Why Steelers should go ‘all-in’ with ‘Big Ben’ at the helm in 2021

The Steelers Super Bowl window is still open but is closing incrementally which the time to go ‘all-in’ is now

With the recent comments made by Steelers President Art Rooney II, you have to feel pretty good right now that we will do whatever we can do in terms of fielding the best team we can field in 2021.  In my opinion, our best team is a team with Ben Roethlisberger, our future Hall of Fame QB, at the helm.

Make no mistake, it is going to take a monumental effort from both Roethlisberger and from the Steelers to assure that ‘Big Ben’ will play for us this season.  His cap hit is frankly enormous and must be lowered by any means necessary. I think it’s fair to say that both sides are amenable to making that happen.

So what would it take to assure that we have our future Hall of Fame QB and a viable team around him in 2021?  That’s a good question to which I may not have a good answer as I am not privy to the inner workings of the Steelers front office.

What I can tell you is that based on the comments made by our team President, I think it’s fair to say the Steelers understand, as all Steelers fans should understand, that our best shot at winning another Lombardi Trophy begins and ends with ‘Big Ben’.

The Steelers have a legitimate chance to win another Super Bowl if we commit to ‘Big Ben’ as our QB

I don’t think it’s a very controversial statement to make that the Steelers have a Super Bowl contending team that needs to have our franchise QB under center to afford us the opportunity to win another Lombardi Trophy.  So what would the Steelers have to do to go ‘all-in’ and commit to ‘Big Ben’? To me, going ‘all-in’ would look something like the following:

Either restructure or completely renegotiate the current contract of ‘Big Ben’ so that we get cap relief and we get our future Hall of Fame QB for as long as he wants to play; restructure the contracts of players who we deem as ‘go forward’ players, meaning the players who are in the current and future plans; revamp the O-line to assure that ‘Big Ben’ stays upright; re-sign our own free agents with the newfound salary cap from the aforementioned restructuring and, lastly, draft the best players available when our turn comes around.

The above-mentioned sounds easy, but, we all know that when it comes to manipulating the salary cap and re-signing or extending players, what sounds easy is not easy.  What is easy is the decision to give it at least one more year with ‘Big Ben’ as our QB, which is why I say the time is now to do whatever we have to do to assure that the Steelers field a Super Bowl contending team this year and every year thereafter.

For those of you who would rather move on from ‘Big Ben’, I have only this to offer.  The decades between Terry Bradshaw and Roethlisberger were a ‘roller coaster’ ride, to say the least.  There were years where every Steelers fan know the best we were going to do was 8-8; there were years that were full of promise, but that promise was quickly deflated because of poor QB play at the worst possible time, e.g. in the playoffs or in the AFC Championship game.

I say the Steelers go ‘all-in’ with ‘Big Ben’ and let the chips fall where they may.