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U mad, bro? Myles Garrett-Mason Rudolph issue leads to most angry week yet | TribLIVE.com
Steelers/NFL

U mad, bro? Myles Garrett-Mason Rudolph issue leads to most angry week yet

Tim Benz
2341065_web1_gtr-rudolph111919
AP
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph is taken down by Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett during the second half of an NFL football game, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2019, in Cleveland.

I know what you are thinking.

Easiest “U mad, bro?” week … ever!

Wrong.

Oh. In terms of volume? Yes. For sure.

In the wake of Myles Garrett reiterating his charge that Mason Rudolph used a racial slur against him, Rudolph’s denial of it, and my opinions on it, I had no shortage of entries.

But finding ones that were actually clean enough to post without turning the page into the written version of George Carlin’s “seven dirty words” routine, that was nearly impossible.

So, here you go.

Certainly, emotionally charged stuff. But this was about as much as I could get in that didn’t involve our editors blotting out every other word.


Our first submission came unsigned to my email box via “vtext” from a Columbus area code.

Myles is a class guy. As a black man myself we know the sting of being called the n-word.

I don’t doubt that you have been the subject of this slur.

You may be stunned to realize, though, just because someone else used that word against you, it doesn’t automatically mean Rudolph used it against Garrett.

Your personal experience is unfortunate. But I suppose the notion of “innocent until proven guilty” doesn’t matter in the world of electronic messaging.

By the way, Myles is a class guy? I wonder if Delanie Walker and Trevor Siemian would agree.

I’m sure Walker called him a name, too.


Shalise Manza Young is a writer who contributes to Yahoo! Sports. She previously covered the Patriots at the Boston Globe.

She didn’t like my column on Friday. I argued that the NFL should’ve put a gag order on Garrett, restricting him from commenting further about the racial slur since the league already had stated that it could find no evidence of the claim.

In my view, he is using an allegation that can’t be proven as a way to scrub his image for the helmet swing, at the expense of ruining another player’s reputation, while also alleging the league is involved in a cover-up.

Since I’m white, Manza Young seems to think that I shouldn’t have been allowed to write that.

“Diversity” is an interesting word choice.

So what’s the implication here? If you are a person of color in the media, you should be inclined (or required?) to support what has turned out to be a baseless claim?

And if you are a white writer, you shouldn’t advance an opinion if you disagree?

Quite a frightening stance for a journalist to take.

In fact, that’s exactly how I responded to her.

She wasn’t done.

Fortunately — in our newsroom anyway — our editors don’t tell our writers what opinions they are allowed to have. Maybe that’s how it works at Yahoo! or at the Globe.

But the goal of our opinion pieces isn’t to marginalize the opinion-making so as to make everyone happy. At that point, it ceases to be an opinion.

If I was blocked from writing it, I would’ve put it on social media and said it on the radio and television anyway.

Which I did. Repeatedly.

My opinion is that Garrett is making up this allegation to save face and that the NFL is allowing him to defame a fellow player and the league by making claims that can’t be justified. The league is unwise to allow that.

That’s my opinion.

Frankly, I don’t even find that to be much of a “hot take.” But I wrote it. I voiced it. That’s my job.


Dave was almost as put off by ESPN’s coverage of the allegation as I was.

Agreed. I hate the phrase “social justice,” though. Especially when the opposite of justice is being served.

As was the case during the Garrett-Rudolph episode of “Outside the Lines” Saturday.

There is a difference between social justice and social pandering. But we all know what ESPN really stands for.

Exclusively
Socially
Preening
Network


Meanwhile, another guy named Dave wasn’t really high on my ESPN post, as you can tell in this email.

Great one-sided opinion piece. You can sense the sarcasm right? You want to know why Rudolph won’t do an interview to debate Garrett is because he knows what he said and doesn’t want to be a liar and a racist.”

Debate? Who said anything about a debate? Rudolph has already denied the allegation. Twice now.

That should be enough.

But maybe you are onto something. Maybe we can put them on “Meet the Press” together in a split box and have Chuck Todd moderate.

Now, you tell me, how am I doing on the sarcasm front?


This one is unreal. This College Hockey News reporter is accusing me of “victim blaming” Myles Garrett.

Victim blaming?! Garrett is the “victim” now?! He tried to kill a guy with his own helmet. And now he’s the victim.

Not only is she ignoring what he did with the helmet, she’s assuming Rudolph’s guilt. That’s rich.

But I’ll take her advice and die on that hill with all those other white guys refusing to condemn Rudolph without evidence.

Yup. Just me and a bunch of other white guys like Mike Tomlin, Ramon Foster, Cam Heyward and Maurkice Pouncey defending this hill.


I’ve gotten in the habit of dropping in celebrity contributions. Let’s stick with that trend.

Apparently, Chicago Cubs star Kris Bryant despises social media.

It appears that Bryant read my mind. Or my Twitter interactions with the Garrett truthers.

Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via X. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.

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