You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The Rob Bironas case.
So much of it just doesn’t add up.
In case you haven’t been following the news out of Music City; Rob Bironas is a former Titan’s kicker. He was one of the best kickers with one of the strongest legs in NFL history. But the Tennessee Titans cut him this year. He tried to catch on with Tampa and Detroit, but to no avail. In the meantime, he got married a few months ago. Rachel Bradshaw is a cute blond, a wanna-be country singer, also the daughter of Pittsburgh Steeler legend, Terry Bradshaw.
So on Saturday night, reports start filtering in that Bironas died in a single vehicle crash on Battery Lane, in an upscale section of Nashville.
The crash site quickly becomes a make shift memorial with flowers and Titan flags.
Police will say he was traveling at a high rate of speed on a narrow, dark road. He flipped, sawed off a couple of trees and landed upside down in a ditch.
He was pronounced dead at Vanderbilt Medical Center.
That was Saturday night.
By Sunday it was on all the NFL pre-game shows.
Terry Bradshaw was noticeably absent on NFL FOX Sunday. His comrades said he was flying back to Nashville to be with his daughter.
By Monday, the image of a good guy, a charitable guy, a great kicker, was starting to give way to something else.
Suddenly Rob Bironas was being associated with road rage and mystery and anger.
It starts with a 911 call from people who reportedly got into a moving altercation with the former Titan moments before his death.
The woman is panting and frantic as she tells 911 that some man in a white SUV is driving erratically and staring at them. She ponders aloud whether he is on drugs or alcohol.
A supplemental police report will show that the couple pulled over to let the Denali he is driving get by. But the report indicates that Bironas stops and glares. The man in the other car gets out and begins to walk around his car, to see what the man in the white SUV’s problem is. That’s when the couple says Bironas floors it. The couple is shocked by the craziness, the suddenness of the moment. They pause, waiting a moment to catch their breath. That’s all it takes to die, a moment. By the time they get down the road, the white SUV is upside down in a culvert and Bironas is dead.
So now the spectre of road rage is out in the public.
That same day, I break the story of Bironas’ wife calling to report a missing person’s report.
A missing person’s report?
She says she last saw him at 10:30pm?
He died at 11:03 pm.
Who files a missing person’s report when someone is only gone 33 minutes?
Rachel Bradshaw will tell investigators Bironas said good night around 10:30 pm.
She says she assumed he was going to bed.
For some reason, a few minutes later, the report doesn’t say why, but she starts looking for him. She says she can’t find him. She calls him several times. She calls relatives. No one has seen him.
Odd behavior for someone who was simply going to bed.
She says the couple had not been fighting or drinking and this is unlike him.
The next day the plot thickens. The Tennessean reports that 4 belmont students encountered a white SUV in that area at that time. The young caller describes the driver of the white SUV as bald, which Bironas is. The Belmont students called 911 as they were fleeing in fear, reporting events that took place at approximately 10:45 pm Saturday night.
911 what is the address of your emergency?
MALE CALLER: um, we’re on Franklin Pike right now, we’re on Franklin Pike right now and there’s another car. My name is Connor Fraley, we’re on Franklin Pike. There’s a white SUV. We’re approaching Wedgewood. There’s a white SUV behind us. He is literally trying to hit us right now. We pulled next to him at a stoplight and I told him that something was burning in his exhaust, and he started calling us an asshole and he’s following us right now. He’s been swerving all over the road. We’re trying to avoid him, but he’s literally doing whatever it takes to hit us right now.
approximately 2 minutes into the call, the students say they spot a police car with blue lights lighting up the white SUV.
CALLER: “There’s a police car right behind him! Right now. I think. White SUV, yep, that’s him, that’s him, you guys got him right there.”
If the police stopped him as the caller said, then how does he end up getting into a road rage encounter with the couple and then drive off the road some 10 minutes later?
Something doesn’t add up and every news source in town is scrambling.
What are the police hiding is the common theme?
This is a Titan’s town. The police have been known to look the other way for Titans before.
Can anyone say Steve McNair?
The questions are so thick, the police put out a qualifying statement.
“During the call, the student, whose vehicle continued to be in motion, says that he believes the police are stopping the white SUV. He makes that reference at 10:48 p.m. He further makes a reference to blue lights at 10:48 p.m. At the time of those references, the student was still on the phone with the 911 operator. Officers in the field had not, at that point, received any information about the white SUV. The first call on the crash at 890 Battery Lane came at 11:02 p.m. Between 10:48 p.m. and 11:02p.m., it appears Bironas left the 10th & Acklen area, headed to Franklin Pike and traveled south where he got into an altercation with another motorist.”
The police are at a loss to explain what blue lights the Belmont students saw, but they are adamant they were not police cars pulling the former Titan over.
The scent of something awry is in the air. The public information office further qualifies the story: “Additionally, the police department’s computer systems have been queried. There is no record whatsoever of any officer running the license plate on the Bironas SUV until after 11:30 p.m. from the crash scene. It is standard procedure to query license plate information during a vehicle stop.”
I will call neighboring Berry Hill P.D. and ask the chief if his officers stopped any white SUV’s in that time frame. The department is small. He checks. He says they did not.
Spokespeople for Belmont University also indicate they played no role in the Bironas case.
Finally there is the conflicting 911 call made by Bironas’ wife. The written report indicates it was taken at 10:30 pm. She indicates her husband went to bed and then she noticed he was missing and then she called police and they responded and by the time they left they were learning of the crash.
But the 911 call made by the woman indicates she placed the call at 11:40 pm. and in her discussion with the dispatcher the wife says the last time she talked to Rob Bironas was “2 hours ago.”
MESSY AND INCONSISTENT is what this story is.
But at the end of the day; it’s a one car fatality. Thankfully nobody else was hurt. The investigation will wind down and there will be little call for answers to some of these questions. Why? Some say because he’s a Titan and the Nashville police always protect Titans. I believe it’s because no matter what the answers, nobody else was harmed in a single car wreck. And whether the wife was lieing or upset doesn’t matter. It’s not really a crime.
Some in the public will long talk about the Bironas investigation with a sense of mystery and intrigue. Words like so sad will be juxtaposed with words like cover up and “it doesn’t make sense.”
I was interviewed on KABC radio this morning. They interviewed me about this case for 7 minutes. The co-hosts came out of the gate swinging. Their first question?
“Do you think Bironas was high? On PCP or crack?”
I laughed and spoke about the police report and the investigation.
I told the L.A. radio team that he was a beloved man in the community and this doesn’t add up.
“Maybe he just went crazy after he didn’t get another kicking job,” the L.A. announcer wails on tirelessly.
I exhale deeply and wait for her linguistic gyrations to abate.
Rob Bironas, what the hell were you thinking?
Cover up?
Just another sad tale of someone not realizing how good they have it till it’s too late.
Life’s Crazy™