The Pittsburgh Steelers are less than a week away from formally turning the page from Ben Roethlisberger to Mitch Trubisky and eventually Kenny Pickett, ending an 18-year run that yielded two Super Bowl titles and a third appearance.
Evidently, Roethlisberger wasn’t quite ready to go quietly into that good night. In case you’ve been living under a rock, the future Hall-of-Famer spoke with the Post-Gazette’s Ron Cook about a wide range of subjects pertaining to his Steelers career.
If Roethlisberger, always savvy about getting his message out, thought that his words would be viewed in the court of public opinion as a surgical, justified airing of grievances with the only franchise he’s ever known, he miscalculated. It came off more like a Hail Mary, a last-gasp effort to lay blame for anything that went wrong with the team during his tenure at everyone’s feet but his own.
His gripes ranged from semi-valid – his Super Bowl XLIII winning pass to Santonio Holmes doesn’t get enough credit compared to Holmes’ catch (true, but only outside of Pittsburgh) – to tone-deaf and devoid of self-awareness, particularly when he bemoaned the Steelers’ transition from a team-oriented group into a me-first outfit.
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Were Antonio Brown, Le’Veon Bell and others “me-first” at times? Sure. No one argues that they weren’t. Roethlisberger was right there with them, though, even if he wasn’t all over social media.
Anytime he spoke to the media, in the locker room or on his 93.7 The Fan radio show, every ear in Pittsburgh was perked up, waiting to hear what he would say. He was remarkably compelling, because he hardly ever fell back on tired clichés, but his comments frequently had a self-serving bent.
Often, he was throwing shade at teammates, whether it was Brown for running “too flat” of a route against Denver, or Mason Rudolph for having the audacity to – hold on, let me check my notes – be drafted by the team.
That’s me-first behavior by any definition. Early-career Roethlisberger engaged in it, too. Remember his habit of riding a motorcycle without a helmet? That’s putting yourself at risk of injury, despite you being extremely important to the team. I can’t imagine his teammates were too thrilled with that sort of thing in those early days, even as he was having immediate, huge success on the field.
One other thing; this transition to more of a “me-first” mentality happened when Roethlisberger finally ascended to the role of locker room leader, a title he really didn’t have until after Troy Polamalu’s retirement. That’s not to say that Mike Tomlin isn’t responsible for the team’s culture – he is – but so too was Roethlisberger. Lead by example, and all that.
He also spoke of how players are coddled in the modern era, making sure to note that Terry Hoeppner, his coach at Miami of Ohio, as well as Bill Cowher, never coddled him. College coach-player dynamics are different than in the pros, and Cowher never coddled Roethlisberger because he only coached him for three years, and Roethlisberger was a relative pup on a team chock full of veterans and leaders.
If that was a subtle jab at Tomlin, I’m confused. What was the head coach supposed to do, crack the whip on his highest-paid player? I’d like to have seen that happen, mainly because I suspect Roethlisberger would not have taken it well, and it would have done exponentially more harm than good.
Roethlisberger’s comments about Kevin Colbert might have been the most misguided of all, and going after Colbert, a Pittsburgher’s Pittsburgher, might be the simplest explanation for the immediate public backlash.
Roethlisberger implied that of the Tomlin-Colbert-Art Rooney II braintrust, Colbert was the one readiest to move on at quarterback after the 2020 season, that Tomlin was “a little ready” to move on, and that Rooney was the reason he was brought back.
I just don’t get that at all. Forget about all the money the Steelers paid Roethlisberger over the years – it is $267,286,864 per Spotrac, if you really wanted to know – and even Colbert’s infamous “Ben and 52 kids” comment of a few years back. Think of all the times Colbert, and really the entire organization, stood by Roethlisberger in his early years when his successes on the field were matched only by his repeated embarrassments away from it.
From a football standpoint, Colbert was also perfectly reasonable to want to move on after 2020. Roethlisberger might feel he played well last year, but his 86.8 passer rating (league average: 90.8) and an abysmal 35.6 QBR – by far the lowest of his career over a full season – suggests otherwise.
In no way, shape or form have the Steelers or Colbert ever done wrong by Roethlisberger. Quite the opposite. They forced Roethlisberger’s close friend Bruce Arians into a retirement that was anything but, but Arians’ coaching philosophy was going to dramatically shorten Roethlisberger’s career.
They eventually cut loose Todd Haley because Roethlisberger didn’t like him, despite the fact that Roethlisberger took fewer hits and put up big numbers in Haley’s offense. Haley’s replacement? Randy Fichtner, a Roethlisberger friend who was out of his depth as coordinator.
Roethlisberger’s only gripe with Colbert would be that he hasn’t always made perfect draft picks, but no general manager does, and with plenty of other needs to address, he went out and got Roethlisberger two shiny new skill-position talents – Najee Harris and Pat Freiermuth – in the first two rounds of last year’s draft.
Ben Roethlisberger is entitled to his opinions, and his status as a two-time Super Bowl winner and future Hall of Famer means that he’ll always have a platform to make them public whenever he feels like it. But if he wants to assign blame for the Steelers’ shortcomings over the last half of his career, there’s another place he should look in addition to his teammates, coaches and general manager.
A mirror.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ben Roethlisberger: Recent comments display lack of accountability