Discipline: A Fundamental Let Down for the Steelers Franchise.

The Steelers franchise has typically been one of the worst for scandals and incidents with law enforcement. Jeff Reed has had alcohol and misconduct offenses against him and Roethlisberger has had quite a few alleged sex scandals, this isn’t to mention other incidents for example the recent drugs arrest with Santonio Holmes whilst he was a Steeler and also James Harrison has been arrested for an offense which was called a “simple assault,” in March 2008.

Could this be the year in which all this finally has a severe effect on how the Steelers perform this season?

As most people know if Big Ben gets suspended the Steelers will not perform as normal and will perform significantly worse. I am not doubting Charlie Batch’s ability to lead the Steelers to victory but not to the playoffs because he is not Ben Roethlisberger and his experience as a starter is lacking.

Some sort of Discipline I feel needs to be involved now into this franchise for it to stop being so reckless and having potential knock on effects to the team and its record. I’m not suggesting a strict change in how closely the management are controlling the players but a better deterrent for these players to take control and responsibility for their actions.

As with every time a player gets caught the question is will he be suspended or what will the consequences be?

One consequence is yes the player may get suspended causing a problem to the team but something less significant is with all the media attention these scandals get can cause problems to the player. For example Big Ben was told to stay away from practice for a while whilst he had all the pressure from the media. However even something this small can have an effect on how the player performs and it was fortunate that it was in the off-season and not during the seasons where this could have affected how he played in major games.

The more this happens the more the NFL will take a tougher stance on these misdemeanours and so the severity of the punishments will increase causing a greater problem to teams, and as the Steelers seem to be getting involved with a fair few incidents it could cause problems within the franchise.