Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was on DVE Radio Wednesday morning to give his thoughts on Hines Ward after he announced his retirement on Tuesday. Roethlisberger, as expected, talked glowingly about Ward and how good of player he was and how emotionally he was at times in the huddle.
Later in the interview Roethlisberger was asked about restricted free agent wide receiver Mike Wallace and if he has been nervous about the possibility that he could leave now that free agency has started. Roethlisberger replied, “Nervous is not the word. I\’m scared to death. I communicate with Mike, I wake up every day and I\’m like, Mike, please don\’t go anywhere. I\’m begging you. I\’m going to beg right now over the radio. Don\’t go anywhere Mike. You know Mike is too good of a player, but Mike\’s an even better person. He\’s a great teammate, he\’s a great guy and he\’s someone that we need to have here. I\’ll be disappointed if he goes somewhere. I\’ve got a good feeling that he\’s not. I don\’t know what it is, but I\’ve just got a feeling he\’s not going to go anywhere, but I\’m still begging every day and praying that he doesn\’t go anywhere.”
Roethlisberger was then asked if he thought that some the words of Ward said during his press conference may have had an effect on Wallace, to which Roethlisberger replied, “I think so and I hope so. I mean I think we all that know Mike, and know everybody, I mean any time someone goes to leave we always tell them, hey we wish you the best, but you know that you\’re going to love it here and so many guys that leave here and go to another team, either come back or want to come back because they\’re like, man, it\’s just not the same. You know its family here and that\’s what we tell Mike and I\’ve been telling Mike and hopefully Hines has been telling him and he saw the conference yesterday and all of these things. Because we need and want Mike back and he\’s a part of the family and we don\’t want to see him go anywhere.”
The plus here is that evidently Roethlisberger is staying in close contact with Wallace and seems to be chirping in his ear quite a bit. Hopefully Wallace did indeed see the Ward retirement presser as well and how much it meant for him to retire in Pittsburgh. All of this hopefully will not even come into play though as Wallace has not received an offer sheet as of yet, just as I predicted.
You can listen to the full interview with Roethlisberger below.
