Pittsburgh Full Mouth Makeover

Extreme Makeover: 2011 Pittsburgh Steelers Edition « Nice Pick ...

I’m sure in one way or another most people are familiar with the show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.  A family in major despair through some family tragedy of loss or circumstance is rewarded a dream home in order to improve their lives in a major way.  Ty Pennington and Co. swoop in and save the day.

Well in our edition of Extreme Makeover, the citizens of Steelers Nation are the family in major despair and the off-the-field antics by the Pittsburgh Steelers is the tragedy….

Since the off season of 2009, Steelers Nation has had to deal with some pretty ridiculous off the field crap from their football players.  Big Ben’s initial sexual misconduct, to Santonio Holmes’ drugs and threats, to Ben’s second sexual misconduct, to Charlie Batch’s bankruptcy, to Rashard Mendenhall’s misguided Osama Bin Laden tweets, to Hines Ward’s DUI to now James Harrison’s crude and inappropriate rants about Goodell and teammates.

Prior to even just 2010, while teams like the Ravens, Bengals, Cowboys and Falcons dealt with players like Ray Lewis, Ocho, Pacman Jones and Michael Vick, Steelers Nation could stand proud and say with a straight face ‘Not in my house.’  Very quickly, however, the house that Rooney built – a house purportedly full of proud, classy and outstanding young men – has gone to shambles faster than a house condemned in foreclosure.  The classless misfit like behavior is like taking a drive through Baldwin Courts in suburbia Pittsburgh.  These aren’t just any players either – they are some of the heart and soul of this team.  The foundation within Heinz Filed  is quickly deteriorating and appears destined to float its way down the Ohio River – where even Bungles fans in Cincinnati can have the right to point and laugh at the garbage passing by.

Where did this team start to go wrong?  I would have thought that after Holmes was traded back in 2010 for his off the field antics it would send a wave of warning through the rest of the organization.  Screw up like that and you are out – even if you are last year’s Super Bowl MVP.  Could it be that the Steelers organization set themselves up for disaster by keeping Big Ben after allegation #2?

Or is the lockout to blame?  The organization has not been able to contact players all off season long.  Perhaps if there wasn’t a lockout in place the Steelers could have had a team meeting after Mendenhall’s controversial tweets and stemmed the whole thing.  But now after those tweets, a DUI and a foul mouthed anti-gay middle finger to the NFL and teammates, the Steelers are up shit creek, and James Harrison has broken all the paddles over his knee.  Mike Tomlin is secretly huddled in a corner sucking his thumb and crying.  All this guy cares about is playing football and winning football games.  He has been stellar in keeping egos in check during the season to win football games.  This has got to be his version of – and his own players have stomped on his glasses.

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