Jay Glazer of FoxSports.com reports Saturday morning that the Steelers have reversed course on Ben Roethlisberger and that the Pittsburgh quarterback will not get the start tomorrow agains the Ravens.

Big Ben was suffering from exercise induced headaches as the week progressed and the team’s medical staff deemed him unfit for the contest.

That means rookie Dennis Dixon, a former fifth-round pick out of Oregon, will get the call. Dixon has thrown one pass in his NFL career.

Read more…

Ben Maller finds the PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE reporting today that a local man “told police he killed his girlfriend’s puppy yesterday afternoon because the animal would not behave before the Steelers football game broadcast.”

(AP Video: Suspect ’slammed’ the dog down, kicked it ‘like a soccer ball’)

William Woodson, 22, is being held on $25,000 bail in the Allegheny County Jail, pending a preliminary hearing on animal cruelty at 1 p.m. next Monday before District Judge Elaine McGraw in Bridgeville.

The puppy, a 13-week-old pit bull named Flip, had been the focal point of recent arguments between Mr. Woodson and his girlfriend, Christine Gielarowski, 21, with whom Mr. Woodson lives on Jane Way.

Horrific. But it somehow gets worse. Turns out a witness called police about the puppy killing, with the suspect’s girlfriend then giving “a false name and address and refusing to identify her boyfriend as the suspect.”

So Woodson killed his girlfriend’s puppy over a football game, and she had no plans to do anything.  Read more…

Unbelievable:

NFL Back Judge Richard Reels is run down by Minnesota Viking Jeff Dugan on a Percy Harvin’s Kickoff for a touchdown that cut Steelers’ lead over the Vikings to 20-17 with 6:09 left at Heinz Field.

Reels (83, foreground) had to be helped off the field.

Now for the really crazy part. (video after the jump) Read more…

Our old friend Jeff Reed is back in the news, and once again, it’s for the type of reasons you never want to have associated with a program. In Pittsburgh, just hours after hitting both of his field goal attempts in the Steelers’ 27-14 victory over the Cleveland Browns, Reed was cited and “technically arrested” - he never actually went to jail, thanks to a family member at the scene - by police for public intox and other related charges.

(He seemed like such a sober fellow.)

Why, then, would such an incident happen? Towel dispensers aside, Reed seems like a happy drunk, and certainly one who wouldn’t earn a public intox charge (which really ought to be renamed “public drunk a$$hole in the vicinity of a police officer”) - to say nothing of disorderly conduct and two other misdemeanors. Well, that Steelers teammate urinating in public nearby probably has something to do with it.

Read more…

Bill Harrah is whirling dirvishly in his grave at this hour as more Ben Roethlisberger-related litigation has surfaced involving the Lake Tahoe hotel-casino. This time it doesn’t involve rape allegations, however.

A former worker at Harrah’s Cabo Wabo Cantina evidently carded a woman who was with Roethlisberger during the same week of the alleged Andrea McNulty assault. After Roethlisberger complained to Harrah’s-Tahoe president John Koster about it, the employee was fired. Big Ben is costing Harrah’s a lot of money and headaches lately, no? Read more…

Because no battle is ever won, he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools. - William Faulker, “The Sound and the Fury”

That was written by Mississippi’s “greatest author,” who I also thought was kind of overrated. Which, it turns out, could easily apply on multiple levels to the Ole Miss football team. On a national stage and with a No. 4 ranking, the Rebels completely imploded, falling 16-10 at South Carolina last night. It may or may not be true that no battle is ever won, but for Ole Miss, this one was certainly lost.

Mainly it was lost for two reasons: QB Jevan Snead had a miserable game, going 7 for 21 for 107 yards while being pressured by the Gamecocks’ defense all night. And Houston Nutt’s game plan reminded you of why he was barely a .500 coach with a backfield of Felix Jones and Darren McFadden at Arkansas. Nutt seemed unable to accept that the passing game just wasn’t working, and waited until the fourth quarter to turn to running back Dexter McLuster. He ran for 68 yards in the final quarter, but by then it was too little, too late. Read more…

Normally, you don’t see a broadcast booth spend a plurality of a football game raving about the “time of possession” statistic. Then again, normally, you don’t see a team win said battle by a full 30 minutes of game time, which is precisely what Miami did to Indianapolis last night. And then again, you don’t normally see a team control the ball for fewer than 15 minutes of the game… and win anyway.

(”Okay, so you just scored the go-ahead touchdown. Allow me to retort: BOOOO THUMBS DOWN TO YOU BOOOOOOO!”)

But lo and behold, thanks to the quickest of quick-strike offenses, the Colts did exactly that; thanks to touchdown drives of 1, 6, and 4 plays, Indianapolis prevailed in Miami, 27-23. Indeed, the Colts’ longest drive of the night was a 9-play drive that led to a 2nd quarter field goal; on the other side of the field, the Fins had exactly one shorter drive: an 8-play, 25-yard drive that ended in a punt. After that, literally every drive of theirs was 9 plays or longer. That’s the longest shortest drive since [ERROR WE ARE NOT ELIAS SPORTS BUREAU CLIENTS ABORT, RETRY, FAIL?].

Ah, but without turnovers, time of possession is effectively meaningless. Read more…

It’s a good thing Jeff Reed has done some good things in his career with the Steelers, because he was flat-out brutal in the fourth quarter of today’s 17-14 loss to the Bears in Chicago. Reed missed two field goals in the period, then looked like he was crying on the sideline as Chicago’s Robbie Gould connected on the game-winner with seconds remaining. Dude needs a hug:

It’s alright, buddy. You came through last week. It doesn’t always happen for you. You’re going to be…wait, this is football, quit your bawlin’!

Videos-a-plenty after the jump.

Read more…

Some NFL leftovers for your Friday, and what could be more fun? This Jack Lambert commercial from 1985 has him on a water park ride in full uniform, promoting Raging Rapids. Unfortunately, the Packers fan to the right is in no mood for such tomfoolery. The Lambert video, plus a piercing NFL ref/Whataburger investigation, following the jump.

Read more…

Rich Rodriguez finally has some breathing room at Michigan. After going on the hot seat after a 3-9 debut season that was the worst in school history, Rodriguez was almost buried before the season began by a range of allegations including violating NCAA practice rules and getting sued for a condo deal gone bad. But after a 38-34 win over Notre Dame in one of the most amazing college football games ever played a college football game, the Wolverines are back in the Top 25 and suddenly relevant again.

So how does Rich Rod celebrate this stunning reversal of fortune? Exactly like you would expect he would: by opening his fool mouth and blowing out any goodwill he had earned by blatantly lying. It’s not his fault: it’s human nature. We all revert back to our default mechanisms at some point. For Rodriguez, it’s making an ass out of himself.

Read more…