Steelers are worried about Roethlisberger

We passed along some comments from Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney a couple days ago, but a couple more members of the Steelers organization have spoken out since then. Recently, head coach Mike Tomlin offered his thoughts on the whole sexual assault situation, and punter Daniel Sepulveda chimed in too.

“I’m highly concerned for our franchise and for Ben personally. My concerns are many, but I think at this time it’s kind of appropriate to watch these things and let these things run their course,” Tomlin said after arriving at the owners meetings in Florida. “I think it would be inappropriate for me to have strong feelings one way or another with the investigation being ongoing and so forth. Like everyone else, you watch these things unfold.”

No criminal charges have been filed, but clearly the organization is concerned about two separate allegations of rape. Sepulveda had much more to say about it in a radio interview, although you could tell that he didn’t want to cross the line.

“It’s regrettable to see him struggling in the media the way he has in putting himself in these positions,” Sepulveda said. “You know, it’s hard to comment on that kind of thing. We’re going to be there for him as teammates in any way we can be to help him through these deals. I don’t know, he’s a very capable quarterback obviously. My locker’s next to his in the game locker room, and that’s on business day, you know that’s game day. So I don’t think I’ve said more than a couple sentences to him in the three years that I’ve been here even though we locker next to each other, but you know it’s all business on game day so you can’t read into that. . . . It’s tough to say, we’re gonna be there for him in any way that we can be, but you know it’s not cool to see him getting in trouble like this all the time.”

Sounds to us like Big Ben is a cold horse’s rear end. The more we hear about this guy, the less we like him. And it seems like this kind of nonsense could, in Sepulveda’s view, affect Roethlisberger’s ability to be a team leader.

“Well, it’s not good,” Sepulveda said. “It certainly doesn’t help. But, you know what? Leading a football team, that’s an on and off the field thing. So, gosh, you know it’s not a great way to earn the respect of the rest of the guys on the team. But you know at the same time we are a team, he is our leader. We’re gonna be there for him in any way that we can be to help him through this because you know obviously he’s gonna get attacked as a result so, and that’s what the Steelers do, we stick together, we’re a team. And that starts with the leadership of the Rooney family. . . . and that culture runs all the way through to the punter. So, you know, we’re gonna be there for him.”

No charges have been filed in either case. The first case is a civil suit and as far as the second, the investigation is ongoing.