Rashard Mendenhall: Behaving like a shock jock

There are better ways to get people to think about current and past events than to post a shocking statement on Twitter.  I wonder if he had a more personal connection to September 11th, 2001 if he would be making these same statements – say losing a loved one?  I doubt it.  And I seriously doubt that he, as a 14 year old boy at the time, fully comprehended what had just happened to the United States and to the world.

If Mendenhall hadn’t said the NFL parallels slavery just a mere few months ago, I would just chalk this up as a moment that a young man got caught up in and made a poor choice of immediately putting his thoughts out there.  Which, to a point, I could say is a forgivable offense.  But this isn’t his first rodeo for saying some really dumb and crazy things.  I think it’s deliberate and very shock jock like.  It’s unfortunate that this young man would put his teammates, owners and all of us, Steelers Nation, in such an awkward situation.  He represents us all…. 24/7….whether he likes it or wants to at all.

So what should the Steelers do?  True, he didn’t commit any crime or really commit any wrong doing.  But what he did was embarrass the team and his teammates – agree or disagree with what he said.  Chalk up the lockout for screwing something else up – player PR – because this is an incident that would have Mendenhall in Rooney’s office that very next morning reigning this kind of crap in.  It’s a tough position to take: free speech vs. insensitive nonsense.  But I think that most would agree that what he said was misguided.

Hopefully, with such a backlash (entirely more than what he got for his slavery comments) from followers, the media and even teammates like Ryan Clark, he will begin to realize that perhaps he should pause for a few moments before he starts typing away on his smart phone.  He is one hell of an athlete and football player.  An athlete has an amazing amount of ‘star power,’ and with that power comes great responsibility.