Here's Pickwatch's regular newshound column, trying to make sense of the vacuous offseason speculation in the media. This week, Mike Florio tries to get Ben Roethlisberger a raise, Ashley Fox repeats every cliché in NFL draft history, and the USA Today crew set themselves up for a lifetime of pain by trying to rationalize the Browns front office decisions.
If you have a story, a series of stories or any type of NFL media-related news to share, why not drop us a line and see your name featured on this page. Thanks to David Holmes and Jon York for submissions this week.

Cottage Industry

We hate to turn any post into a PFT-bashing exercise, but actually that's complete rubbish. We do enjoy reading PFT, but we find that quite often, they're not exactly the impartial observers they claim to be.

And here's why.

PFT has long specialized in the 'half-baked crackpot theory' field of 'journalism' that, let's face it, is pretty much all we have left in the internet era. In particular, you can always tell a real click-generator by how partial the site's editor Mike Florio is to take control of the posts on a given subject. In many ways, Florio's guessing game drives reactions from the players and teams involved, which in turn gives the guys at PFT even more fuel for their fire.

It's always nice, then, to follow those story arcs to their logical conclusion and see exactly how things pan out.

AND HERE'S WHY: THEY'RE INVARIABLY COMPLETE GARBAGE.

With that, let's look at PFT's coverage of Ben Roethisberger's status with the Steelers.

To summarize, someone made up a story about Big Ben wanting out of Pittsburgh last November. The crux of the matter is that the whole thing was badly reported from all sides. Ian Rapoport of NFL Network covered himself in something other than glory, Mike Silver (sorry dude) managed to get caught up in the whole 'ask a player a question-get an answer-pretend it is meaningful or reflects the view of the whole organization' game, and then Florio decided to simply sit on the sidelines and stir the pot.

But what of the protagonists? Well, Dejan Kovacevic of TribLive managed to speak to owner Art Rooney and Roethlisberger, who denied it completely - and with enough force to convince even the most cynical of NFL observers:

"It's ridiculous" - Art Rooney II

"On a scale of 1-10 it's like -1,000,000, it's crazy, honestly' - Ben Roethlisberger

A fairly open and shut case, you might think, but if you did think that, you'd be underestimating the ability of Mike Florio to try and push his own theory. Here's a selection of the many headlines and complete rubbish generated by this one piece of complete crap.

NFLN keeps driving wedge between Steelers, Roethlisberger

Roethlisberger keeps talking about how he doesn’t want to talk about trade rumor

Roethlisberger lashes out again at ongoing reports of discord

Haley, Roethlisberger relationship moves closer to the spotlight in Pittsburgh

Rooney on Roethlisberger trade rumors: “It’s ridiculous”

Big Ben is riled up, again

Steelers apparently content to carry $18.895 million cap number for Roethlisberger

Roethlisberger, Haley friction returns

The piece de resistance? This amazing quote from Florio on November 18th:

"At a time when the network partially owned by the Steelers has crafted a cottage industry out of the possibility that franchise quarterback Ben Roethlisberger will be traded..."

Ok Mike. Someone else is creating a cottage industry out of these rumors you say? Best get on their case.

Oh, and anyone want to guess why the following scoop was given to Josh Alper, rather than Florio?

Kevin Colbert: Steelers “unanimous” on wanting Roethlisberger for rest of his career

The $20m Question

When is $20m not $20m? The answer is, of course, when it is $16m.

Said Mike Florio of Ben Roethlisberger's contract on Nov 10th 2013:

"Ben’s recent insistence that Tom Brady must be regarded as the best quarterback in the game because he has three Super Bowl wins carries a clear implication that Roethlisberger sees himself as tied for No. 2 with Eli Manning."

Ok, that's pretty logical. Even if we weren't talking money, it's reasonable to think Ben was trying to emphasise his own achievements. However, Florio appears to have forgotten the Eli comparison a week later:

"Rapoport also mentioned that which we believe is at the heart of the situation: Roethlisberger’s contract. He’s due to make $12.1 million in 2014 and $11.6 million in 2015. Players at the top of the quarterback market — all of whom have fewer than two Super Bowl wins — are at or above $20 million per year."

But if Ben considers himself level with Eli... and Eli makes $16m on average... surely he'd be satisfied with somewhere around that? Does that not make more sense? We're confused where this $20m figure has come from, as it appears to originate from this story by Jason Cole of the National Football Post:

"A contract the 31-year-old Roethlisberger would expect to be north of $20 million per season, putting him in line with fellow quarterbacks Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco."

Unfortunately, this story appears to be entirely Cole's opinion, and we don't understand how this has become a 'Ben wants $20m' story - except of course, because it is a better headline than 'man expects reasonable compensation as he is quite good at his job'

Tom Brady Super Bowl wins: 3

Tom Brady's average salary: $13m

Ben Roethlisberger Super Bowl wins: 2

Ben Roethlisberger's average salary: $14.6m

Whatever Florio's selling on this subject, we aren't buying it.

Character Flaws
If you've been wondering what the puff-piece writers of ESPN's Insider section think about the draft, then Ashley Fox's latest article on the character vs talent debate will leave you frankly shocked. What hard hitting expose has Fox come up with for the paying customers of ESPN? Well... erm...

"Talent always trumps character," one AFC general manager said."
"Some accept the risk of taking a player with a questionable background, either because the head coach has ultimate power and wants to win now or because the organization believes it has the structure and the locker room to handle it. Others simply won't."
"__Some players with character issues coming out of college, like Dallas wide receiver [Dez Bryant](http://espn.go.com/nfl/player//id/13215/dez-bryant), have panned out. Others didn't have character issues in college, like Denver's Von Miller, and still ran into problems."_
_"It is an imperfect science, for sure__"_
"Character should be part of the equation regardless of the player's talent. In most cases, it isn't. That's when talent trumps character, even though it should not."
So NFL teams have regularly taken risks on players with character issues that haven't panned out, and the draft is an imperfect science.
Great. Cheers Ashley.

Oh, and if you're writing a piece about why teams should take character issues into account more often, then perhaps don't use the Rams - who have drafted three players in the last two years with character question marks against them - as an example. Especially when all three have been solid performers who have not been in trouble since being drafted.

Slight Reach

Says Mel Kiper of the Lions taking Odell Beckham Jr. at no.10 in his latest mock:

"If their board looks at all like mine, I think both corner and safety (both needs) could be a slight reach here"

Which would be great, except that Kiper then has the Titans taking a CB with the very next pick.

And the Rams taking a Safety at 13

And the Bears taking a CB at 14

And the Cowboys taking a Safety at 16

Number of mentions of reaches in those blurbs: 0

This is the Important Part...

Adam Schefter is answering draft questions, and here he is providing us with a fascinating insight into the mindset of the Rams front office when trying to trade down:

"The issue is, the Rams have to get compensation they want and -- this is the important part -- wind up in a position in which they are comfortable enough to still be able to land a player they value."

Well, that de-bunks our theory that the Rams would trade down for inadequate compensation in return, and be in position to draft a player they didn't value at their new draft slot.

Silly Question of the week:
Here's the burning question in the USATODAY office:

"Why might Vince Young make sense for the Browns?"

We'd advise against trying to make sense of anything that happens in Cleveland, guys.