Steelers MMQB: NFL Offseason News
By Kim Myers
What We Learned This Week in the NFL Offseason:
- Former Giant Amani Toomer says Tony Romo is better than Eli Manning
- Vikings’ Adrian Peterson Arrested for resisting arrest
- Still no progress in contract talks between Steelers and Mike Wallace
- The Pittsburgh Steelers turn 79
In quite possibly the slowest month of the NFL season, one former player got a whole lot of attention this week for some questionable statements made regarding a comparison between Dallas QB Tony Romo and Giants QB Eli Manning. In a radio interview last week former Giant WR Amani Toomer stated that Tony Romo is the best QB in the NFC East. Toomer clarified he was speaking statistically as Manning has a fairly high interception rate to add to his 2 Super Bowl victories. Not sure if anyone has checked Toomer’s house for bath salts but I can’t imagine him actually picking Romo as a better QB over Manning unless of course he figured out it would be the best way to get his own named mentioned repeatedly during a slow NFL news week. I love it when NFL “analysts” try to use the statistics excuse as to why they are going to label a certain player elite or not, especially quarterbacks. It always makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
Vikings’ star running back and presumably upstanding citizen Adrian Peterson was arrested over the weekend in a night club incident in Houston. Peterson is accused of pushing an off-duty police officer and then resisting arrest. Not sure why this cop thought he could catch Peterson, who can outrun most of the NFL, but I guess that made him mad enough to arrest Peterson, who was released on $1,000 bond the next morning. For what seems to be a summer full of DUI arrests for NFL players, the arrest by Peterson caught a lot of people by surprise. AP is the last player you’d think would be in trouble with the law. But thanks to Twitter, the news broke and was all over the place within no time at all. Peterson took to Twitter himself to state, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” –Quoting from Winston Churchill. And then wrote “Thank you for waiting for the facts. Truth will surface.” Most likely the speculation about what happened at this night club is far more interesting than what actually transpired.
While we are inching closer and closer to the opening of Steelers Training Camp, there aren’t even centimeters advanced on the contract talks between Mike Wallace and the Pittsburgh Steelers. I wrote a story several weeks ago filled with optimism about the likelihood Wallace would sign before training camp and all will be right with the world. I’m starting to feel rather hopeless about the situation. The more time passes, the more unlikely Wallace is to sign the tender. The report has been all along that the Steelers are after a long term deal with Wallace so clearly with this length of time and no movement in negotiations, the dollar figure has got to be the item of dissention between the two sides. Clearly Wallace isn’t a fan of the figure the Steelers have presented to him and the Steelers aren’t budging because at the very least, he’ll have to play at least some point this season if he even hopes for big money from another team next summer as an UFA. I would hope that Wallace signs the tender and then before the start of the season a long term deal is worked out, that would be the best case scenario. With both sides at this point stone walling, there’s no telling how or when this will work out.
The Steelers will celebrate their 80th season this year and just celebrated 79 years of existence as of yesterday. The oldest franchise in the AFC and one of the most highly regarded and respected sports franchises, the Pittsburgh Steelers have maintained the same primary ownership for all of their 79 years. Purchased for $2,500 after a good day at the track by one Arthur J. Rooney, the Steelers were originally named the Pirates and went through many years of mediocrity before the glory days of the 70’s and the most recent success as of 2005. The Steelers fans are known for filling up opposing teams stadiums largely due to the shear amount of transplanted yinzers scattered about the country. The Steelers are truly an organization like no other with a fan base like no other. We’ll even forgive those God awful throw back uniforms the Steelers plan to wear this season to celebrate.
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