The Pittsburgh Steelers will head into the 2022 season with someone other than Ben Roethlisberger slated to serve as the team’s starting quarterback for the first time in quite a while. Roethlisberger retired at the end of the 2021 NFL season, marking the end of an 18-year career that very well could lead to him getting enshrined in Canton somewhere in the not-too-distant future.
As it turns out, Roethlisberger might not have been all that on board with the idea of calling it a career. During a chat with readers earlier this week, Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was asked about the circumstances of Roethlisberger’s retirement, and apparently, there some tension between the player and the only team for which he suited up in his NFL career.
Billy Bob: Is there bad blood between the Steelers and Big Ben with how his career ended. Was he ready to retire or was it a Troy [Polamalu] type situation where he was forced into it?
Gerry Dulac: I would say it’s very very safe to assume that.
Roethlisberger, who just turned 40, was very obviously a shell of his former self during the final few years of his career, as age and injuries both looked like they caught up with him. The two-time Super Bowl winner completed 64.5 percent of his passes for 3,740 yards, 22 touchdowns, and 10 interceptions, but his mobility and ability to throw down the field just did not exist. As a result, his career is over, while the Steelers will turn to one of Mason Rudolph, free agent signing Mitchell Trubisky, or first-round draft pick Kenny Pickett with the hopes that one will become his successor.