We apparently have already had our first in-game “incident” between Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and new offensive coordinator Todd Haley.
Ron Cook of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette reports Sunday morning that Roethlisberger and Haley had a disagreement during the Steelers opening Sunday night loss to the Denver Broncos, but that the quarterback says that he made a point of not allowing the issue to escalate.
“We had one little incident,” Roethlisberger said. “I walked away. I’ll leave it at that. I walked away.”
We can expect several of these types of incidents to be reported throughout the season and we can also expect that they will be highly publicized and debated by all of the talking heads every weekend in addition.
According to Cook, Roethlisberger even addressed the comments made by ESPN analysist recently as well.
“People really did make a big deal about it,” Roethlisberger said. “I heard Cris Carter [on ESPN] ask, ‘Why doesn’t Ben embrace the change and want to get better?’ That’s ridiculous. I’m all about getting better. I never said the change was going to be bad or good. I just said it was a change. It was what it was.”
As much as Roethlisberger might not like everything that Haley calls, he is dedicated to winning. The great Kurt Warner also had his disagreements with Haley during his time in Arizona, and while it was highlighted by the media, it never seemed to become a distraction.
Unless Haley and Roethlisberger let these incidents become a distraction, then it is a non issue. Winning of course will prevent this from happening.
Stay tuned as we will hear about several more of these throughout the season and it is not like we didn\’t see them coming when you consider the two parties involved.
Move along, nothing shocking to see here.
