Pros and cons of Steelers keeping Ben Roethlisberger for 2021 season

Cons of keeping Ben Roethlisberger

As of now, it seems like it is easy to think of all of the cons of keeping Big Ben around for another season. Again, because of all the money he is counting for against the cap next year, Ben is going to have to walk away on his own terms or Pittsburgh will have to force his hand and save nearly half of his $41.25 million cap hit. But even if they are forced to eat $22.25 million in dead cap space this coming season, according to Over the Cap, it may still be worth it if it means that Roethlisberger isn’t there in 2021.

In 2020, Ben finished as one of the least-efficient quarterbacks in the league in terms of his advanced passing stats, according to PlayerProfiler.com, and he was largely responsible for an offense that couldn’t even muster up 20 points per game over the last six contests.

The reality of the situation is that 2020 was the last real chance Ben Roethlisberger was going to have of getting this team back to the Super Bowl. The Steelers are in a bad way financially and they will be losing a lot of players this offseason – quite likely including JuJu Smith-Schuster and Bud Dupree. Now that Ben will be another year older next season with probably a worse roster, it’s unreasonable to think that he will be much better (if any) than the player we saw in 2020.

Ben Roethlisberger and the Steelers both have a very important decision to make about who will be Pittsburgh’s quarterback in 2021. The Hall of Fame passer has been contemplating retirement for a few years, but maybe this time it would be in the best interest of both parties involved if he were to call it quits.