If there’s no semen, you must believe him.

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger will not face charges stemming from the sexual assault allegations made by a 20 year old coed in Milledgeville, Georgia.

Georgia District Attorney Fred Bright announced today that his office will not be pursuing charges because there is not enough evidence to successfully prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.  Now before anybody gets carried away with their misogynistic rants, please remember this doesn’t mean a crime didn’t occur, it just means they can’t prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.  Without hard indisputable evidence, it’s very difficult to make a case stick under the strict standards of criminal trial.  Anybody who hears the circumstantial evidence in this case can clearly see that something very very bad and very very wrong happened that night in Georgia.

The important facts are these.   Ben and his posse were out clubbing that night.  So was the victim.  They met up and Ben invited her to the VIP area at the Capital City night club.   He bought her and her friends shots.  Then his BODYGUARD led her to the private bathroom.  Yeah, nothing suspicious about that.  He followed her back there shortly thereafter.   Kinda creepy but I guess you could spin that different ways.  What happened in that bathroom we’ll never know.   What we do know is after she emerged from the bathroom, she IMMEDIATELY went to the cops who took her to the hospital.  At the hospital, they found BLOOD and BRUISES on her VAGINA (please stop and think about that for a minute) and took a RAPE KIT.

Yes, this sexual assault case was actually a RAPE CASE.

The rape kit found male semen.   Unfortunately, the semen sample was too small to run a DNA test so we have no idea whose little swimmers they were.   Take a wild guess.

I can’t say I’m really surprised by any of this.  First, you had Barney Fife leading the investigation.  Photos emerged of the investigating officers posing with him AFTER allegations were made.  Ben goes out and hires the best lawyer money can buy, the same lawyer who cleaned up messes left by both Ray Lewis and Pacman Jones.  This weasel then hired a whole army of “private investigators” to dress up like COLLEGE KIDS and dig up dirt on the poor victim, which no doubt explains why she later wrote a letter to the DA asking for charges to be dropped.  Meanwhile, the club where the assault occurred mysteriously decides to erase the tape which may have provided valuable clues to what happened that night.

Ben Roethlisberger’s money and fame bought him more than enough protection from the “investigation” so that justice for the poor girl who was viciously assaulted raped never stood a chance.  Forgive me for not being pumped up that our QB has skated on an alleged sexual assault rape for a second straight year.  Believe me, it’s just a matter of time until he manhandles a 17 year old high school girl so we can go through all this again…

I have been a Steeler fan dating all the way back to the time I wore a #12 tee shirt to “Black & Gold Day” in kindergarten.  The Steelers already rid themselves of one bag of crap yesterday by trading Santonio Holmes. It doesn’t appear the Steelers will do the right thing by ridding themselves of this piece of garbage.  No matter how despicable and rotten a human being Ben Roethlisberger is, I will always root for the Steelers to succeed.  And when he plays well, I will acknowledge it even though I won’t be proud.   I hope that he takes a page from Ray Lewis and finds religion so that he might turn his life around although I doubt he will.

And just like Steeler fans have always enjoyed ragging on Ray Ray, I will never be a Ben Roethlisberger fan again.

The Pittsburgh Steelers fired their second coach in as many days, this time relieving special teams coordinator Bob Ligashesky of his job.  I have mixed emotions on his departure.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the least bit surprised.   When you surrender the most return TDs of any team in forty years while ranking 30th and 24th in kick and punt coverage, something is definitely rotten in McKeesport.  And since you can’t fire the eleven men running down the field (although Mike Tomlin certainly tried), it’s easier to can the coach.

However, in some ways I feel Ligashesky is being made a scapegoat.   He can only use the players he’s given.  When you hand a cook a bushel of rotten tomatoes, it’s hard to blame him when his sauce tastes like crap.   Last season, the Steelers were one of the best special teams coverage units in the NFL.   This season, he’s been saddled with a bunch of clueless youngsters (Joe Burnett, Ryan Mundy) and lazy veterans (Keiwan Ratliff, Tyrone Carter).   They even had little 5’6 175 pound Stefan Logan out covering kicks.  They’d be better off running Daniel Sepulveda out there.

The biggest problem with the coverage is the lack of a gunner.   Every good special teams unit has a gunner or player whose specialty is flying down the field like a human missile and disrupting whatever the other team is trying to set up.  Whenever the Steelers have found a special teams ace, be it Chidi Iwouma, Anthony Madison, or the great Sean Morey, coach Tomlin and Kevin Colbert have let them go.  If anybody deserves blame for this year’s fiasco, it’s the two of them.

Also in special teams news, I found this list of players the Steelers signed to their offseason roster.  The interesting name is Piotr Czech, the kicker whom the Steelers brought to camp this past preseason.   After being cut, Czech hooked on with the UFL and now seems to be back in the fold.   Could this be a sign that Skippy Reed‘s days in the Black and Gold are rapidly coming to an end?

After playing the Baltimore Ravens three times last season, including an epic AFC Championship game, it’s safe to say the Pittsburgh Steelers know this enemy quite well.  And if familiarity breeds contempt, these teams must outright hate each other by now.  Pittsburgh sports has a number of great rivalries, including Pitt-WVU who meet later today in their annual Backyard Brawl.   But I dare say none can compare to the Ravens and Steelers.

Earlier this week, the FOX medical drama “House” made a joke of the fact Omar Epps is a dead ringer for head coach Mike Tomlin.  In an ironic twist, Tomlin probably spent a lot of time this week thinking he was trapped in a medical drama.  The Steelers are getting absolutely hammered by injuries to key personnel.  Where’s Dr. House when you need him?

For those keeping score at home, Travis Kirschke continues to nurse a torn calf although he practiced this week and will probably play Sunday.  Of all the guys we could get back, Kirschke is the least important since Nick Eason and Ziggy Hood were doing a pretty good job in his absence.  LG Chris Kemoeatu sprained his MCL and looks to be out one, possibly two, weeks.  Undrafted rookie Ramon Foster will make his first NFL start.  Ben Roethlisberger has been monitored all week and seems to have practiced normally so should be cleared to play.  Finally, Troy Polamalu will reportedly miss a month with his knee injury which probably rules him out of at least the next two games.

The Ravens will be dealing with some injuries of their own.  Their best LB (sorry Ray Ray), Terrell Suggs, is out with a knee injury thanks to a heroic chop block by fabulous Brady Quinn.  One of their main corners, Fabian Washington, tore his ACL and is gone for the year.  Keep in mind this defense no longer has LB Bart Scott or S Jim Leonard, who went to the Jets this off-season along with mastermind D coordinator Rex Ryan, their new head coach.  The Ravens are going to be a hard-nosed football team no matter what but they are definitely weakened and depleted on the defensive side of the ball.

Offensively, Joe Flacco has taken another giant step forward from his already highly successful rookie campaign.  Last season, they tried to protect Flacco and keep him out of situations where the game rode on his shoulders.  This year, he’s been asked to shoulder more of the load and responded to the challenge.  Still, the Ravens remain a run-first and ask-questions-later team.  Flacco has the ability but Baltimore is lacking in quality targets for him. Last year’s top receiver, Derrick Mason, is 35 and coming off shoulder surgery.  If a team can effectively stuff the run, the Ravens run into trouble because their passing game seems limited to big play threat Mason and short safe outlet throws to emerging superstar RB Ray Rice.

Offensively, the story will be how Big Ben rebounds from last week’s brain rattling hit.  I would hope the Steelers try to lean a bit more on the running game to spare him unnecessary abuse.  Baltimore will have no qualms about dialing up the pressure and considering we’re playing with a banged up offensive line, one would think this is a good time for Bruce Arians to rein in his Flying Circus.  Of course the words “logical playcalling” and “Arians” seldom belong in the same sentence.

Finally, heads have rolled on the Steelers special teams unit.   CB Keiwan Ratliff and LB Donovan Woods have been cut.  Woods was just promoted from the practice squad as an alleged upgrade to the kick coverage but his only notable achievement last week was to get flagged to nullify a beautiful 35 yard punt return by Stefan Logan.  With the injury to Troy, they’ve used Ratliff as a safety in nickel and dime packages in addition to special teams.  Regardless of where he’s played, he’s constantly out of position and missing tackles.

Your newest Steelers are LB Rocky Boiman and CB Corey Ivy.  Boiman is an eight year vet who won a Super Bowl with the Colts back in 2006.  I don’t know anything else about him except he’s got a cool name.   Ivy played the past three seasons for the Ratbirds so we know him.  He was someone the Steelers repeatedly picked on as well as being the doofus that Limas Sweed obliterated in the AFC Championship game.  Regardless, their primary job will be to run down the field and make a lousy freakin’ tackle.  Hopefully they’ll succeed where others have failed miserably.

Believe me, the Steelers will need to be on their game in all three phases Sunday night if they want to escape with a win.  I know I’ve typed the words “Biggest game of the season” several weeks in a row but in all seriousness, this game is the season.  If the Steelers lose, they fall into a tie with the Ravens (one game behind with the tiebreak) and will be tied or a game behind three or four teams in the Wild Card race.  More importantly, a loss and I fear the team will mentally pack it in for the year.  Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

Steeler Nation can collectively exhale.

Mike Tomlin, in his weekly Tuesday press conference, announced quarterback Ben Roethlisberger will be a go this Sunday against the Ravens. Apparently, Ben suffered only a “mild” concussion last Sunday in the soul-crushing loss against the Chiefs. In my book, there isn’t anything mild about getting your brain slammed up against your skull but then again a hangnail causes me indescribable suffering. Tomlin claims that Ben is showing no lingering affects from the Shining Wizard to the noggin and will practice normally this week.

In other QB news, if you read my update yesterday, you’ll recall I was a bit confused as to why the Steelers didn’t place Charlie Batch on IR. Once a player is IR’d, he’s gone for the season.  Now comes word they expect him back since the injury isn’t as serious as originally reported. He’s still scheduled for surgery, more specifically having a metal plate inserted in to his wrist, but is only expected to miss 2-4 weeks. I recall hearing the QB for the University of Cincinnati recently had a similar surgery done and he returned a few weeks later showing very few ill effects so I guess that operation isn’t nearly as gruesome as it sounds.

In the meantime, the rest of my post still holds.  Second year man Dennis Dixon moves into the primary backup spot until Batch’s return.  Pittsburgh boy Tyler Palko will be signed to the practice squad as soon as he can secure his release from the storied Montreal Alouettes of  the Canadian Football League.   Keep in mind, however, the team is only going to be carrying two QBs (Ben and Dix) on the main roster which means should absolute carnage knock both of them out of a game, Hines Ward would serve as our third string/emergency quarterback.

While Steeler Nation holds their collective breath awaiting the verdict on Ben Roethlisberger‘s head injury, yet more quarterbacking issues have cropped up for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Backup Charlie Batch somehow broke his wrist during his brief stint on Sunday. He’s undergoing surgery and is basically lost for the season. This is yet another unfortunate setback for Charlie, who broke his clavicle in a preseason game causing him to miss all of last year.  At 34 years of age, this may be the end of his days as an active player.  If so, I’m sure we’ll still see him patrolling the sidelines on Sunday in some coaching capacity.

In the meantime, the backup spot now falls to second year man Dennis Dixon. A fifth round draft pick out of Oregon in 2008, Dixon has completed one pass in his NFL career. Still, Dix is an amazing athlete who many thought would be a 1st round draft pick until he tore his ACL in the middle of his senior season. He made some incredible plays last preseason to where I was giddy over having Slash 2.0 on our hands.  Then this year he regressed, looking confused, erratic, and showing poor mechanics.

I guess that’s one way to get Bruce Arians to call more running plays.

Batch evidently isn’t being placed on IR, which would prevent him from coming back should the Steelers advance in the playoffs. It also means the team can’t add a third QB without cutting somebody from the active roster. So it seems they will be going with only two quarterbacks for the time being. This means if separate calamities should strike down both Ben and Dix, the man behind center for the Black and Gold will be none other than Hines Ward.

The Steelers will be signing a third QB to their practice squad.   Teams need three QBs because somebody has to lead the third stringers against the first team defense in practice.  You don’t want to waste time by having your top two QBs throwing balls right at Ike Taylor so he can perfect dropping sure interceptions.  The man charged with this difficult task will be familiar to Pittsburgh football fans.

Tyler Palko has returned.   Palko, a state champion at West Allegheny High, quarterbacked Pitt for three seasons.  While at the University of Pittsburgh, he beat out current Ratbirds star Joe Flacco for the starting job in The Stache’s first season.  Palko went undrafted but managed to hook on with the Saints in 2007 and spent most of the year on their  practice squad.  I didn’t care for Palko when he was here but I always like to see a local boy sign with the hometown team.  And to be fair, he did show flashes of brilliance although he was frustratingly inconsistent.

Finally, there’s still been no official word on Ben.  Speculation abounds that he’ll be cleared to play on Sunday night. We all know Ben thinks he’s Unbreakable but I hope the Steelers are wise enough to sit him down if there’s even the slightest hint of a lingering affect from this latest head injury. Between the motorcycle accident, Bill Cowher rushing him back that year to take a vicious beating, the 90-something sacks over the past three seasons, and now this “concussion oriented thing,” I fear his brain may be rapidly approaching the consistency of rice pudding.

Tune in tomorrow for the next episode of “As The Quarterback Turns…”