Like an increasing number of spectators, Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall decided earlier this month to watch the game at home.
He got to watch the next game at home, too. Without pay.
But in response to coach Mike Tomlin’s explanation that Mendenhall was simply frustrated when he decided not to show up for a game in which he was told he wouldn’t dress, Mendenhall disagrees.
“I wouldn’t use that word,” Mendenhall said, according to Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “There’s a lot of thought that goes into everything that I do.”
If there was a lot of thought that went in to his decision to boycott the game, he should have thought about it some more. The one-game suspension cost Mendenhall more than $41,000. And the open act of defiance won’t help the looming free agent’s already diminished marketability, given the position he plays, his injury history, and the controversial remarks he made after the death of Osama bin Laden.