Rothlisberger still haunted by past

This writer has an agenda, as most do. However, how long is he going to hold the sexual assault allegations against Ben. In the two years since Ben has stayed out of trouble, gotten married, and has a child on the way. Now maybe he is still an a-hole in public and to the media, i dont know. What Im saying is some people realize their errors and truly change for the better. Will Ben get a break in this guys eyes if he solves world hunger, donates millions to charity, and spends his off days walking little old ladies across the street. I mean if this guy does this list 5 years from now will he just throw Ben, Vick, or Cutler on there just because many people dont like these guys. It also seems to me that alot of these guys have a common thread of not exactly being media favorites either. The writer goes out of the way to even mention this about cutler. Unfortunately Ben is still an easy target because of public opinion, despite not having any issues for over two years.

 

Oh, and anytime this guy writes an article about someone being a jerk, he should have to post a link to the story about him lying on his resume, just to let everyone know that he can hammer others for things they did in the past, but he apparently deserves forgiveness for his jerk move, but Ben does not. Im not comparing dogfighting or sexual assault allegations to lying on a resume, but if integrity is the issue he has no ground to stand on.

 

Media portrayel of celebrities/athletes tends to linger for decades past any instances which they may or may not have been associated with. Ben will be a scumbag in alot of people minds forever whether he was convicted or not for what he was accused of. They form a final opinion and will not change their belief even after being presented with doubtful information.

Tim Tebow could probably lose his virginity to a 15 yr. old and many of the same people who call Ben a jerk would be praising Tebow all the way to the altar.

 

Not for nothing . . .

I was just in Milledgeville (a total cowtown where, when explaining that they are excited about something use terms like, "That really cranks my tractor!") a couple months ago and asked some of the locals about the Big Ben situation. I started each conversation with something like, "So, I guess Ben Roethlisberger isn't too popular around here, huh?" Nobody really seemed to agree with that sentiment. The first person I talked to told me that the entire thing was kind of weird and nobody in town really believed her story. The second person I asked flat said, "that girl was lying." The third person I asked told me he was out that night and that "Ben was really cool." He said Ben was buying everyone drinks. He said that veryone in town knew who he was and some people followed him from bar to bar. He told me he doesn't even know how a 'rape' could have taken place since the place was so small and generally suggested that nobody feels like Ben did anything wrong. I didn't hear a single negative thing mentioned about Ben.

Andrea McNulty is the one who killed Ben's reputation. Without Andrea McNulty, the Milledgeville thing would have never been more than a drunken hook-up. It was the girl's extremely drunken friends who urged her to go to the cops because they knew Ben had been charged with rape previously. The first cop they went to just rolled his eyes and walked away with a "get me away from these drunk college girls" kind of attitude. The whole thing was a joke. Ben earned his bad reputation in the Burgh with a sense of entitlement attitude, but this 'Rapelisberger' nonsense is unwarranted.

 

I also met some folks from Georgia a few years ago at Disneyworld. I asked them how close they live to Milledgeville and the guy actually worked there. He said that bar where it happened was just a little hole in the wall place and he said he couldn't even figure out why Ben would even be in a place like that with how much money he has. He said Ben had a house not far from that town in a really ritzy neighborhood. I'm pretty sure that Milledgeville is kind of a college town and I'm pretty sure that most college girls that hang out in bars and wear name tags to let everyone know that they are looking to hook up might give a young guy with a lot of money somewhat of a reason to go there. At least in Ben's mind I guess.

 

It is going to be a while before a lot of people forget about Ben's confrontations.

Ben is on his second strike with the team, and will be the rest of his career. If he does something to slip up Rooney's most likely ship him out of town.

The only way for him to change people opinions is to string together years worth of squeaky clean living and goodwill in the community. Its not going to happen overnight or after only a year or two.

 

I'm not saying he did it, I'm just pointing out that innocent or not, this is what the majority of people outside of Steeler Nation think because the memories are still somewhat fresh.

He got caught in 2 serious allegations and people are wary of him now. My point is it is going to take a long time and a lot of PR by him to erase that bad taste from their mouths permanently....His two incidents are still in the back of my mind, I haven't totally forgotten about them. Maybe after a while, but not right now.

To me Ben still has to prove himself. He can say he is a completely changed man, but he has to prove it with his actions and that takes time to do.

 

I'm not sure I believe this. The man gets no credit for trying to change his ways. He messed around with some crazy gold digger and then some drunk college skank. If those are crimes, we don't have enough jails for all the dudes who have done that. I think he'll forever be hated because of the team he plays for. You have accused murders and guys who have killed someone in the NFL who are not hated as much as Ben. Plain and simple, if he played for another team, we wouldn't still be hearing about all this. But there's alot of Steelers haters out there who will never let it go.

 

I just want him to prove he can check down quickly.