On Wednesday, Pittsburgh Steelers fans saw Joey Porter air some of the franchise’s dirty laundry, as the former Steeler player and coach called out legendary quarterback Ben Roethlisberger as a bad teammate.
“If we’re talking Steelers business, his (expletive) is foul of all foul. The (expletive) that he did is foul of all foul. He’s not a good teammate,” Porter said on Cam Heyward’s podcast, Not Just Football. “Won a Super Bowl with him, but the person? He’s just not a good teammate. He knows that. Anybody in the Steeler building knows that. But we protected him because I’ve only won one Super Bowl, and that was my quarterback. So do I love my quarterback? Yeah. But is he a good person? No.”
Unfortunately for many Steelers fans, the reality is that Porter didn’t say much that fans didn’t already know about Roethlisberger.
Roethlisberger’s off-field controversies continue to shadow his on-field greatness for the Pittsburgh Steelers
Steelers fans have long held a contentious relationship with Roethlisberger.
On one hand, he is undoubtedly the greatest quarterback in franchise history, even if Terry Bradshaw doesn’t want to hear it. He delivered two Super Bowl championships to the Steel City, reached a third championship appearance, and played his entire career with the franchise, stacking records and accolades along the way.
On the other hand, his past is dark. Steelers fans have had little choice but to defend Roethlisberger for years, whether by sticking with his on-field performance or backing the quarterback when he began to repair his public image later in his career.
That has been an icky feeling for the better part of two decades that Steelers fans have had to shoulder. Roethlisberger was never criminally charged for his two sexual assault allegations and only earned a league suspension from the second instance. But his conduct was already questionable after the motorcycle crash and accounts of him throwing around his celebrity weight with cliched statements like, ‘Do you know who I am?’
Many of us own Roethlisberger jerseys or cried alongside the quarterback when he left Acrisure Stadium for the final time, knowing full well what was likely going to happen in Kansas City the next week. I’m in both of those boats myself. But those of us in those boats know that Porter’s comments are just another reminder of how difficult it is to support the greatest quarterback in this franchise’s history.
There’s a special place for Roethlisberger, the player, in nearly every Steelers fan’s heart, but the man has always had a harder place to define. He stopped getting in trouble, yes, but late in his career, he also made decisions and acted in such a way that made it clear that he wasn’t interested in helping the Steelers find his successor. The franchise is still trying to sort that out, and Roethlisberger has been retired for four seasons.
This time next year, we’ll begin wondering if Roethlisberger will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 2027. He absolutely deserves to be in the Hall for his individual accomplishments, his impact on the game, and his Super Bowl resume. But in the wake of Bill Belichick being left off his first eligible ballot largely because of cheating scandals, then Roethlisberger must surely be held in a similar light for his allegations off the field.
Regardless, Porter’s comments met the rest of the NFL with excitement. Roethlisberger isn’t particularly popular outside of Pittsburgh. As for Pittsburgh, Porter simply voiced what many Steelers fans feel about their former quarterback: For better or worse, he was the quarterback, and he was hard to defend, on and off the field.