Ben Roethlisberger could be playing final season
The Pittsburgh Steelers reached the AFC Championship Game last year, only to fall short against the New England Patriots. This season, Pittsburgh takes another bite at the apple, hoping to get one step further before finishing the deal in Super Bowl XLII in Minneapolis.
If there wasn’t enough urgency to win it all, there should be after the comments made by quarterback Ben Roethlisberger on Friday. Roethlisberger, who casually considered retirement before the season began, has doubled down on his comments. The 35-year-old says this could be his last year, and while Roethlisberger has been prone to drama throughout his career, his comments make you pause. Per ESPN:
“I’ve been blessed to do this a long time,” Roethlisberger, 35, told the Post-Gazette. “I think it’s just seeing my kids growing up, and in the offseason I love getting to spend time with them, and then I come here and football season just has to take up so much of your time. Even when you get home, I try my best to turn it off when I walk in the front door. I think I do a pretty good job of that, but it still consumes you in a way.
“Just all those things combined — being healthy, being able to play catch with my kids. I feel good mentally, I know this new study that came out that 90 percent of players’ brains who were studied had CTE.
“There’s a lot of scary things, and I think my wife would be OK if I hung it up, too. But I still love the guys, I still love the game, so it was right for me to come back and give it everything I have this year.”
There’s a bevy of real reasons Roethlisberger gives here for hanging up the cleats. For starters, he talks about CTE, which has to be in the consciousness of every aware NFL player. Roethlisberger has taken a ton of hits throughout his career, so perhaps he is more aware of the danger than most.
He also talked about family. The two-time Super Bowl champion has young kinds at home and a wife who apparently wouldn’t mind seeing him retire. At some juncture, that becomes more and more of a factor.
If the Steelers win the Super Bowl this year, it would make ample sense for Roethlisberger to ride off into the sunset. Even if they don’t, he’s already put together a Hall of Fame resume that includes the aforementioned pair of titles. However, Roethlisberger is under contract through 2019, earning $46.4 million over the final two years.
The quarterback has a decision to make, but if he isn’t fueled by more money, it might be an easy one.
