Ben Roethlisberger offered some sharp criticism of his former team earlier this week.
"Maybe the tradition of the Pittsburgh Steelers is done," the longtime quarterback said on his podcast Footbahlin with Ben Roethlisberger.
“Who’s grabbing someone by the face mask and being like ‘No, that’s not what we do.’ Is that happening?” Roethlisberger asked. “You have guys on defense doing it, but you need guys on both sides of the ball doing it. You need someone to stand up in that room on offense and be like, ‘This isn’t what it means to wear the black and gold.’”
ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith took issue with Roethlisberger’s stance, not because it was wrong, but because Smith saw Roethlisberger as partially responsible for the current state of the Steelers.
“Your hands ain’t clean in all of this,” Smith said on First Take on Wednesday. Smith argued that part of the responsibility for ensuring the survival of the team’s culture was on the shoulders of Roethlisberger himself, and he failed to hold up his end of that bargain despite continuing to play far after his play fell off.
“You stayed too long. Last three years in the league, Ben Roethlisberger should’ve been gone. You were a statue,” Smith said.
“If you’re Big Ben Roethlisberger, I thought you stayed a couple of years too long, and I thought you sort of curtailed, or stymied the transition so the error would continue. I don’t think he did enough.”
The Steelers’ defense has remained one of the most consistent units in the NFL, but the team’s offense in recent years has not found anything close to the success it had in Roethlisberger’s prime.
According to Smith, part of that blame falls on Roethlisberger.
