(Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images)
Through four games, Ben Roethlisberger looks pretty much finished. His accuracy has been off, he lacks mobility and he's been taking a beating behind an awful offensive line. He's also dealing with a left pectoral injury and a hip injury that he said is "black and blue."
Despite the poor play and injuries, Adam Schefter said on ESPN's Get Up yesterday that the Steelers are "never going to bench Roethlisberger. It's never going to get to that."
Jeremy Fowler followed up by saying that he got a "heck no" when he asked a source if the Steelers would bench Roethlisberger.
The Steelers don't have great options behind Roethlisberger, to say the least, in Mason Rudolph and Dwayne Haskins, but can they really do much worse than Roethlisberger right now?
Only two quarterbacks with 100-plus attempts this year have been worse than Roethlisberger (quarterback rating of 79.0): Trevor Lawrence (66.4) and Zach Wilson (51.6). Chris Mack of 93.7 The Fan also points out how Roethlisberger's stats are similar to Eli Manning's when he was benched by the Giants in 2019.
Former Giants executive and current NFL Network analyst Marc Ross was on 93.7 The Fan yesterday and said the Roethlisberger situation is very similar to Manning's.
"When I look at Ben, and you guys see it week to week, it’s just not there and you can blame a lot of things when you just watching him independent, the plays he has to make of everyone else, especially those 4th down plays. . . you know it’s time,” Ross said.
Roethlisberger has been getting the ball out quick the last two seasons and Ross says he saw Manning doing the same thing toward the end of his career.
“It’s just something internally that happens in the mind of those quarterbacks . . . they just want to get the ball and get it out of their hand as quickly as possible and despite the down and distance and the situation where they kind of just lose track of that and I think that’s just want happened,” Ross said.
JuJu Smith-Schuster took the blame for the two incompletions against the Packers that would have been big plays, the first would have been a for-sure touchdown. However, during the live broadcast, you can see Smith-Schuster saying that it was a "bad ball" on the second incompletion.
Ross believes behind closed doors, players are thinking that Roethlisberger's hurting the team with his accuracy issues and ill-advised passes.
“I guarantee you that there are some players that are like, ‘man, this guy can’t do it and he’s costing us games,' but you’ll never see that come out publically," Ross said.
Roethlisberger will have to improve his play drastically and he better do it quick. Starting on Sunday against the Broncos, which is really a must-win game, already in October.
If Roethlisberger continues to struggle, the Steelers must consider benching the future Hall of Fame quarterback or place him on injured reserve with an "injury." A theory that Rich Eisen, Mike Florio, Ike Taylor and others have mentioned. It might just be the best and most respectful route to end this all. It's just not fair to the rest of the team to have a struggling and limping Roethlisberger out there if he's not going to be productive. The rest of the players on the team matter too.
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