Ben Roethlisberger challenges Steelers offensive leaders to step up, fears team’s rich tradition ‘is done’

Every NFL team has traditions, but few revere them like the Pittsburgh Steelers do. Ben Roethlisberger, however, fears that may no longer be the case. 

Pittsburgh’s former quarterback and future Hall of Fame inductee doesn’t think that the team’s traditions have been passed down to current members of the offense, who are part of a unit that has been under siege seemingly all season. Roethlisberger, who retired after the 2021 season, said the team’s traditions were not passed down to the offense’s new leaders when he left the way they were given to him when Jerome Bettis and others left the locker room early in his career. 

“Maybe the tradition of the Pittsburgh Steelers is done,” Roethlisberger said on the latest edition of his podcast. “Maybe it needs to be formed a new kind of way. I don’t know.” 

Specifically, Roethlisberger wants someone on the offense to carry on the Steelers tradition. 

“Who is grabbing someone by the face mask and saying, ‘That’s not what we do.’ Is that happening? Yes, you have guys on defense doing it but you need guys on other sides of the ball doing it. … You need someone to stand up in that room, on offense, and be like, ‘Hey, this isn’t what it means to wear the black and gold. This isn’t what has been handed down from those teams of the ’70s. The Steel Curtain, the four Super Bowls, the Nolls, the Bradshaws, the Blounts. All those people, it’s unbelievable.

“I understand the further you get away from that, the harder it is unless it’s being passed down and carried the right way.” 

Roethlisberger said that he had no option but to listen to the team’s leaders and follow in line during his initial years with the team. He doesn’t think that the case now, at least on the offensive side of the ball. 

“It just feels like that’s something that’s been lost on this team,” he said. “I’ve felt that certain guys on the team aren’t in it for the…

Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/ben-roethlisberger-challenges-steelers-offensive-leaders-to-step-up-fears-teams-rich-tradition-is-done/

Author : Bryan DeArdo

Publish date : 2023-12-12 22:58:03

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.