A couple nights ago I tuned in to ESPN to catch the 6 o'clock Sportscenter. I was hoping to catch up on all the day's baseball games, the Stanley Cup Finals, and the upcoming NBA Finals. But that's not what I watched and it nearly made me throw up the leftover hot dogs and hamburgers I was chowing down on.

What I got was a solid six or seven minutes of coverage on Ben Roethlisberger to open the show. It doesn't matter that two major sports (hockey and basketball) are in the midst of their respective championships. The "big" story was Roethlisberger's return to the practice field.

I understand that this is a pretty captivating and key story in the NFL world...but we are months and months away from real football and, honestly, is there really anything new or interesting in the Roethlisberger saga to report on? Is the situation that much different now that he put on a pair of shorts and threw a few passes to Hines Ward? I don't think it is.

What really frustrates me is that this is how it's going to be for this entire season -- and maybe longer. If ESPN, Yahoo, and all the local papers are making this big of a deal about Big Ben returning to practice, then the opening of training camp will be just as big of a circus. So will all the preseason games. Same goes for Charlie Batch/Dennis Dixon's play. When Roethlisberger returns to the field, it will be even worse. And when he has his first really good or really bad game, that's all we'll hear about.

I think the real victims of all of this are the other Steelers players and Steeler fans who, you know, actually care about other players than Ben Roethlisberger and would like to hear about other things on ocassion. I want to read about Rashard Mendenhall's progession to an offensive leader. I want to read about the health of Troy Polamalu. I want to read about the return of Antwaan Randle-El and Larry Foote.

I don't want to read anything else about Ben Roethlisberger. Unfortunately, Wendi Nix is lurking around the team's facility waiting to report what he ate for dinner and whether or not he shaved this morning.

Please. Make. It. Stop.

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