Thursday, March 20th, 2008 by Adam Wagner
Rooney wrong about Wilson release
“I’m here today to announce that Cedrick Wilson is being released by the Pittsburgh Steelers due to his recent legal issues. This organization does not condone those types of actions on the part of any employee. No further questions will be asked.” That’s what Steelers’ chairman Dan Rooney should have said. Instead, the Steelers’ owner essentially justified hitting women as long as it was for a supposedly good cause.
The Steelers are a team that traditionally have upstanding character, rarely taking risks on potential attitude problems and releasing players once they show hints of becoming detrimental to the character of the team. The team’s release of Cedrick Wilson after he was charged with hitting the mother of his son was, therefore, completely unsurprising and in line with the character that the organization has created for itself. Rooney, however, made comments that need to be revoked as soon as possible.
Rooney said that the Steelers hadn’t released Harrison because the circumstances were different and because Harrison was trying to have his son baptized at the time of the incident. There are other reasons for not releasing Harrison such as the incident becoming commonplace in the NFL and dealing with it internally, but justifying spousal abuse, which Rooney seemed to do, is uncalled for and disgusting.
The real reason that Harrison was not released and Wilson was can be traced back to the status of both players on the team. Wilson is a productive fringe player who never seemed to find his home in Pittsburgh, while Harrison is one of the team’s current defensive stars. Releasing Harrison would be akin to the Patriots releasing Teddy Bruschi four or five years ago. It just wouldn’t happen.
Where Rooney went wrong was in trying to justify the decision to release one player and not the other, something he never should have attempted, at least not with out having a prepared statement (and if he was reading from a prepared statement, then there are more problems with the Steelers than we are willing to admit). The comments he made demonstrated an outmoded and inappropriate style of thinking on the part of the Steelers’ higher ups. Hitting a woman is not appropriate whether it is to get a child baptized, to get a sandwich made, because you’re a little bit upset with her or for any other reason.
Rooney could deservedly face a maelstrom of criticism (Bob Smizik has already written a column about the issue) if he does not clarify or take back his comments.
The Steelers’ owner has certainly done a wonderful job of making a story here where there absolutely did not need to be one.
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