LATROBE, Pa.— Few NFL quarterbacks can be properly described as playing the game in rugged fashion. But Ben Roethlisberger, along with Cam Newton and a couple others, is among them.
Roethlisberger, listed at 6 feet 5 and 240 pounds, is difficult for even the burliest of defensive linemen to haul down in the pocket. He takes hits, often requiring a second defensive player to arrive and help out to complete a sack. He holds the football in the pocket, risking further punishment but giving his receivers a bit more time to get open.
This is a season in which the Steelers have Super Bowl aspirations, even with wide receiver Martavis Bryant suspended for the year and running back Le’Veon Bell reportedly facing a four-game suspension. But they almost certainly need Roethlisberger healthy and on the field to be the team they plan to be.
Even so, Roethlisberger says he won’t make self-preservation more of an on-field priority as he enters his 13th season with the Steelers.
“You always want to be on the field, obviously,” he said following a training-camp practice last week at Saint Vincent College. “Any time you’re not on the field, you’re hurting yourself and your team. But the hard part about that is, I play the game one way. I’ve played it that way for 13 years now and I don’t know any other way to play it. So I’ll do everything I can to stay on the field but to play the game the way I know how.”
Roethlisberger, 34, missed four games last season. But prior to that, he’d played all 16 games in two straight seasons. Those 2013 and 2014 seasons were two of the best years of his NFL career, statistically. He passed for a combined 9,213 yards with 60 touchdowns and 23 interceptions.
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He said his experience should help him to avoid injuries, even if he refuses to take a more cautious approach in the pocket.
“A better understanding of the offense, I think, always helps, being able to get the ball out, knowing where guys are gonna be, knowing what’s going on with defenses,” he said. “But no, I just play the game the way I know how.”
No Steelers coach, Roethlisberger said, ever has attempted to modify his playing style.
“I think every [person], whether it’s a coach or a player, they always care about your health and want you to stay on the field,” he said. “But that’s why I think I’ve been blessed with the great coaches I’ve had around me, is none of them tried to change me. They just let me be me and play the game the way I know how to play it.”
If Roethlisberger senses the clock ticking on his NFL career and on his chances to secure a third Super Bowl title, one that would put him ahead of Eli Manning and Peyton Manning and everyone else in this generation of quarterbacks who have spent so much time chasing four-time winner Tom Brady, he isn’t saying so.
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It might not seem like more than a dozen years since that eventful NFL draft day in 2004 when Roethlisberger entered the league alongside fellow prized quarterbacks Eli Manning and Philip Rivers. But that is how long it’s been. Roethlisberger has more NFL days behind him than in front of him at this point. It has been eight years since the Steelers won their second Super Bowl with him at quarterback, and his opportunities to add to that total are beginning to dwindle.
But Roethlisberger said he has not begun to view his career as a countdown to the finish.
“I try not to,” he said. “I look at the here and now and just play for this season. I feel if I look forward to the end or to next year or the year after, how many years I have left, then I’m cheating myself and cheating my teammates and the fans. This game is such a violent, physical game. You never know when it’s your last. So I take the approach that I’m gonna live for the here and now and play this game one game at a time, one play at a time.”
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