It is never fun reporting on an athlete that has been caught cheating. The story can blow up and do terrible things to their career. An athlete’s personal life should be theirs and theirs alone, but when you get caught cheating while working in your profession, you have to expect it to get reported.

Cheating is something that you would not expect to see at the professional level in any sports organization. Unfortunately, we have seen a fair amount of cheating in the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL and it has only gotten worse over time. The worst part is when you see one of your favorite athletes get caught up in a cheating scandal.

Cue Ben Roethlisberger. I am not even going to get into the sexual assault cases against him. There is no need to discuss the the sexual assault charges brought against him in 2009 for allegedly assaulting a woman in Lake Tahoe. I don’t need to talk about how he allegedly barricaded his hotel room door preventing the alleged victim from leaving and forcing himself on her. No, I’m above that.

I also do not think it is necessary to bring up the fact that Roethlisberger allegedly sexually assaulted a female in the bathroom of a night club in Georgia. There is just zero reason to bring it up. It would be petty and juvenile to mention it.

However, one thing does need to be brought up. Something more serious than the above mentioned allegations.

Sep 30, 2019; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Injured Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger (right) looks on from the sidelines with head coach Mike Tomlin against the Cincinnati Bengals during the third quarter at Heinz Field. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

During the 2019 season, Ben Roethlisberger wore an Apple watch on the sidelines of an NFL football game.

CHEATER!

According to league rules, the NFL bars any electronic device that can transmit or receive messages from being worn on the sidelines. Because of this, Roethlisberger was fined $5,000.00 for the incident.

Simply put, Big Ben broke the rules. He was clearly intercepting information from the other teams sideline with his Apple watch. He was then obviously using said information to help his team win. If that’s not cheating, I don’t know what is. If this guy is ever let into the Hall of Fame, you may as well just burn the Hall of Fame down because it would be a complete travesty.

In other NFL news, Odell Beckham Jr still sucks. He posted a “hype” video onto his Instagram account yesterday showing him training hard for the upcoming 2021 NFL season, and his third season with the Cleveland Browns as seen above.

Beckham is coming off of an ACL tear from last season during Week 7. He accomplished very little in the part of the season he did play and had nothing to do with the Browns going to the playoffs. The thing is, prior to the ACL tear, he just was not working out in Cleveland. Baker Mayfield and the rest of the Browns offense proved that they can flourish without Beckham, so why keep the guy on the roster? They may as well get some trade value while his name still holds any relevance. He often gets jammed at the line, and because of that, he simply cannot run routes fast enough. I’m not disputing his speed, but his ability to run routes like he used to has severely diminished. Since joining Cleveland, he has not been the route runner he once was with the Giants. And after recovering from an ACL tear? Odds are he will be even worse.

Maybe I am being hard on Odell. Maybe this criticism is not warranted. But it’s hard not to be hard on a guy who gets his ass kicked by a kicking net.

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