didn’t know, b) she didn’t trust and c) was someone who appeared to have a short fuse.

I’m not excusing anything Roethlisberger did that night, but she has to take responsibility for her actions, too. Wearing a “DTF” sticker on her shirt, getting wasted and following him around that night doesn’t pass for using good judgment. Neither was getting so drunk that she didn’t know whether or not he sexually assaulted her or she just “thinks” he did.

Another thing I’m a little fuzzy about is how the two of them wound up alone together in the bathroom. Did he ask her to come and she followed him? Was she dragged in there against her will? How did the situation go from a party scene with lots of people around to just him and her alone in the bathroom?

We’ll probably never know the details of what happened that night because the people involved were likely too drunk to remember. And unfortunately, the more details that emerge, the cloudier the facts become.


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Roethlisberger looking forward to second chance

Speaking to the media for the first time since he rejoined the Steelers earlier in the week, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said that he was looking forward to a “second chance” and a new opportunity.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

“I’ve put a lot of thought into my life, decisions that I’ve made in the past that I’ve been sitting at home thinking about things. I’ve been working closely with the commissioner on ways to make changes, corrections. So, I’m looking forward to the second chance and a second opportunity, not just in football because I think everyone knows what you’re going to get in football, but in life. I think that’s what’s kind of more important.

“A lot of them are personal things, you know, which is just something that I need to do. But it’s been neat being able to really re-evaluate my life and spend time with my family and kind of re-evaluate and re-figure what’s important in my life. That’s me … evaluating what I need to do and be smarter when it comes to certain things. Like I said it’s a new chapter and I’m looking forward to it and it starts with football. I’m glad to be back here … I’ll be talking to you guys a lot more.”

There are no shortage of young, drunk women that are ready to fawn over athletes and regret their decisions later. So we’ll see if Big Ben has made wholesale changes and whether or not he’ll follow through on some of the things he said to the media today.

And I hope he does change. Our society doesn’t need yet another athlete that has no concept of what it is to be a role model to kids. (Not that I think athletes should be role models anyway, but it doesn’t help when they publicly are accused of sexually assaulting not one, but two women in under a year.)

On a related note, the Post-Gazette is also reporting that it’s “obvious” that Byron Leftwich will be starting for the Steelers in Week 1. Dennis Dixon has yet to work with the first team, although that could change when training camp begins later this summer.


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Big Ben rejoins Steelers, in shape

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Ben Roethlisberger took the field with his teammates on Tuesday but will not talk to the media, while Jim Wexell of SteelCityInsider.com reports that Big Ben is in “much better shape” than he was a couple of months ago.

Roethlisberger appeared to be overweight when he showed up to workouts in March, but it’s not unusual for him to be out of shape at this point during the year. If Wexell’s report is true and he’s in much better shape now, maybe the events that transpired over these last couple of months woke him up.

And what a relief that would be for the Steelers. They don’t need Roethlisberger to clean up his act until he gets back from his suspension and then fall right back into the same pitfalls that got him in trouble in the first place. They need him to make wholesale changes so they don’t have to make a drastic decision, such as dumping him entirely.

Time will tell if the new, slimmer Big Ben has improved his decision-making.


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Big Ben can return to Steelers next week

Roger Goodell has seen enough in the early stages of Ben Roethlisberger’s behavioral evaluation to grant the quarterback permission to re-join the Steelers next week. However, Goodell still hasn’t decided whether or not to reduce Big Ben’s suspension from six to four games.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

“Based on the reports and recommendations of our medical experts, commissioner Goodell advised the Steelers and Ben Roethlisberger [Thursday] that he is cleared to return to team activities beginning next week,” The NFL said in a statement. “The commissioner will continue to monitor Roethlisberger’s progress as he begins the next phase of his recommended plan and will meet with Roethlisberger again at the appropriate time.

“There has been no decision on any modification to the length of Roethlisberger’s suspension. In his April 21 disciplinary decision, commissioner Goodell announced that Roethlisberger is suspended without pay for the first six games of the regular season. The commissioner said he would review Roethlisberger’s progress prior to the start of the regular season and consider whether to reduce the suspension to four games. Failure to cooperate and follow his plan could result in a longer suspension,” the statement concluded.

It’ll be interesting to see what the reaction of Roethlisberger’s teammates will be when he returns next week. Usually teammates are very accepting of someone after they’ve gone through an ordeal or a suspension. But players like Hines Ward have been vocal about how Big Ben has let the team down, so I’m curious to see whether or not it’ll be business as usual in Pittsburgh next week.

Of course, even if his teammates are displeased with Roethlisberger and his actions over the past two years, he’s still their quarterback. He helps them win games and usually, players can separate what a guy does off the field from what he does on it. So chances are that his teammates will say all the right things to the media and try to not let his issues become a bigger distraction than it already is.


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