I like it.  Not as gaudy as the Pittsburgh Steelers Super Bowl XL rings.  Slightly reminiscent of their IX rings with a hint of XIV styling.  I would suggest a setting similar to the XIII version with an engraving identical to XLIII.  Or they could just go old school and copy the eternal elegance worn by the victors of Super Bowl X.

Gosh, so many styles to choose from…

I’m kidding of course.  Did you really think I’d let the week go by without one foot joke?  Astute readers may wonder why I’ve been fairly restrained in my comments pertaining to this week’s opponent.  Well, good-natured ribbing aside, it’s proven fairly difficult to get too worked up over playing the New York Jets.

First, there’s head coach Rex Ryan and his perverted little fetish.  It may be funny to joke about a guy getting off on sucking grimy gnarly toes but there’s nothing inherently wrong with it.  Everybody has their own particular kink and if his wife talking footy to him rings his bell, more power to him.   Whatever paddles your ass or floats your boat I always say.  A foot fixation certainly isn’t any more or less weird than asking your girlfriend to don a wig, a #43 jersey, and a pair of black & gold panties before a night of raucous lovemaking.

Er, um, as I imagine some strange Steeler-obsessed blogger fan out there somewhere has done at one time.  ONE TIME.

No, nothing wrong with inviting strange men over to caress your wife’s feet while you do the five-knuckle shuffle.   Wrong is fathering nine kids with eight women over six states like Antonio Cromartie.  Wrong is driving home with a car full of teammates when your blood alcohol is twice the legal limit like Braylon Edwards.  Wrong is sexually assaulting a sweet little coed then having your criminal factory of a university cover it up like Mark Sanchez.

But sucking your wife’s toes?   Nothing wrong with that.

You know the worst part of a Pittsburgh Super Bowl run?  No, not the agonizingly long wait between games.  It’s the Playoff Beard.  Damn the thing itches and don’t even get me started on the pitfalls of eating Cheetohs.  Since us menfolk have had to make a sacrifice in support of our team, it’s time for you ladies to do the same.  Black and Gold toenail polish doesn’t seem much to ask.  Sure it may be a bit unusual and it may be a bit Goth but putting the jinx on Rexy and the Jets should be incentive enough for any card-carrying member of Steeler Nation.

Finally some action.

The pending sexual assault case against Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has finally drawn to a conclusion. At least, as far as Milledgeville Police Chief Buford T. Justice Woodrow W. Blue is concerned.  Yesterday, it was confirmed that his office submitted their official findings to the district attorney.  The ball is now in D.A. Fred Bright‘s court.

I’m sure many of you are thinking, “Well, at least this is all finally coming to a head.”  Unfortunately, the wheels of justice move slower than traffic through the Fort Pitt tunnel at rush hour.  D.A. Bright will review the case and he can either deem the evidence insufficient and drop the whole thing or request the Milledgeville PD gather more evidence.   This could be possible since one huge aspect of their follow-up never happened;  namely Big Ben refused to come in for a second interview.

Now, if the D.A. decides the case is solid enough without any cooperation from Roethlisberger, he has to then decide which charges he wants to file.  Although the victim claimed sexual assault, he is free to change that to anything he thinks he can prove.  Once that process is done, he then submits the evidence along with his charges to a grand jury.  The grand jury then indicts Ben and a trial date is set.

One small problem.  The Georgia grand jury doesn’t meet all year round.   Their next session isn’t until July.  Yes, JULY.  So even if the Hot Fuzz built a great case and the prosecutor wants to prosecute, no formal charges will be filed until July.  Which, if nothing else, royally screws the Steelers because there’s nothing like finding out a month before training camp that your oafish miscreant of a QB is suspended pending the outcome of his criminal trial.

EDIT:  It looks like resolution to this case is coming faster than I expected.  DA Bright has called a press conference on Monday afternoon where he will reveal what action he intends to take.   ESPN is reporting unnamed sources say no charges will be filed against Pig Ben. I’ll refrain from commenting further until we hear Bright’s official statement.

In the meantime, the Steelers have kept themselves busy by inviting potential draft picks up to Pittsburgh.  One of whom is Oregon RB LaGarrette Blount.  Or, as you may know him, the thug who sucker punched a Boise State player after a game and was suspended the rest of the season.  Nice to know the Steelers have decided to completely drop any hint of having standards and decided to move full throttle toward becoming the Bengals 2.0

A couple weeks ago, I was contacted by the fine folks at Champion Sportswear and Athletic Apparel about an upcoming commercial shoot with Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall.   They offered me the unique opportunity to conduct an interview with Rashard which he’d participate in via video format.   I then asked my loyal readers to submit the questions which they’d like him to answer.

Didn’t get the chance to submit your question?  Well, that’s probably because you’re not following NicePickCowher on Twitter.  Click the blue button on the right and make sure to add me so next time you don’t miss out on opportunities such as this.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the above video.  I believe Rashard will be a vital part of this upcoming season, especially if our lowlife quarterback gets what he has coming to him.   Steeler Football just might be making a comeback in 2010.  And Rashard Mendenhall will be the man leading the way.

It is officially the worst off-season ever for a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Earlier today, a lawsuit was filed by a woman in Orlando who claims that Super Bowl XLIII MVP Santonio Holmes assaulted her at a nightclub earlier in the month.  Stop me if any of this sounds familiar.  She alleges that her and her college-age friends where hanging with him in the VIP section of the Rain nightclub when a stupid argument between her and ‘Tone ended with him throwing a glass at her face.   Not the booze in the glass, mind you, THE ENTIRE GLASS.

What an idiot.   Everybody knows you take your groupies back to the private VIP bathroom before you assault them.   Has your fearless leader taught you nothing?

Yes, much like our douchebag quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, Holmes has a long history of being a troublemaking asshole.  He has three kids from two different mothers, neither to whom he’s married.  One of the baby mamas called the cops after he choked her, slapped her, and then threw her around.   She dropped those charges most likely when Mr. Green (aka cash money) found his way into her bank account.  On the plus side, he’s also been arrested for drug possession and disorderly conduct three separate times so not all his offenses are violent.

I already know what some of the comments are going to say.  “Ack!  Another lying ho looking for money!” or something along similarly misogynistic lines.  I guess she may be lying.  Although it seems a little odd to me that of thirty-two NFL teams and all their active players, most of whom are rich and famous, why is it that the same two Steelers keep getting accused of doing things they shouldn’t be doing?

Right now, I’m absolutely embarrassed to be a Steeler fan.  And anybody who lives in Pittsburgh, grew up in Pittsburgh, or has the faintest inkling of what it means to be a true Steeler fan has to feel just as sick as I do.  Over the next month or two we’re going to see exactly what kind of people Dan Rooney and his son Art II truly are.

Dan Rooney is the Ambassador to Ireland largely because he built up a reputation of being a man of strong character who runs his organization in a responsible and classy fashion. There’s a reason he has a sterling reputation while guys like Jerry Jones or Al Davis are laughingstocks. But this team has quickly become the joke of the NFL, full of criminals and idiots that reflect directly on him, his family, and his city of birth.

Time to start earning your reputation, Dan.  The time for sitting on your hands and turning a blind eye to these goofs on your team is over.  Start getting things under control or everything the Rooney name has stood for since the late great Art Rooney was in charge will be lost forever.  As a proud Pittsburgher, I can’t tell you how tragic that would be.

What a disgrace.

It’s been over two weeks since I last posted about the Ben Roethlisberger situation.  In that time, everybody from veteran Pittsburgh sports reporter John Steigerwald to the hilarious cartoon series South Park have taken their shots at him.  While the Big Laughingstock deserves to be mocked and I have no doubt Steigerwald’s story about Ben blowing off a terminally ill child is absolutely true, I have resisted posting about those things here.  Despite what some of the more ignorant commenters may want to believe, this is not a subject I am particularly happy to write about.   In fact, this is easily the saddest chapter in the history of the Pittsburgh Steelers, to which I am not anxious to pile on.

However, in recent days we’ve finally started to get some facts which provide us with a picture of what went on that night and how the sexual assault case pending against our scumbag QB may or may not proceed.

First, the Georgia investigators withdrew their request for Ben’s DNA.  While some head-in-the-sand Steeler fans took this as a positive sign, they ignored the fact that Ben is still in a ton of trouble as this article illustrates. Czar Roger Goodell wants a word with Ben, which is never a good thing, while coach Mike Tomlin stated he was “very concerned for the future of the franchise.”   Hardly optimistic sentiments.

Then came a strange scenario where it was revealed the bar where the assault occurred no longer has the security footage from the night in question.   Evidently, the tapes were recorded over before the police could confiscate them.   Now, the logical explanation is that Pig Ben and his weasel attorney greased some palms to “accidentally” erase the footage.   After all, this attorney already admitted to hiring private investigators to dress up like college kids in an effort to dig up dirt on the poor victim and we know Roethlisberger has no morals so it’s not much of a leap.

However, we were then given this account of events from the manager of Capital City night club.   It seems the victim had been drinking that night.  Which is a problem since she’s underage.  So let’s see, we have an underage girl drinking when she shouldn’t be and we have a security camera recording the bar area the entire time.

Gee, I wonder why that footage was erased so quickly?

This would explain why everybody is in C.Y.A. (Cover Your Ass) mode.  Capital City has hired a lawyer.  Ben hired Ray Lewis‘s lawyer.  One of the off-duty cops partying with Ben hired a lawyer.

Wait…  What?

Yeah, evidently an off-duty Coraopolis police officer was with Ben that night “as a friend.”  Why would he need a lawyer?  If you read the manager’s account, the victim’s friend claimed when she went to follow her into Ben’s Rape Den the VIP bathroom, she was blocked by Ben’s “friend” who was standing guard at the door.  I have many friends but I never knew blockading a door so your “friend” could manhandle a groupie was part of the Wingman Code.

If this manager’s story is to be believed, we finally have a good idea of how this case is shaping up.  From Ben’s side, he’s going to say him and this drunk girl went to the bathroom for some alone time.   But before he could get little Ben out to play, he grew bored with her and decided to go back to drinking brews with his posse.  On the way out, this slutty drunk chick slipped and bumped her noggin.

Then there will be the victim’s version which doesn’t require you to be a blithering idiot to believe.  She’s going to say, yeah, she was drinking.   So she went into the bathroom with Ben to make out.   After clumsily pawing her, she decided she didn’t want to be degraded by that ape and told him to stop.  He got mad at getting shot down by a cute coed so the hulking imbecile decided to toss her around because nobody refuses a big shot like him.

I’m sorry to rain on some of your misogynistic parades but no means no, even when you’re drunk.  Going into the bathroom with him and even letting him stick his foul tongue down her throat (if things even progressed that far) IS NOT the same as consenting to sex.  I realize some of you, particularly Penn State grads, are not aware of this fact.   But I assure you, women have the right to refuse your advances even if they’ve led you on to some extent.   So save the woman-hating “blame the victim” bullshit for some other blog as it’s not welcome here.

And, if the Rooney family truly wants to run an organization with class and dignity, neither will #7 come this September.