Pittsburgh Steelers fans are anxious to see how Ben Roethlisberger’s elbow will hold up this sesaon. Here’s why the news is all good so far.
Steelers fans aren’t used to a team that loses. We haven’t dealt with a losing season since 2003 – before Mike Tomlin became head coach and before Ben Roethlisberger was drafted. But last year nearly pushed us to our breaking points.
Despite possessing a defense that finished top 6 in the NFL in every statistical category, the Steelers, led by Mason Rudolph and Devlin Hodges, dropped three straight games to close the season last year and yet again fells short of the playoffs.
The story of the offseason for Pittsburgh has obviously been Roethlisberger’s health and whether or not he would be able to trow like he used to. Though we are still very early into training camp, all signs seem to be pointed up.
According to Brooke Pryor of ESPN, Ben Roethlisberger ‘feels good’ and is ready for the 2020 sesaon. Here’s some of what the Steelers star quarterback had to say following his first full practice, according to the ESPN article:
"“My arm feels really, really good. Threw a lot of balls yesterday. Waking up today to see how it’s going to feel, and it feels great. That’s kind of what I anticipated. We’ve been working more than usual in the offseason in terms of throwing. I’ve put together a regime of two to three days per week of throwing for the last probably two months, if not longer than that. I think the plan is to kind of pitch-count, if you will, through training camp.”"
While Roethlisberger is currently feeling great, offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner acknowledged that they may have to limit his usage in practice. Still, Ben’s words provide fans with the affirmation we wanted to hear.
Unfortunately, between practices and games, Ben will throw the ball thousands of times between now and the end of the season, and it’s unclear how his throwing elbow will hold up through it all.
Ben admitted that while he did not have Tommy John surgery, his elbow injury was still very serious. Here’s what he had to say about his torn flexor tendons:
"“They sew through the tendon, and they reattach it to an anchor in your elbow. As far as I am aware, it’s happened to just kind of everyday people on the street, if you will.”From what I’ve been told, it’s never happened to a quarterback of this magnitude. I believe there was at least another quarterback that had one, maybe two torn off, but from what I understand, not three.”"
Knowing that Ben Roethlisberger is perhaps the only quarterback to come back from having three flexor tendons torn off the bone, this doesn’t give us a lot of confidence. We also don’t really have a sample size of success stories or know how much or how little we should expect from the Super Bowl-winning quarterback this year.
The good news is that Ben is healthy right now and that everything is feeling good.
While we don’t know what’s going to happen to Roethlisberger as the sesaon goes on, we can only hope that his surgically repaired elbow holds up so that the Steelers can make perhaps one of their final Super Bowl runs with Big Ben at the helm.