BleacherCoaches.com

In the last couple days two things have happened in the sports media that I find interesting. First, Alan Faneca sort of dissed Roethlisberger, though I didn't get all the details. And on "The Herd" this morning I heard that Dick the Tearman Vermeil said that Larry Johnson needs to "take off his diapers" this weekend since Priest is hurt. That's all I've heard, though I can't imagine LJ leaving that go without a retort. Anybody have any info?

I didnt catch much of the Faneca thing, but with the LJ thing...this morning on Sportscenter, LJ was very upset with Vermeil's comments. Then they showed Vermeil saying that the media knows him (Vermeil), he just says what comes to mind 1st, and that LJ has had his attention the most of any player on team for the last 3 years, and needs to step it up. That pretty much sums that incident up so far

As for the Faneca story it's been blown way out of proportion. They asked him the question "Are you excited to have a rookie starting at qb?" and he simply said "no". The media took that to mean that he wasn't happy with Ben at the healm but as he later explained himself he was in no way saying he was unhappy Ben was to be qb, he was merely saying he wasn't "excited" to have a rookie at qb.

He has a point, why would you be "excited" to have a rookie with minimal gametime experience in the starting spot.

It was really a dumb question from the beginning and put Faneca in a lose lose situation. If he would have said yes then the whole thing would have erupted about how Faneca dissed Tommy Maddux.

It also proves the fact that Maddux, despite being inconsistent at times as a qb, is really considered a good leader by his teammates.. All you had to do was see him last week going after that DL who cheapshot him. If you're a Steeler OL, you gotta love a guy like that. Maddux's leadership is something the media doesn't seem to cover very well.

Big Ben seems like a pretty gutty guy though and no shrinking violet.

yeah i'm excited to see how ben does for the next 6+ weeks. Even if he doesn't do great it'll be a huge learning experience for him and will give him an idea of what needs worked on for the remainder of the season.

Kind of like the psu situation. I like Mills a lot but if psu played in a 17 game season i would love to see morelli take on 6 games...just for grins to see how he handles the starting role.

Yeah - the whole Faneca thing was taken way out of proportion and a single statement was really misquoted. Also keep in mind that Faneca and Maddox are pretty good friends. Therefore, Faneca was upset by that anyways.

In the end though, these guys are professionals. They will play (hopefully) hard no matter who is in there. You can bet Ben is going to take his lumps though the next couple of weeks. I really can't see the Steelers breaking .500 this year, as hard as it is for me to say that. I hope I'm wrong.