With about 5 minutes remaining in the second quarter of Sunday’s win over the Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger checked down to Rashard Mendenhall for a 13-yeard touchdown and the first score of the game. I watched it happen live and I remember it because I texted a friend who started Mendenhall in fantasy football to say, “Smart move.” It also made me feel stupid for thinking Jonathan Dwyer was going to be “the Steelers’ Darren Sproles” but I’m an idiot and we all know that.

What I didn’t realize is that the touchdown was credited to Mendenhall as a run, which means that the 7 points (or 7.3 or 6, depending on how your league scores) only went to the RB and not Roethlisberger in fantasy league scoring. At the time, that was fine, because you just shrug it off and hope for more points from your other players. But yesterday morning this wasn’t fine, because the TD was correctly attributed to Roethlisberger. Guess what that means.

That play alone swung results in 20,000 matchups this week, including a tussle involving our very own Handsome Hank and his Violent Executioners.

That’s right — nearly 70,000 NFL.com fantasy users woke up Thursday with a different record than they had the night before, 40,000 because of one Big (Ben) stat correction. The siren call of the fantasy gods is mighty on this day. (Via NFL.com)

This affected a girl that I know and girls are irrational and insane, so I assume that I haven’t heard from her because she’s on a 13-state homicidal spree. Thankfully, it didn’t happen to me, because I wouldn’t be writing this. I’d be in prison, awaiting trial on 14 charges of pooping on NFL officials’ doorsteps. In fact, after the jump, I’ve included some GIFs of appropriate reactions for anyone whose fantasy wins were overturned because of this correction.

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According to Drew Brees, the NFL Lockout is almost over. According to Chad Ochocinco, it’s far from over. Either way, while the NFLPA* and team owners met into the late hours last night, James Harrison’s big mouth continues to be the top NFL news because that’s all we’ve got. Well, except for Hines Ward’s DUI, and he must be absolutely loving Harrison right now.

Harrison recently sat down for an interview with Paul Solotaroff of Men’s Journal, which I once read on an airplane, and he sounded off about everything from his hatred of Roger Goodell to his problems with his own teammates. And if you haven’t already read the article, Harrison really sounded off. Most notably, he called out Ben Roethlisberger for some mistakes in the Super Bowl and pointed out that he’s not Peyton Manning, he labeled Rashard Mendenhall as a “fumble machine”, he said that Houston Texans linebacker Brian Cushing is “juiced out of his mind”, and he called Roger Goodell many things, including (allegedly) a f*ggot. Harrison also defended his reputation, most notably as a thug, but… hey, did I mention that banner pic is the lead image from the article?

And with all of that on paper, published and available on magazine racks, Harrison claims he was misquoted and Solotaroff, the guy who says he has notebooks full of other quotes and hours of digital interviews, agrees.

“We talked about 11 o’clock yesterday morning,” Solotaroff said on Thursday. “Look, James is the guy who’s got to live with Ben for the next three years. . . . So as I told James, ‘Listen, whatever you’ve got to say to mend fences is perfectly fine with me.’” (Via Pro Football Talk)

That’s the quote that really should stop the story. Solotaroff is an admittedly big fan of Harrison, which moves this article from “insightful interview” to “sloppy knob polish” and renders it irrelevant, as far as journalistic integrity. Essentially, Solotaroff told Harrison that he can say whatever he wants and he’ll manipulate and fix it after the fact. As I learned in one of the few journalism classes I stayed awake during, that’s not kosher.

But what is relevant is that Harrison has a big mouth and he said a bunch of things that he can’t take back. Cushing has since said he would pray for Harrison, whatever that means, and it has been reported that Roethlisberger and Mendenhall will take Harrison at his word (translated: they’ll share some “What the f*ck”s in private). Goodell, though, is a different story. While he has his hands full trying to make sure that Harrison and the rest of the players have a job this season, I can’t imagine that he’s going to look to favorably upon a guy that he has never looked favorably upon.

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In case you haven’t read about it, that Tweet above has Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall in a little hot water this week. Of course it doesn’t help that there is no other NFL news to discuss right now, but most people generally see the death of Osama Bin Laden as an accomplishment and closed book for the United States, particularly for the families of American soldiers and the victims of 9/11.

People were naturally going to have dissenting views about Bin Laden’s death, so this is less than surprising. What is surprising is that Mendenhall continued to defend himself on his Twitter, egging on the responses of rage, scowls from the media and even the shame of his team’s owner. Mendenhall maintains his point that he is an American and is protected by freedom of speech. His critics say he could have just kept his mouth shut. Either way, he finally deleted the controversial Tweets.

There’s a reason that we haven’t mentioned this story until now – why bother? A lot of other people just want to embrace the idea that something great happened. So I threw together this collection of Tweets from professional athletes and some of the more famous talking heads in sports with their thoughts and feelings about the death of one of the greatest villains the world has ever known.

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There’s only one rabbit that I’m really interested in hunting after Super Bowl XLV, and that’s the question of who would have won the MVP if the Pittsburgh Steelers had come from behind in the second half to win the game. My money was on the Steelers (and Rashard Mendenhall in the MVP hunt) to prevail.

As the fourth quarter began, the Steelers trailed the Packers, 21-17. Pittsburgh had just taken over on offense on a Packers three-and-out (their third in a row) that gave the Steelers the ball on the Green Bay 41, their best field position of the night.

Roethlisberger, despite having thrown two interceptions, had completed 8 of his last 11 throws, including a touchdown pass to Hines Ward. Mendenhall had 14 carries at that point in the game (he averaged over 20 in the regular season). And the Steelers were gaining momentum. Until…

“I had a good feeling that play was going to come,” Matthews said. “I told my defensive end to spin it for me and wrap it around the outside. … I got to make a play, and I did.”

“I just got hit and the ball came out,” [Mendenhall] said. “It just happened and it should not have happened.”

–NJ Star-Ledger.

It’s not inconceivable to think that the Steelers would have at least scored on that drive to either take the lead or seriously put the Packers on the ropes. Mendenhall certainly could have accumulated 37 more yards (which would have put him at 100), especially if Pittsburgh would have snapped into their four-minute offense.

Instead, Rashard fumbles, Green Bay takes it down the field and scores, and Pittsburgh doesn’t call another rushing play for the balance of the game. But as they say, if the queen had balls, she’d be the king. This is simply an illustration of how close this game was. AND HOW THE STEELERS BLEW IT! WOOOO!! YOU SUCK, PITTSBURGH! But they did win an AFC title. That’s nice.