Mendenhall Suspended

[pfelix73]

Point is, there are quite a few in that age bracket that can handle daily duties of a large company just fine.. Why? because they choose to and don't anything else. Person I'm referring to has done it for 60 years....


Your talk above is rediculous. A CEO would make a change, regardless... Anyway..... off topic.... moving on....whatever.... I'll still take Dan over his son Artie....

[eniparadoxgma]

How about showing up to support your fellow teammates?

Exactly.

Fine him 5,000 bucks, but dont suspend him. I really dont want the guy back next year (or Dwyer for that matter), but suspended for 1 game seems excessive to me. However its apparent I'm wrong.

Exactly.

Wow....how did we get here in this conversation??

Mendenhall should not be suspended? He was unjustly punished for fumbling so he should stay home?

This is the NFL, and in being a professional football player there are certain realities in place.

#1 - The coach's decision is gospel. If you want to change his mind then do so with your actions on the field.

#2 - Team comes first

#3 - Violation must result in a harsh punishment

By deciding to not attend the game he made a bold statement. He is severing himself from the team and that cannot be accepted. Whether or not we think that he should have dressed is moot at this point. attendance is not optional. You show up, smile, and await the coaching decision the next week. Anything else is unacceptable.

Exactly.

I'm a Dwyer fan. I was thrilled when we drafted him. But, he still hasn't proven much in my book. After his two 100 yard games this season, Redman showed up and looked even better against the Giants. That game against the Giants (on a bumb wheel no less) was the best performance by a Steelers running back this season. Since then, all the Steelers backs have looked very average. At this point, I like Dwyer in our running back stable, but he has not proven that he is a legitimate #1 running back.

Was that the game he had all the catches in? My memory sucks wicker baskets.

Also, exactly.

[RuthlessBurgher]

Again, is Buffet the norm or the exception? And I doubt he is doing much day to day CEO stuff at this point, probably takes naps in the middle of the day. Why not? And I disagree: Running an NFL team still requires ONE MAIN DECISION MAKER who has to make the final call on all major issues. You can't run an organization successfully any other way. The CEO should LISTEN to all opinions from his trusted board (family members) but still it is up to ONE PERSON to make the final, large decisions, such as what direction to go in personnel, coaches, policies, etc. If that person has a "let's not make any waves, let's keep everything the same" when the situation is demanding to make changes, it will hurt the chances of success. Let's say, for example, that you are CEO of McDonald's. And your sales are plummeting because more and more consumers are weary of the impact of fast food. Let's say your sales drop 30% but your attitude is, "Let's keep things as they are and not rock the boat." Well, by not adding some healthy food choices, you are allowing the company to lose too much $. The exact same could be said for managing an NFL team. Dan never wanted to make changes, to a fault. It wasn't until Art 2 stepped in and proclaimed, "I think coach Cowher knows it's time to win a Super Bowl" instead of the "Mr. Nicey Nice" approach from Dan that lit a fire in this team's butt and got them over the top. If they only had the Sr. Citizen approach of keeping everything the same for the sake of not making any waves, they would not have won a ring in 2005. As a matter of fact, it Art 2 didn't get involved in the draft (as Dan was not), we would have ended up with an OT instead of Big Ben. Just think of the ramifications of that. That genius Cowher wanted the OT that went to Philly. Had Art not got involved, Ben would be on another team right now. But, naaaaaa, we would have been fine with the 80-year-old as CEO.

I believe it was Dan who stood up for Ben in that draft, not Art.

[RuthlessBurgher]

My memory sucks wicker baskets.

Folks who weren't around for the Trib days don't realize how funny that is!

[Chadman]

Again, I'm not too sure...

I mean, if Wallace had signed the contract, he would have been the one paraded around by the Steelers, no? I don't think that there was any extra parading to spite Wallace...Brown was the guy who signed the deal...

Agreed- if Wallace had signed, they sure would have paraded him around. The difference is though, that they were negotiating with Wallace, then when he baulked, negotiations ended & they signed Brown to the money reportedly offered to Wallace. At no time was Brown even talked about in getting a contract extension until this point- and despite his obvious worth, the deal given to Brown looks inflated for a guy with such a limited production in his resume. BEFORE Brown signed his deal, who would have thought he was actually going to command that sort of coin for his second contract?

From where Chadman sits, the Steelers had a WR with multiple years of production demanding a big payday, and when he rejected what the Steelers offered him, they took that contract, changed the name on the dotted line, and offered it to the nexy guy in line, who realistically, couldn't have demanded the contract Walace wanted- simply no track record to merit such a large contract. By signing Brown, they effectively punted Wallace for next season. Whereas, if they signed Wllace, they could have struck a more cap friendly deal with Brown.

but if you forget the percieved worth of both guys & simply look at the timetable- they offered Wallace a contract. He rejected it. 2 days later Brown signs a contract that is reportedly similar to what they offered Wallace, and Wallace negotiations end. Does that not look remotely like "if you won't sign it, we'll find someone who will" to you?

[fordfixer]

Mendenhall said to the Steelers

[Chadman]

Chadman--I think you are 100% off base with the Wallace-Brown situation. Wallace was given every opportunity to sign the contract. There was pobviously a priority list and when Wallace balked it is only natural that they moved to the next priority. The front office knows far better than any of us the cap situation and the stratgies they have for dealing with it. As I have said many times they probably had one $8M contract allocated for the WR position and they offered their 31 priority and he balked so there is no pettiness in giving it to the next guy. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." I really think there was zero "well we'll show you" in this at all. It is just making good business decisions. If they were vindictive they could have just traded Wallace after he refused to sign.

As far as Mendy I think it is again the whole they know they future plan and we don't. They probably took the action they did because they already made the decision they were not going to retain Mendy and therefore why take carries away from the guys who they do plan to keep? They really have to see what they have in Dwyer to make an informed decision about what they do with the RB position in the off season. Can't do that if they are trying to split carries three ways, so eliminating one of the options is not a bad decision. Again a sound decision for the organization if they have already decided on a future course.

Wallace was given every opportunity to sign the contract offered by the Steelers, but he wanted more. Then they offered that money to Brown, and contract negotiations with Wallace stopped. Ok- yes, they gave Wallace the opportunity to sign. But when baulked at their offer, they didn't try to 'work it out'. They took that deal, gave it to the next guy in line, and effectively shut the door on Wallace getting a contract similar to what he was after. Now- that might be good business- who can say? But it still looks like the Steelers picked up their bat & ball & stopped playing With Wallace when he didn't do what they wanted.

As for Mendy- under your premise there, the FO must have given up on the season, or believe that Mendy offers them less opportunity to win any remaining games than some of the scrubs on ST. They might very well have decided that Dwyer/Redman are better options, going forward, but if Mendy was good enough to be on the roster at the beginning of the season, he's good enough now. Having him sit as a healthy inactive suggests that your former 1st round pick is a worse player and offers less than, say, 3rd string OG's or 4th OLB's.

[Slapstick]

Agreed- if Wallace had signed, they sure would have paraded him around. The difference is though, that they were negotiating with Wallace, then when he baulked, negotiations ended & they signed Brown to the money reportedly offered to Wallace. At no time was Brown even talked about in getting a contract extension until this point- and despite his obvious worth, the deal given to Brown looks inflated for a guy with such a limited production in his resume. BEFORE Brown signed his deal, who would have thought he was actually going to command that sort of coin for his second contract?

From where Chadman sits, the Steelers had a WR with multiple years of production demanding a big payday, and when he rejected what the Steelers offered him, they took that contract, changed the name on the dotted line, and offered it to the nexy guy in line, who realistically, couldn't have demanded the contract Walace wanted- simply no track record to merit such a large contract. By signing Brown, they effectively punted Wallace for next season. Whereas, if they signed Wllace, they could have struck a more cap friendly deal with Brown.

but if you forget the percieved worth of both guys & simply look at the timetable- they offered Wallace a contract. He rejected it. 2 days later Brown signs a contract that is reportedly similar to what they offered Wallace, and Wallace negotiations end. Does that not look remotely like "if you won't sign it, we'll find someone who will" to you?

Again...

Brown was not offered he same contract as Wallace...if you look at the numbers, the contract isn't inflated at all for a starting WR and is friendlier to the cap than you may realize...while the total value of the contract may have been nominally similar, Brown's contract (most likely) had far less guaranteed money than Wallace's...if not, and that was the contract offered to Wallace, I could see why he wouldn't want to sign it...but, I doubt that...

[hawaiiansteel]

Clark, the Steelers‘ players union representative, understands why coach Mike Tomlin is upset that Rashard Mendenhall was a no-show Sunday, even though he knew he wasn‘t playing. As Clark said, what if the circumstances change on game day? “I‘m an inactive player and I know I‘m not playing because I‘m a healthy scratch. But what if Troy (Polamalu) wakes up in the morning and his foot swells? You can be put up (to play). So that‘s why you want a guy at the game, from my perspective.”

http://triblive.com/sports/steelers/...#ixzz2F4A0XzR3

[fordfixer]

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap100...mail.NL.15.PIT


By Gregg Rosenthal
Around The League editor
Published: Dec. 12, 2012 at 08:45 a.m. Updated: Dec. 12, 2012 at 11:33 p.m.


Rashard Mendenhall knew he would be inactive for the Pittsburgh Steelers' Week 14 game against the San Diego Chargers, so he decided not to show up for it, according to NFL.com's Aditi Kinkhabwala.




Now Mendenhall has been suspended for a week, the Steelers announced Tuesday.


With just three weeks left in the season and his contract running out, it wouldn't be surprising if Mendenhall doesn't play for the Steelers ever again. But Mendenhall, who believed the team gave up on him before the suspension, now believes he's still in the Steelers' plans.


Kinkhabwala reports, citing a source close to the player, that the suspension led to "a lot of positive conversation" between the Steelers and Mendenhall, and he now believes he will be a factor down the stretch.




"I really believe Rashard is going to come back with great energy and great excitement," Mendenhall's agent, Mike McCartney, told Kinkhabwala. "He's going to embrace his teammates and his team, and he could be a huge part of a playoff run."


Mendenhall figures to be one of the more interesting free-agent running backs on the market this offseason. McCartney knows as well as anyone that this act of petulance in the middle of a playoff run isn't going to help his client.


Follow Gregg Rosenthal on Twitter @greggrosenthal.