While Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and wide receiver Martavis Bryant have yet to sit down to have their heart-to-heart talk, it’s apparently going to happen very soon now that the team has reported to Saint Vincent College in Latrobe for training camp.
“He texted me and said ‘Let’s talk.’ I said no problem,” Roethlisberger said Friday during an interview with the Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “We haven’t talked other than he told me he’d love to sit down and chat with me and I’m all for it. I’m looking forward to it actually.”
So when will that heart-to-heart talk actually happen? In the next day or two, Roethlisberger reportedly told Joe Rutter of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. Roethlisberger did indicate, however, that he thought it might happen on Thursday when the team reported for training camp but that was before finding out that Bryant still has a few details to get ironed out related to his conditional reinstatement that is preventing him from partaking in any practices.
Bryant, who was suspended all last season for multiple violations of the league’s substance abuse policy, indicated recently that he wasn’t happy with a few things Roethlisberger said about him to the media while he was away from the team last year.
“We should have a man-to-man,” Bryant told ESPN.com a few weeks ago. “Because some of the things he put out there about me, I kind of didn’t agree with how he did it. So I want to sit down and hear his own opinion, man-to-man, about why he did that.”
After those comments were made by Bryant, Roethlisberger reportedly told Rutter that the wide receiver texted him right away after they were published to state they might have been taken out of context.
“Listen, I know how the media can turn things and want to make a big story, especially when nothing is going on in the NFL world,” Roethlisberger said. “So that’s why he reached out to me and said he’d love to talk. I said I was all for it. I think the outside world made a way bigger deal than it is.”
As has been the case since Bryant said what he said about wanting to have a sit-down talk with Roethlisberger a few weeks ago, it really doesn’t sound like a big deal. It’s hard to communicate through the media without some things getting taken out of context. Lord knows how many times that’s happened with Roethlisberger so far during his career.
In short, the two players will likely meet in the coming days and air whatever grievances that they might still have with each other and that should be that.
