Tired of the Conspiracy Theories

I understand the passion that all of the members of this board have for supporting our team and am extremely frustrated with the unclear rules and inconsistent implementation of these rules. However I am tired of all of the talk regarding Goodell "keeping the Steelers down" etc. I am sure that JH is not on the top of the comish's christmas card list, especially considering his comment during the offseason. I do not believe that the Steelers organization is being targeted by the league. The rules encourage a different style of play than the Steelers have played in the past. Our defense has always been known for hard hitting, and have developed a style which intimidates our opponents. It only stand to reason that a lot of these fines would be directed at Steeler players. Hard hitting results in situations that may draw a fine, the Steelers hit HARD. Again, I hate the new rules as bad as anyone, but I refuse to subscribe to the theory that the NFL has it out for one of the most popular and historic franchises in the league. It makes us sound like Seahawks fans, constantly blaming any loss on the refs etc. I would like to see the Steelers continue to play that aggressive style they always have and just let the chips fall where they may. Hopefully the rules can be made more clear for future seasons and we can find a way to scare the sh*t out of our opponents without receiving suspensions. I could honestly care less about fines, I believe the money is given to charity anyway, and the players can afford it.

 

Agree 100%.

 

you contridict your own post. How can they continue to hit HARD and play aggressive when they know that he-who-shall-be-nameless will just drop down and hand out fines and suspensions? Where was the flag on Ben's hit? Going after his knees and ankles, breaking his nose????? No flag there now was there?

That POS turns his head whenever a Steeler goes down. :godell: times 10000.

 

I did not contradict my own post. The fines and suspensions would fall into the "let the chips fall where they may" catagory. I never said that the fines and suspensions would stop. I also feel that the Steelers have a good enough team to overcome fines and or suspensions. After this week they will have missed one player for one game due to suspension for on the field infractions. How many players for how many games have they missed due to injury. Seems to me that if they can be 10-3 while missing all of these key players due to injury, the infrequent occasions that a player is suspended would be relatively insignificant and not worth changing an obviously successful and popular (with the fans) style of play.

 

Let me ask you this... how are most other players continuing to hit hard and not get flags, fines and suspensions? They have adjusted but Harrison is refusing to. It's his choice to play the way he does and if he can't play by the rules (which he said he doesn't know if he can), he shouldn't be playing the game and that is a shame for him and all of us.

Saying "Well he did it too" makes people sound like little kids that got yelled at by the mothers. Sorry if that offends you but...

 

I agree as well. Goodell and the league in general is driven by money of which Steeler fans and followers all over the world aren't afraid to shell out to see their team play no matter where it's at. As a result it's to the league's advantage for the Steelers to be a successful franchise. Who do you think the NFL would like to see playing in Mexico city, London or Tokyo ? Let me tell ya it's not the Ravens. I've seen us get away with as many hits and penalties as we've been flagged for just like most teams. The refs can't see everything that happens on the field and as a result there's always gonna be bad non-calls that work for us and against us. This stuff of always bringing up why so and so didn't get penalized or fined for this hit or that hit, etc. makes us sound like a bunch of childish whiners, like those Seahawk fans you mentioned.

 

Good point. This thread was not to attack anyone who doesn't agree with the way things are being done by Goodell. I don't like it either. I just don't believe that the Steelers are being fined and or suspended because of some personal vendetta against this organization. Also, I disagree that JH has not and will not adjust to the new rules. He was fined 5 times in 10 week last year. This year he had no incidents until week 14. Unfortunately the rules consider all of the current and previous season when determining a player's repeat offender status. If he can stay clean the rest of this season then his record will only have one incident on it that can be considered next season. Ryan Clark will have more of a repeat offender status next year.
Again, just to be very clear, I am no fan of Goodell or the new rules.

 

I agree SteelerD. The league isn't out to get the Steelers. I'm a big James Harrison fan, love how great of a player he is, I find it sad that most of the past 20 games he has kept his nose clean and one wrong hit he gets suspeneded, but he is the poster boy for what the league finds as illegal hits on players, I think that there are going to be sometimes when it just happens with illegal hits. But, you don't see Polamalu getting fined all the time, and he pound for pound is probaly the biggest hitter in the NFL. You don't see Woodley getting fined. People have to understand the the NFL is a business and in business you protect your assests and those are your best players, which is why QB's and WR's are most protected, because they mainly are the playmakers. Sadly. I think the Steelers Front Office is growing tired of the bad image the team is getting from all this and think Harrison with be released at season's end because of it. Harrison does seem to have a problem with thinking that he is doing nothing wrong and he wants to play by his own rules. Tell me if you get to make your own rules at your job, hell no you got to do what the boss says and what the legal rules are, you just don't get to do what you want. James has to adapt his style of play because in spite of all this he is an excellent player and pass rusher and he still can be without illegal hits and if he feels that he can't then he and the Steelers need to part ways. Because, the Steelers didn't care before because it was just money, now he is effecting his team by not being able to be on the field. If you guys want to be mad be mad at Harrison, not the league.

 

The league has to cut down on the injuries. There would be significant liability if they did not.

There has been research recently that has shown the long term damage that results from concussions especially over time. Players with shorted careers or with reduced mental function after retireent will have a cause to sue if the league does not take steps to reduce the injury by repeated concussions. (Look at Crosby, concussions can be serious).

I would bet that the owners and the league are in agreement about the crackdown on helmet to helment hits and defenseless receiver bull****. The officials are instructed to call it on the field. Fines without penalties looks bad for the game. I think that it is a financial decision of the league, not compassion for the players, or crack down against a style of play, team or player. Harrison is a beast and he sticks out like a sore thumb, like Ray Lewis in his day.

The league has to adjust to the increased medical knowledge. I don't think that they have a choice.

 

Let's just go back to leather helmets then.

 

If they ever did that, the NFL better buy a mop manufacturing company. They'll need all the help they can get to clean up the blood when a player's head bounces off of the turf and splits open.

 

Dude what conspiracy theory????????? it is fact........

 

Haven't we taken our share of illegal hits(hines,heath and especially ben) where's all the fines,suspensions and public and media outcry when it happens to us.We hardly ever get a penalty for an illegal hit,to go our way. So you are right there isn't a conspiracy,it's blatantly obvious.

 

And the government actually crashed the planes in NY, PA and DC on 9/11.

Bad calls / no-calls happen in every game to every team.

 

Diehard fans who watch their teams like we watch the Steelers make the very same accusations about their players taking illegal hits. Just about every game played there are bad non-calls no matter who's playing. Until refs have eyes in the back of their heads bad non-calls will continue to happen. There's no plot by the NFL to keep the Steelers down. There may be more media publicity on our fines, penalties and suspensions but that's the price you pay for having a long history of nasty hard hitting defensive players. When another team's linebacker lays somebody out it's barely a blip on the radar. When a Steeler LB does it that's newsworthy because that's our nasty reputation raring it's ugly head again. I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

Yeah cause you know they didnt

 

I understand your point, however I respectfully disagree.

Richard Seymour is the perfect example of this. A repeat offender. We all remember the hit on Roethlisberger. Let's give the NFL the benefit of the doubt and say they had a good reason for not suspending him for that. And yet a couple weeks ago, he punches another player. Is there any justification whatsoever to explain why he was only fined $30,000 and not suspended? He punches people and doesn't get suspended. Harrison tackles people and gets suspended. How is this not holding the Steelers to a different standard?

This year, Troy Polamalu got fined $10,000 for using a cell phone on the sidelines after being taken out for "concussion-like symptoms". This is a prime example of Goodell contradicting himself. He puts his meaningless rules before that of a player's safety. Isn't player safety supposed to be the point of all these new rules? Not to mention, if Polamalu played for ANY other team, this would have been mysteriously overlooked.

Roethlisberger has said that there is favoritism among QBs in the league. He has said he is not one of the favorites. By extention, doesn't this mean that other teams are favored over the Steelers? That there is bias among NFL officials and other NFL personnel? I certainly think so.

I'm sure we're all Steelers fans mostly because of how legendary the defense is. Sure, we may love Bradshaw, we may love Franco and Swann, but we (or at least most Steelers fans I know) love the Steelers because of their smash mouth style of defense. What happens when the defense is no longer allowed to be smash mouth?

 

If you think Seymour should have been suspended for throwing 2 punches, should Harrison have been suspended for his 2nd illegal hit on a QB? 3rd? 4th? They aren't holding the Steelers to a different standard.

Polamalu making a cell phone call on the sidelines has nothing to do with player safety. He didn't have to use the cell phone to call an ambulance or a doctor or take a test to see if he had a concussion. How you can say it would have been overlooked if he played for another team is beyond me.

Bad calls and no-calls happen in every game to every team, not just the Steelers. The refs have absolutely sucked the last few years and everyone knows it, not just Steelers fans.

Defenses are allowed to be smash-mouth. Watch any game and you'll see big legal hits.

 

I agree with you. I watch the other games and see hits all the time that we would get penalized for. Do I think Goodell is orchestrating some tear down of the Steelers by telling the refs to call a certain way against us? No, probably not. BUT our team never gets the questionable call when it comes to them hitting us, and we always get the penalty if it's us hitting them.

& @ ScottChab, I completely disagree with you. You cite all those terrible hits from Harrison... hell, even by the new rules most of those hits were still legal!

Someone throwing punches, or the extracurricular bs after the whistle is WAY different than someone laying a tackle at game speed. The contortion that the new rules demand of the defense in order to avoid bruising the QB's is unrealistic.

 

I'm not really one to subscribe to a specific conspiracy theory against the STEELERS. However, this year in particular, I have come to believe that the league has certain preferences for how things should work out in the end and that there is a subtle effort to set things up to make that happen. The inconsistency in officiating this year has been more evident than almost any year I've ever seen. The lack of a specific, defined and enforced system of fines/suspensions also allows this effort to take place. If players/organizations/fans cannot know what to expect when there is a questionable hit or event on the field, the league can do whatever it wants and claim that they are within the guidelines they have to "protect" player safety. Since there are no guidelines, the league is absolutely correct, but underlying this idea is that the league can arbitrarily place teams at a competitive disadvantage on a whim.

The saving grace is that it is the players and teams who dictate how they react to these kinds of things and the league is not able to control that. So, in the end, it is the players on the field who determine how things work out.

 

There is no consistency to the league with penalties, fines or suspensions. Ngata breaks Bens nose and there is no penalty? If that happens to Brady it is flagged from about four different refs.

In 2008, James Harrison forced 7 fumbles for the steelers due to his hard hitting technique and style. Elimate that agression and you even the playing field ever so slightly.
I don't know to call it a Conspiracy Theory but it sure smells funny.

 

If you think the NFL is doing this all be design you're giving them way too much credit. They don't have a damn clue. It's all trial and error and at the end of every year they try and fix the problems and mass confusion they've created with the rules through a review with the competition committee. This usually results in even more rules and mass confusion for the next upcoming season. Just like any other large organization that makes a ton of money the NFL is a prime target for a law suit on this whole player safety issue. In a society that seems to care less and less about personal responsibility and accountability I'm actually surprised they haven't already been sued by some of the older players who can't walk right or think straight. Everything you see the NFL doing right now has nothing to do with team or player favoritism. It's all about covering their ass legally so they can hold on to all of the money they're making.

 

Is spelling the word contradict incorrectly a "contradiction"? (sorry I couldn't pass that up). As to the point of the post, History Channel and Jessy Ventura are both doing shows on the NFL's conspiracy against the Steelers, so this must be true! They are playing it between Ancient Aliens and the show about the Free Mason Society.

 

O.K. Well, I still think that the NFL has a vested interest in some teams having a competitive advantage over other teams. Whether it is for the specific reasons I stated - and you disagree with - or not, T.V. revenues and other "money-making" opportunities are boosted by some teams succeeding over others. I will continue to believe that the league knows this, and while not "fixing" the situation, encourages a competitive advantage for those teams who will produce the kind of revenue that you speak of. In some cases, I believe that the Steelers may BENEFIT from this practice, because there are tremendous revenues that come from Steelers success.