3 reasons Steelers wouldn’t dare bench QB Ben Roethlisberger in 2021
By Tommy Jaggi
Ben Roethlisberger is returning as the Steelers starting quarterback in 2021, but here’s why the team wouldn’t dare bench him even if things went south.
Recently, prominent ESPN analyst and former NFL general manager, Mike Tannenbaum, made a claim that has Pittsburgh Steelers fans up in arms. Not only does he believe that Ben Roethlisberger will be bad this year, but that he expects the future Hall of Fame quarterback to be ‘benched by the middle of the season.’
While I’m not denying that Roethlisberger’s play could potentially look troublesome (or even downright awful) at times, he should know the Steelers much better than this. Pittsburgh could decide to rest Big Ben when a game is out of hand one way or another, but there’s no chance he is straight-up benched this year. Here are three reasons why it’s not happening:
Steelers and Ben went through great lengths to come to an agreement
The first reason why we know that Roethlisberger isn’t getting benched this season is because of the hoops both sides had to jump through in order to make this work, to begin with. Ben was set to have the largest cap hit in the NFL this year but was determined to come back and took a pay cut to stick around.
Pittsburgh lost 5 starters on the offensive side of the ball this offseason but focused on the here and now when they grabbed skill players with their first two draft picks instead of electing to rebuild the trenches. This was certainly an effort to help give a boost to their aging quarterback.
After restructuring Roethlisberger’s contract in a way that sets up voidable years and a $10.3 million cap number when he won’t even be on the team next season, the Steelers aren’t benching him for any reason in 2021.