The downfall of Pittsburgh Steelers center Kendrick Green has been fast and puzzling. Not because he didn’t pan out as the team’s starting center. That was inevitable. But the way it happened, where Green is now and the reaction to it is what has us shaking our heads.
And we aren’t the only ones. Steelers legend Ben Roethlisberger vented about the Green situation on his podcast Footbahlin with Ben and he didn’t hide his issues with then-GM Kevin Colbert drafting Green to be his center in his final NFL season.
“They drafted that guy to be my center when last year he didn’t even dress,” Roethlisberger said.
Roethlisberger also didn’t hesitate to throw former Steelers GM Kevin Colbert under the bus for drafting Green to be his center only to have Green inactive the entire following season. Then Roethlisberger got a nice chuckle to himself as the noted Green has now become some sort of part-time fullback.
After Roethlisberger retired, he did note that he thought Green would make a great guard, hinting that his struggles at center weren’t fixable but going back to his college position could help him. Pittsburgh never really tried that and instead chose to simply de-activate him all last season.
There’s no denying how the team mishandled Green from the moment he was drafted. He should have never been thrust into the starting lineup at a position he almost never played in college. He never should have been deactivated all season if the team wasn’t planning to move him to guard and this season the whole fullback experiment almost feels like satire.
