Steelers Adopt Zero-Tolerance Policy
4/19/2010 9:31 PM ET By JJ Cooper
Steelers' quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is getting ready to be suspended for violating the NFL's personal conduct policy despite the fact that he's never been charged with a crime. Now the Steelers appear ready to take the conduct policy to a whole new level.
Offensive tackle Willie Colon said on Monday that Steelers players have been told that any off-field trouble will quickly lead them to be dumped.
"We were told early this morning, either you get in line or you get kicked out of line, either you'll be traded or you're not going to be here," tackle Willie Colon said as he walked off the practice field at the Steelers' training facility. "If your conduct is going to play a part of you not being a good football player or any part of this NFL, they're going to get rid of you. So my job is to be a football player and conduct myself respectfully off the field."It's hard to not think that the Steelers' zero-tolerance policy is yet another overreaction to an offseason of bad conduct and bad p.r. The first overreaction came when the Steelers decided that Santonio Holmes had to be traded RIGHT NOW instead of waiting to see if they could generate a trade market for the team's best wide receiver.
If the Steelers go forward with this policy and stick with it, it's hard to see how they won't eventually regret it. The Steelers' approach of taking numerous poor character players off their draft board is one thing--it helps ensure Pittsburgh lands players who fit into the locker room. But saying that you won't keep any players who get into trouble means you're putting yourself at a disadvantage to the rest of the league.
NFL players get in trouble. Not all of them, not even most of them, but enough of them that it's hard to believe you can put together a quality team without a few troublemakers. There's a reason that Pro Football Talk keeps a tracker of how many days it has been since the last NFL player was arrested. It's notable that the tracker rarely reaches double digits.
If Pittsburgh had put this policy in place years ago, they would likely have two less Super Bowl rings--after all, linebacker James Harrison, wide receiver Santonio Holmes, kicker Jeff Reed and others have all gotten into some kind of trouble in recent years. A one and done approach would leave the Steelers looking to trade players when other teams know they can low-ball Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh is working hard to repair its image, which is understandable. But by over-reacting, the Steelers run the risk of hurting the long-term future of the team.