Tim Benz: Ex-Steelers RB Rashard Mendenhall picked the wrong fight

The last thing I’d ever try to give myself on my birthday is a Twitter flame war with an entire NFL fanbase. But that was the present former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall gift wrapped for himself Sunday.

On his 34th birthday, Mendenhall sent a tweet regarding his memorable Super Bowl XLV fumble which read:

“I never fumbled that ball… #SBXLV

My coaches would feel like (expletive) to say that I did, I never did.

I was SEPARATED from the ball, 4 yards into the backfield.

That’s the RB equivalent of a strip-sack.

There’s NOTHING I could’ve done about it.

Respect my career.

#Free34”

Some of the responses make me wonder if at any point Mendenhall blew out the candles on his cake and wished that he never hit the “send” button.

The funny thing is, if Mendenhall’s goal was to get people to back off that fumble and respect his career more, there are numerous ways he could’ve done so that would’ve been more constructive than, you know, trying to convince the whole world they didn’t see exactly what they saw.

Mendenhall would’ve been justified saying, “Look, I averaged 1,103 yards and totaled 30 touchdowns from 2009-11. I had four touchdowns in that 2010 postseason, plus 153 yards from scrimmage in the AFC Championship Game against the New York Jets. So back off.”

Mendenhall also would’ve been accurate in saying that there was still 14 minutes and 50 seconds left after his fumble. The score was only 21-17 Packers at that point. The ball was still on the Green Bay side of the 50-yard line.

After the exchange of possession, the Steelers defense didn’t need to hemorrhage a 55-yard touchdown drive to the Green Bay offense in less than three minutes to stretch the score to 28-17.

Or, after the Pittsburgh offense came right back with eight points of its own, the defense didn’t have to give up a 10-play, five-and-a-half minute field goal drive to put the game away at 31-25.

Even if Mendenhall just went so far as to point out that All-Pro Clay Matthews made a really good defensive play and two blocks got blown up in front of him, Mendenhall would’ve at least been accurate.

But to try to say the fumble didn’t happen? Or to try to act like there is a difference between fumbling and being “separated from the ball”? That’s a bad look, Rashard.

Not as bad as your tweets about Osama Bin Laden or Ben Roethlisberger. But … still pretty bad.

It wasn’t the equivalent of a running back strip sack. At all.

Video shows you were looking right at the pile featuring Matthews and bracing for contact. You, indeed, may have been “separated from the ball.” But you secured the handoff first and took about four steps before the blocks from David Johnson and Doug Legursky were defeated.

What could you have done about it? Well, maybe you’re right. Maybe it was just bad luck.

Or perhaps you could’ve kept that second hand on the ball and rolled to the ground on contact and lived to fight on what would’ve been third-and-7.

Am I nitpicking there? Yeah. Probably. But I’m not the one tweeting fiction like Mendenhall is. I mean, does he want the NFL to create a new stat for ball carriers called “Balls Separated From Carrier”? A BSFC could simply be referred to as “a Mendenhall” to keep it short.

Would that work for you, Rashard?

Because of the fumble, I’ve always felt that Mendenhall never got enough credit for how well he played in that 2010 Super Bowl year. And I always thought he took too much of the onus for what went wrong in that Super Bowl.

But I never tried to eliminate him from blame entirely.

Based on how poor of an argument Mendenhall tried to make on his own behalf, I’m glad I never did.