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Steelers Show Commitment To Ben Roethlisberger

By Craig Gottschalk

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The Steelers probably signed the largest contract they are ever going to sign for a long time.

On Friday, the team and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger agreed to terms on a new five year deal that will keep Roethlisberger in a Steelers uniform through 2019. Presumably for the rest of his career, as the term “retire a Steeler” has been thrown around about this contract.

Would the Steelers ever sign Big Ben to an extension? What ever happened to that trade rumor? For a year and a half, it’s all we heard about from the media, the bloggers, and the conspiracy theorists.

All of that was put to bed… rather put out to pasture Old Yeller style and mercilessly put out of its misery on Friday.

The Steelers are keeping Ben for good. Ben wants to stay in Pittsburgh for good.  The Steelers are 100% committed to #7.

The signing is huge. Monumental. Not because of the money. No way.

Roethlisberger’s contract isn’t the deal of the century. The only thing record breaking about his contract is the $65 million over the first three years of the deal (2015-17).

That’s some nice cash flow for a quarterback who deserves every concession the Steelers could realistically make. The contract puts Ben near the top in average salary per year with the rest of the quarterbacks in the league.

What makes this contract so big for the Steelers is that it shows how committed they are to making sure Ben got the deal that he wanted and was willing to sign without any cringes or regrets.

This contract was supposed to ‘restructure’ his 2015 salary in order to free up a ton of cap space. That’s what everyone was waiting for. That’s what would make them better players in the free agency market.

The cap savings for the new 2015 portion of this contract? A little over $1 million.  That’s it.

Bingo.

As of this post, details of the year to year have yet to be released. Presumably, the cap hits could be astronomical near the end. Yet, somehow I seriously doubt that.

Both sides understood that in order for this to work, Ben would need to get the pay he deserved AND allow the team to have the finances to secure other blockbuster players on their roster. Remember – Antonio Brown, Le’Veon Bell, and numerous others who are staples on this team will need re-signed before 2019.

Ben has always been committed to the Steelers and to this town. The Steelers showed that in kind.

An elite quarterback with a contract that not only serves his economic interests but also not breaking the bank.

Think Ben deserves more? Perhaps he could have squeezed out $10 million or more if he really wanted to. But, I think he and the rest of the front office quickly saw this dumpster fire that started smoking after Joe Flacco and the Ravens signed his monster deal.

Now it’s a full fledged five-alarm’er out there, and the team is dumping its roster and losing other players to free agency because they can’t even afford to keep the water boy at this point.

Take solace, Steeler Nation. Ben Roethlisberger is the Steelers quarterback for the next five seasons, and there’s bound to be some Super Bowls mixed in with them.

Next: Who Would You Trade Big Ben For?

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