"Questions, questions, and some answers..."

The final week of the Steelers' spring drills came to an end with
several new questions popping up. Jim Wexell found humor in some of them
and more questions in others as he shares his thoughts at the summer
break.
These are the thoughts of a sportswriter who's worried he started a
little late on his vacation plans and is now in danger of being shut
out:

• I wonder if Bill Cowher has a house or two available in mid July on
the Outer Banks.

• Bill Cowher the vacation broker. That's as good a guess as any
coming out of the media these days concerning Cowher's post-retirement
plans.

• Someone – I think it was me – asked Cowher a serious question
with a slap-happy smile: What – heh, heh -- do you think you're going
to do in retirement?

• He answered with a big smile and joked about how much he'd miss the
media. The point is that Cowher has nothing to do in retirement. The guy
didn't get in THAT kind of shape to walk the beaches of North Carolina
with his wife.

• I found the whole line of questioning preposterous. I mean, Cowher
hates golf, and is still far too competitive to join the media. I found
his remarks about taking it a year at a time to be a thinly disguised
negotiating ploy. I didn't even run the quotes.

• Perhaps that makes me a poor newsman, but I just couldn't about to
bite on it. Cowher is two years from the end of his contract, which is
the traditional negotiating period between he and the Pittsburgh
Steelers, and he deserves a raise into the $8 million per year club with
Mike Holmgren. It all makes too much sense, and I can't blame Cowher for
doing it.

• So anyway, my vacation. It looks like it'll be spent fixing up the
home this summer. Yeah, what a blast. But I made it up to my wife by
grabbing a two-bedroom condo at a resort in Fort Lauderdale for the
first week of February.

• Someone called me from a radio show the other day and asked me what
I thought of the Steelers' chances of playing Feb. 5 in the Super Bowl
in Miami. I said I hadn't given it much consideration.

• I asked Ben Roethlisberger to give this question much consideration:
Who will be his underrated receiver to watch this season? Answer at the
end.

• Roethlisberger gave someone – I think it was me – an interview
after the team's final practice of the spring. He was cordial and
thoughtful and respectful and then after it was done he blew off a mob
interview because of the presence of Channel 11, which, according to the
Beaver County Times, had filmed the towing of one of Roethlisberger's
vehicles weeks earlier. It's the same station that had parked outside
his home while he was injured last season, so I can't blame him a bit.
Perhaps the upper management at Channel 11 will give grieving widows
some room next time, too.

• The Steelers hope this will blow over soon. The star player
boycotting one particular TV station opens a Pandora's Box of issues,
mainly: Where is the line for a law-abiding news agency?

• Perhaps losing a post-minicamp, pre-summer interview with the star
player was penalty enough. If Roethlisberger persists picking on one
station, he'll eventually have to stop talking to all media.

• The reaction in Pittsburgh to the Baltimore Ravens' acquisition of
Steve McNair was different than that in the rest of the country.
Steelers fans believe this was a coup for the Ravens, a team that's
never had a good quarterback, let alone a quarterback with a history of
killing the Steelers. The thinking around the rest of the league is that
the Ravens simply got older with the expensive and immobile McNair.

• The money could have been better spent on the future, yes, but the
Ravens weren't going anywhere with Kyle Boller. The addition of McNair
should only hasten Boller's departure and the transition to a better
young quarterback, and Steelers fans can't like that.

• Marvin Lewis should've held a press conference and ripped himself
for bringing known criminals into the Cincinnati community. Instead, he
ripped the known criminals for embarrassing the organization, i.e.
Lewis, with their recent crimes.

• The best Steelers player this spring was Roethlisberger. The next
best was Heath Miller. The big tight end will be matched up deep more
often with little people. And Miller will run over and through said
little people once he gets the ball.

• One particular Roethlisberger to Miller deep ball was just about to
nestle when outside linebacker Andre Frazier recovered to knock the pass
away. Someone from the front office standing nearby began talking about
Frazier's resemblance to Charles Haley. As for the play, I can't get the
snapshot out of my mind. Frazier did look like a big, agile defensive
end loping downfield to break up that pass.

• That's the guy's name I wrote down next to Manny Lawson's when I
watched N.C. State's bowl game – Andre Frazier. What a value the
undrafted 2005 free agent linebacker could become.

• Speaking of undrafted 2005 free agents, here's the answer
Roethlisberger gave to the question about the underrated receiver to
watch this season: Nate Washington.

By: Jim Wexell
SteelCityInsider.com
Date: Jun 12, 2006

My comments: I have heard that Cowher's "year to year" comments may be
a ploy to get more money. I guess that is the business. As for Ben
getting well, menstrual , the kid has to learn to deal with the media.
He is lucky he wasn't drafted by the NY Giants. I am from the NY area
originally and I know that the NY media is MUCH worse. Yeah, Channel 11
may have been a little intrusive, but when Nancy Kerrigan was whacked on
the knee, the media was at her house and she didn't pull a media
boycott.

Terri