Ben Roethlisberger is just a few months into retirement, but he’s already ruffling feathers with former Steelers teammates.
In a Friday interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the future Hall of Famer said that he doesn’t like what he perceived as a shift from a “team-first” attitude among NFL players when he began his career to players being more focused on themselves.
“I feel like the game has changed. I feel like the people have changed in a sense,” Roethlisberger said. “Maybe it’s because I got spoiled when I came in. The team was so important. It was all about the team. Now, it’s about me and this, that and the other.
“I might be standing on a soapbox a little bit, but that’s my biggest takeaway from when I started to the end. It turned from a team-first to a me-type attitude. It was hard. It’s hard for these young guys, too. Social media. They’re treated so well in college. Now, this new NIL stuff, which is unbelievable. They’re treated so special. They’re coddled at a young age because college coaches need them to win, too.”
Steelers captain Cameron Heyward, a teammate of Roethlisberger’s for a decade before his retirement, said the former quarterback’s comments “rub me the wrong way,” and completely disagrees with his opinion on current young players.
“It looks as though we are looked at as selfish players, and I don’t think that’s the point,” he said on his podcast, Not Just Football with Cam Heyward, per ESPN. “We have a lot of young players that come from different backgrounds, have experienced different things from what others or I may have experienced. That doesn’t make them selfish or more of a me-type attitude. … There are a lot more team-first guys than me-type attitude. I took offense to that.”
Heyward said he sees it as his responsibility, and that of the Steelers’ other veteran leaders, to bring young players along and teach them how to be professionals.
"I'm accountable for those guys," Heyward said. "Obviously we haven't had a Super Bowl in a long time, and maybe that's where Ben is like, 'Man, if those guys would have grown up.' But it's up to the older guys to step up and hold guys accountable. ... It's up to a vet to put you under your wing and pull you across and say, 'Hey, this is what it's like to be Pittsburgh Steeler.' And that's what I'm trying to do.
“Maybe Ben didn’t see it that way, but man, I’m going to protect my guys. You just can’t say it’s a ‘me-type of attitude’ now. Everyone’s out to be a Super Bowl winner, make money, one day be an MVP. But when it all comes together, we care about one thing, this logo right here. … I’ve always tried to extend that to my younger teammates. I think Ben was a little out on that one.”
While Roethlisberger’s play with the Steelers is unquestioned, it doesn’t seem as if he had the smoothest separation from the franchise over the last few years. In May, Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette acknowledged that it is “safe to assume” that there is bad blood between the franchise and quarterback. In last week’s interview, Roethlisberger himself admitted that former general manager Kevin Colbert and, to a lesser extent, coach Mike Tomlin were ready to move on from him after the 2020 season, but that owner Art Rooney made the final call to bring him back for one more year.
With Roethlisberger retired, Pittsburgh will turn to new signee Mitchell Trubisky, rookie first-round pick Kenny Pickett or longtime backup Mason Rudolph in 2022.
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