Last night was the first Presidential Debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. If you’re a political junkie like me, you’re probably familiar with a website called the Huffington Post. What you may not know is what started as a political news outlet has morphed in to a pop culture website that now posts pictures of Miley Cyrus’s latest nipslip right alongside stories of how Romney is conspiring with Big Oil to blot out the sun in order to increase our dependency on fossil fuels.
They even have a sports section.
For some reason, their sports section on Tuesday featured a guest column penned by none other than Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall. Guess he needed something to do while undergoing those electro-stim treatments on his surgically repaired ACL. Anyway, Mendy’s column, which can be read by clicking here, is a passive aggressive masterpiece. My girlfriend is already studying it in preparation for out next fight.
On the surface, Mendy writes about tolerance. Particularly tolerance of other viewpoints, utilizing among other things a ham-fisted analogy about judging a book by its cover. What he’s really writing about is the shitstorm he brought upon himself last year when he took people to task for celebrating the death of Osama Bin Laden.
What’s amusing about the piece is he places the blame for people taking issue with his anti-American sentiments on narcissism. A great deal of his rant chides people for being too narcissistic. For only being about themselves. For not listening to others.
What’s even more amusing is in the course of railing against narcissism, Mendenhall uses the word “I” a total of 25 times.
In a 700 word essay, he says “I” (or a variation thereof) roughly 28% of the time. Pot. Meet Kettle. In the meantime, stick to your day job, Mendy.
Speaking of his day job, I may take issue with his plan to parlay his football glory into 72 virgins (or, as Antonio Cromartie calls them, “A quiet Saturday night.”) but I’m definitely happy to hear he’ll be back on Sunday when the Steelers host the Eagles. He along with Troy Polamalu and James Harrison practiced yesterday but of the three, I think Mendy is the surest lock to actually suit up. I’m hoping the rumors about Troy and Deebo are true but they’re so brittle, I fear a jarring drive over a pothole could send them back to the training room.
Plus the Steelers desperately need an Arabian Knight in shining armor to rescue their pitiful running game. Todd Haley, doing is damnedest to bring back 1956 Stiller Football at Art Rooney II‘s request, has succeeded in nothing but giving Ben Roethlisberger longer third downs to convert. The team is currently third from bottom in rushing, having accumulated a pathetic 195 yards through the first three games.
I like Isaac Redman but he’s just not an every down back. His straight ahead style is great for short yardage and nothing else. The coaches were so pissed at Jonathan Dwyer‘s performance in Oakland, they benched him in the second half in favor of Baron Batch. Batch had a couple nice runs but has zero track record. Chris Rainey is too small to play traditional running back.
If the Steelers have any hope of featuring a running game, they need Rashard. Even if he’s not 100% (and, truly, he won’t be), 75% of Mendy is probably better than what we have now. Plus if he’s busy on the field, he won’t have time to pen self-serving columns about himself. That’s what I call win-win for everybody.