A few weeks ago, when I heard that the Steelers veterans had voted to ban players with fewer than four years of experience from the “game room” portion of the Steelers locker room, it stunk of entitlement. Doing the math of course, fourth year players have all been in the league long enough to have been a part of the roster that lost to the Packers in Super Bowl XLV. Even if they were with another roster at the time, the ban didn’t apply to them.
It was almost as if the Steelers vets were trying to subtly lay the blame for their 0-4 start at the feet of their younger players. Coach Tomlin didn’t appreciate the symbolic ban either and stepped in to end the age divide taking place within their locker room.
He probably would have preferred for his starting quarterback to have spoken up inside, but it’s become apparent that even though he’s changed his life and attitude for the better, he wasn’t willing to step up in that locker room and call out his fellow veterans for their inane ban.
Via Sports Illustrated:
“From his point, it was dividing the team in a way,” safety Ryan Clark said Thursday. “One sect of people couldn’t do a certain thing and he just wanted everybody to be together — because we’re all in the losses together. We’re all in the business of fixing this problem together. He didn’t want anything to divide us.”“From his point, it was dividing the team in a way,” safety Ryan Clark said Thursday. “One sect of people couldn’t do a certain thing and he just wanted everybody to be together — because we’re all in the losses together. We’re all in the business of fixing this problem together. He didn’t want anything to divide us.”
The "games" reportedly include billiards, ping-pong and shuffleboard. It's 2013, nobody in that locker room has an XBox set up on a flatscreen?
