The Steelers have a very difficult decision to make at quarterback. Here are the pros and cons of keeping Ben Roethlisberger for the 2021 season.
It didn’t take long for the Steelers to make some significant moves after suffering an embarrassing loss to the Cleveland Browns in the Wild Card round of the playoffs. On January 14th, NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero broke the news that offensive coordinator, Randy Fichtner, would not be returning to Pittsburgh for the 2021 season. Exiting with him was offensive line coach, Shaun Sarrett, and defensive backs coach, Tom Bradley.
While fans will be excited to see who the next offensive coordinator is going to be, Fichtner’s firing immediately made me think of the future of Ben Roethlisberger. Though he obviously hasn’t announced his retirement yet, I can’t imagine him wanting to start over with a new offense and a new coordinator at the age of 39. Perhaps an in-house hiring like Matt Canada can convince him to stay, but we don’t know for sure that the Steelers want him back after his collapse over the final 6 weeks of the season and into the playoffs.
The Steelers scored just 19.6 points per game since Week 12, and they only managed 3 games of 30-plus points all season long. Still, despite their struggles this year, there is a list of both pros and cons for if Roethlisberger decided to stay for one more season.
While my gut tells me that it’s time for Pittsburgh to move on, not everything is going to be easy after moving on from Big Ben. Still, with a $41.25 million cap hit, he will have to make that decision on his own. Here are the pros and cons of keeping Ben Roethlisberger for the 2021 season: