Roethlisberger Wants The Media To Stop Being The Media

The friction between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the media reached a fever pitch Friday when safety Ryan Clark suggested that sportswriters are "turds." If this situation grows any more volatile, we'll soon start hearing mud-slings like "twerp," "doofus," and "nitwit," and the world of sports media will no longer be a PG-rated affair.

Until then, we have quarterback Ben Roethlisberger getting upset at ex-teammate and current NBC analyst Jerome Bettis. Bettis went out on a limb (he's big, but he's nimble) and said that the Steelers -- whose five consecutive losses have stuck with them with a 6-7 record, good for a 2.1% chance of reaching the playoffs -- will not be playing postseason football. Roethlisberger's response:

"I guess he's entitled to his opinion," Roethlisberger said.  "He's not on this team, he's not in this locker room, so he's just taking an outside view as all of you [media] guys are. If you don't know, I don't think you should speak on it."

But when the media lauded the Steelers for their team-oriented locker-room mentality, etc., during last year's Super Bowl run? Yeah, that was cool. Anyway, Bettis should stick with analyzing things in his immediate surroundings. How comfortable is his desk chair? Is the temperature in the studio too warm or too cold for his liking? Is Keith Olbermann as dreamy in person as he appears on TV?