TAMPA, Fla. -- See that photo up there?
That was Sunday at Heinz Field, early in the second half of the Steelers' 30-9 loss to the Jaguars. It's a pretty striking sight, even if it's pretty much the standard. Intermission ends, and a ton of fans decide not to return to their seats but, rather, fill up every space of both rotundas. It's kind of a Pittsburgh thing across the board, actually, if one includes the left-field rotunda at PNC Park.
Mostly on a whim, I texted down to Matt Sunday at field level and asked him to snap that.
Well, here's where the whim wound up: Those people are panicked.
Not literally, of course. At least I hope not. But they're the ones, the fans of our city's iconic football franchise, the Nation that actually spans the globe ... they're the ones who are 'panicked' or 'panicking,' to borrow from terms Mike Tomlin and Ben Roethlisberger have thrown around somewhat casually over the past 24 hours to describe recent media coverage of the Steelers' many ills.
This was Tomlin on Tuesday, when asked about his quarterback's confidence in light of remarks he'd made Sunday: "Ben is a big-time competitor, an emotional guy who’s seen a lot in this business. He’s not afraid to tell you guys the truth in terms of how he’s feeling in particular moments. Sometimes there might be things that might be somewhat alarming to you guys. There are a lot of emotions at play when these guys pour themselves into competition, so he might say something after the game that might allow you to run and overreact to it."
That's partially fair. Tomlin knows Ben better than any of us ever could.
But the notion that what followed was a case of the media running to overreact ... wow, no. The franchise quarterback, one of the best at his position in a generation, just openly wondered if he's still got it after throwing five picks ... that's actual news. In my own column, I waited until the 17th paragraph to even cite that particular quote, and it came after a Tomlin quote in which he couldn't be bothered to say anything more than "I'll let him speak for him," and after a video in which I asked Roethlisberger three questions. This way, you as a reader wouldn't have to guess at context.
More from Tomlin's answer: "The bottom line is that I know Ben. I’ve known Ben. I’ve known Ben 11 years. I know the competitor he is. I know his level of confidence. What he says after a five-interception performance, moments after a five-interception performance, probably is not reflective of who he is and how he feels. It wasn’t reflective of who he is and how he felt when he walked in here yesterday. He looked like a guy who’s ready to gun-sling and get back at it."
Also fair. Again, Tomlin knows Ben better than we do.
"That’s more in-line with the guy I know and what I anticipate from him, and that’s why I take those comments with a grain of salt and I don’t react the way that some of you guys react when you hear comments. Last year after a very disappointing playoff exit, he talked about retirement. You guys ran to the moon and back with that. Here we sit today and he’s our quarterback. So, write what you will."
Oh, wow. No. Just no.
This is just garbage. It's disingenuous, and it's out of line.
Roethlisberger spoke passionately about conversations he'd had with his family, about worrying for his life and health beyond football. The fact that Tomlin almost immediately didn't appear to take that seriously -- he brushed off every question on the matter, beginning with the NFL owners' meetings in Phoenix -- doesn't mean he was right to do so. Nor does it mean that the rest of us who did take it seriously, in an era where concussions and brain injuries have come to greater light than ever, were wrong to do so.
The media didn't create or even inflate the Ben-retiring story. I was there. You were there. If anything, people just presumed it was a fleeting thing and paid it little heed even when Ben eventually announced he'd play in 2018.
But you know what?
This is what happens when a head coach and even some of the team leadership lack accountability and run out of mirrors: They do what most everyone else in current culture does anymore and blame the media.
And heck, why not? It's the only remaining unifying cause of our time. If we can't make our own cogent arguments, we just blame 'fake news,' Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, ESPN, TMZ, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal or whoever was the last person we saw, heard or read.
It's just so easy.
It's also absolute bull, in this case.
The media neither created nor perpetuated this:
Nor this:
For that matter, the media didn't barely beat the Browns, the media didn't miss two dozen tackles against the Bears, and the media most definitely didn't get emasculated on their home field by the bleeping Jaguars.
All of that was created by the Steelers. And all of the above has been perpetuated by the Steelers' collective inability to move past it. If anything, they just keep compounding it from Sunday to Sunday.
Roethlisberger's aboard now, too, judging by his awkward, uncomfortable barbs at the media in his 10-minute session Wednesday at Rooney Sports Complex.
Asked if, given all the Steelers' distractions the past month, if he's ready to just talk about football, he answered: "Yeah, would you guys ask me about football? It’s on you guys, isn’t it?"
When a reporter noted that reporters didn't make Antonio Brown throw a water cooler: "You guys ask the questions."
When asked how, given that such questions are part of the profession, how he blocks that out: "Stop having interviews like this."
To this point in the exchange, he makes at least some sense. But then it goes down this road when asked if some of his remarks Sunday could have opened doors to these kinds of questions: "It’s fine. They can question. I don’t question myself. The ones that are close to me don’t question me. That’s what matters. No offense to any of you guys but it really doesn’t matter to me how you guys question me or not. Quote-unquote professional talking heads on the other sports networks that are out there that are supposedly experts and stuff like that."
OK, now that was an obvious shot at this ridiculous segment on ESPN from Stephen A. Smith:
Big Ben has been playing like someone who doesn't want to play. https://t.co/xct2bFSY0q
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) October 11, 2017
It's silly. It's over-the-top. It's exactly what Screamin' A. has been doing for the better part of two decades.
And Ben knows that.
But when he's asked later by a local ESPN guy what's his motivation to block outside talk, Ben bites back with: "Ignore it. Especially your network. No offense to you, though."
So, wait. His intent is to ignore it. But he clearly didn't. And rather than focusing fully -- and I mean fully -- on how to unseat the undefeated Chiefs this weekend at Arrowhead, the man demonstrated that he invested at least some amount of his time and energy on that ESPN segment up there.
Hey, go nuts, though. Really. Make the media the bad guys, if that's what it takes. At least it'll offer the first real chance this talented but maddeningly inconsistent team will come together on anything this fall.
But know this, too: When trying to figure out who's really peeved, who's really panicking over the possibility that this window is closing toward a seventh Super Bowl, it's those people up there on that rotunda.
And they, unlike we reporter types, matter.
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