Big Ben Refuses To Back Down
By chris
Noli nothis permittere te terere
When Ben Roethlisberger dropped to his knees at the conclusion of the AFC Championship game, I teared up a little right along with him. No man should ever have to experience what he’s gone through this season. As Super Bowl XLV approaches, be prepared for every one of his sins, a few of them real, most of them imagined, to be rehashed ad nauseum by the horde of reporters covering the big game. Remember Media Week is more akin to a circus where every garbage picking TMZ reporter or bubble-assed bimbo from TV Azteca is issued a press pass.
Hell, when the NFL offers a goofy blogger like me media credentials, you know anybody can get in.
Remember last week when I told all of you the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl is the NFL’s worst nightmare? As soon as the first pseudo-journalist questions Big Ben about Milledgville, that nightmare will have become reality. Don’t believe me? It’s already started.
New York Daily News fired the first shot with this article condemning ESPN for not rehashing every one of the phony trumped up allegations made by that drunk skank down Georgia. How dare they skip over every totally unproven detail! Should we also flash a picture of a mutilated dog every time we speak of Michael Vick? Or how about the bloody knife Ray Lewis used to stab that guy to death in Atlanta?
Yesterday, the Daily News was trumped in the stupidity department by the venerable New York Times. A hairy arm-pitted disciple of Oprah is evidently upset by the stories of Ben’s redemption. “How exactly is winning football games making up for mistreating women,” she asks in the same indignant tone she no doubt uses when one of her 37 cats breaks a vase. She then goes on to suggest, “If Roethlisberger were to take his playoff winnings and use it to make the lives of abused women better,” then he would be redeemed.
Where to start with this inanity. Truly, it makes me sad that a once great newspaper allows unmitigated hacks to print this drivel within its pages. First off, honey, nice of you to automatically assume Ben mistreated women without the benefit of pesky little things like facts or evidence. Perhaps instead of worrying about Ben Roethlisberger, you might pen a column wondering why a twenty year old girl would have such low moral character that she’d get wasted and blow an athlete in a dingy bathroom. As for the charity suggestion, I guess she missed all the charitable efforts Ben has made on behalf of firemen, policemen, and the John Challis Foundation.
I guess being exceeding kind to a kid with terminal cancer didn’t fit her womyn’s libber agenda.
The caption under the above picture is Latin. Yes, I speak Latin. I went to Carnegie Mellon, I’m a nerd. It roughly translates to “Never let the bastards bring you down.” Which is a fitting caption, both figurative and literal, for Big Ben’s life. He never allows opposing players to drag him down without a fight. And he’s never let the people standing in the way of his dreams take them away.
In 2004, teams fought over Philip Rivers and Eli Manning while Ben was an afterthought. Ten players were chosen before him, including such luminaries as Robert Gallery and Reggie Williams. Ben never let the bastards bring him down.
In 2005, people derided him as a game-manager. He answered them in the playoffs when he out-dueled Peyton Manning among others while guiding the first sixth seed to ever win a Lombardi Trophy. Ben never let the bastards bring him down.
In 2008, Ben was coming off a sub-par year thanks to the after-effects of a near-fatal motorcycle accident. People wondered if he was truly a franchise quarterback. Facing the toughest schedule in 30 years, Ben led six fourth quarter comebacks against a host of playoff caliber teams. But he saved his best for last when he heroically led the team down the field in the greatest last second game-winning drive in Super Bowl history. Ben never let the bastards bring him down.
In 2010, Ben was unjustly suspended after baseless accusations by a slutty sorority girl. Despite no charges being filed, he was vilified in the media and punished by the league. When he returned to the field, opposing players suckerpunched and cheapshotted him on a regular basis with absolutely no protection from either the officials or the NFL. In the AFC Championship game, he faced the New York Jets, whose classless fans chanted “She Said No” at the NFL Draft several months earlier despite their inept quarterback having the exact same accusations made against him in college, and defeated them.
When Ben brings home his third championship in six years a little over a week from now, I’m sure he’ll break down yet again. And he’ll have every reason to. For at that moment, Ben will have proven once and for all he’ll never let the bastards bring him down.