Tiger & Ben

Pittsburgh – On Nov. 22, the helmeted head of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger met the knee of onrushing Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Derrick Johnson. The quarterback with two Super Bowl rings wobbled off the field and sat out the next game. Less than four months later, he stood accused of raping a Georgia student in a Milledgeville nightclub, and quiet questions began: Six years in the National Football League, 242 sacks, four serious head traumas — three on the field and one from a nearly fatal 2006 motorcycle crash — and two sexual assault allegations after boozy evenings in Nevada and Georgia… Medical experts consulted by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review refused to diagnose the root causes of Roethlisberger’s pattern of self-destructive behavior. But frontal lobe brain trauma has long been known to affect mood, judgment, interpersonal relations, foresight and the inhibition that keeps most others from displaying inappropriate social behavior — what’s called “executive function” by neurologists and psychiatrists. People who suffer repeated head injuries often exhibit signs of aggression, childishness, impaired self-control, inappropriate sexual activity and alcohol abuse, according to the National Institutes of Health. “Ben Roethlisberger is a guy with a lot of concussions,” said famed forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht… “It’s conceivable to think that there is a possibility that those concussions have led to some behavioral issues. The question I pose is simple: Can someone with several chronic or repetitive head injuries later display behavior that is socially undesirable? It’s certainly possible…”

Jeez, I’ve got to admit, I feel kind of guilty now.  All this time I’ve been thinking that Rapelisberger sexually assaults girls because he’s a drunken, horny, degenerate, immature, low-rent douchebag.  Now it turns out he’s merely displaying inappropriate social behavior because his executive function is all messed up due to getting his bell rung a few times.  Well that certainly explains a lot.  And not just about Big Ben.  Now we know why Ted Johnson’s been raping drunk girls in nightclubs, Steve Young is one the barscene every night going knuckles deep into coeds and since February, Marc Savard’s been running around with his dick hanging out of his pants.  So now we don’t have to think any less of him; he’s been completely exonerated.  So buy some t-shirts to celebrate.

BigBen