Tim Benz: Praising Maurkice Pouncey’s balance, fairness and objectivity
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Flame wars over coronavirus. Raging battles over how to maintain law and order while eradicating police brutality.
The louder both sides of the political aisle scream at one another, the less I hear them. It’s just a cacophony. Their voices sound so similar. Yet, neither side is speaking a language I understand.
I want to push them away in opposite directions so the middle becomes a larger, quiet space where more reasonable voices can fill the void.
From a sports perspective, Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey has often had one of those voices. And, recently, he lent it to some bigger picture issues.
When Pouncey recently spoke on some topics beyond football, he lived up to his reputation for honesty and free thought. Whether you liked his messages or not, Pouncey did something extremely rare these days.
He took a stance without needing to pick a side.
Speaking on 93.7 The Fan last week, Pouncey gave his opinions on the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer in May.
“We’ve got to bring awareness to police brutality,” Pouncey said Thursday. “And I’m full in with the police. Every city I’m in, I love the police. Some of my best friends are cops. But the ones that are bad, we’ve got to weed them out. That’s just common sense.”
Nah, it isn’t, Maurkice. Common sense ceased being common a long time ago.
Go ahead. You try tweeting what Pouncey just said. See how that goes.
In your first 100 responses, I bet you get 50 calling you a jerk for saying some cops need to be “weeded out” and 50 more telling you that you are a jerk for giving any cop the benefit of the doubt.
But Pouncey is 100% right in his assessment. And his money is where his mouth is. The foundation he runs with his twin brother, Mike, distributes game tickets to different police zones each week, allowing kids the opportunity to attend a game while interacting positively with police officers.
Pouncey also did what so few seemed willing to do regarding the topic of Drew Brees’ comments about potential player protests over the issue. He managed to disagree with Brees’ stance connecting the flag to the topic of police mistreatment of minorities, without condemning Brees as a human being.
“What is good about what’s happening is that it sparks more awareness. That’s what needs to happen in this world,” Pouncey said. “Everybody has a right to their opinion. You can be opinionated on anything you want to.”
To that point, Pouncey tried to affix some blame on the media for exacerbating the Brees story. On Monday, I disagreed with Pouncey’s assessment. But I get his premise.
And when it came to matters relating to covid-19 shutting down football, Pouncey didn’t pull any punches. Especially when the topic turned to the recovery rate for people under 60 years of age.
“We’ve locked down the world for as long as we can. This is a working country,” Pouncey said. “I get it. We’ve got to be as safe as possible. Yeah, we do. But for us not to come back and play sports? When we’re all young and healthy?
“I hope there ain’t no 60-year-old players out there playing football.”
A lot of NFL figures have garnered reputations as “go-to” people to get a message across with eloquence in front of a camera. Peyton Manning, Chris Long and Tony Dungy come to mind. Locally, Ramon Foster and Cameron Heyward, too.
When Pouncey talks to the media — and by extension to fans of the team — he doesn’t try to push his message across in polished soliloquies. He’s never tried to be a wordsmith. His soundbites are often 10 seconds or less. But when he’s fired up about a topic, he can string together two or three minutes of those 10-second cuts and deliver a Gettysburg Address you won’t soon forget.
Remember his rant after James Harrison sulked his way out of Pittsburgh and onto the New England Patriots roster in 2017? Or when Le’Veon Bell didn’t report to the Steelers in September 2018? How about his dismissal of concern for a suspension after he pummeled Myles Garrett following “Helmetgate” in 2019?
Pouncey has perfectly managed to be equal parts defender of the Black and Gold shield and, at the same time, a free-minded voice who could explode on any topic. He’s always had a knack of knowing how to say the “right thing for the room,” even if it’s not necessarily in an “FCC-friendly” kind of way.
Or when a politically correct soft touch would be the route most players would take.
*Bleep* political correctness.
Pouncey tends to say what he wants to say, when he is in the mood to say it. And he doesn’t particularly care how the words come out of his mouth.
Yet, they often make a lot of sense.
Last week was no different.
And his timing couldn’t have been better.