Following the Sunday night social media shot by Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Martavis Bryant at rookie wide receiver Juju Smith-Schuster and is his subsequent comments to Josina Anderson of ESPN that he wants to be traded if his role in the team’s offense doesn’t change, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was asked plenty of questions about those topics during his weekly interview on 93.7 The Fan.
Roethlisberger started things off by saying that he has indeed talked to Bryant a little since his Sunday night Instagram post.
“I spoke with Tay [Martavis] yesterday a little bit on the phone, Roethlisberger said. “We’re going to talk tomorrow in person at the facility. I’m not going to speak too much on his frame of mind, the conversation, because honestly, these things, like I said last week, they were surprising to me because I don’t see any of the pout, quit, anything from him on the field, so that’s why I’m really surprised when these talks come because on the field he’s giving effort.”
While Roethlisberger went on to say that he didn’t really want to say too much more about Bryant until he speaks with him in person on Wednesday, the questions didn’t stop coming. He was then asked specifically about Bryant’s unnecessary comments about Smith-Schuster.
“Yeah, you never want to go at any teammates,” Roethlisberger said. “If you’re playing around that’s one thing, but you never want to do that and that does make it tough and I’m proud of JuJu for taking the high road, from everything I’ve heard.”
Being as Bryant is complaining about his lack of involvement in the Steelers offense, Roethlisberger was asked if there’s a right way for him to go about requesting a bigger role.
“Come talk to your quarterback,” Roethlisberger said. “Yesterday we did, we had a really long conversation through text messages and things like that and that’s what I told him. He was telling me about his frustrations and whatever and he told me that he had talked to the coaches, or whatever.
“But I said, ‘Tey, the one thing that you haven’t done is talk to me. Come talk to me. How can I help you? Like, let’s figure out a way, a game plan, that me, as a quarterback, I can talk to you, I can help you, I can talk through maybe an issue that you have. Whatever it may be, let’s figure this thing out together.’ Because he really is a good teammate.”
Even though Bryant seems very unhappy right now, Roethlisberger made it clear Tuesday morning that he still believes the wide receiver can help the team moving forward.
“Absolutely, absolutely,” Roethlisberger said. “Like I said, I look forward to talking to him tomorrow.”
More than anything, Roethlisberger made it clear Tuesday morning that he’s not lost hope in Bryant despite the wide receiver being very frustrated right now and seemingly wanting the team to trade him before next Tuesday’s league deadline.
“I’m not giving up on him and I hope that he doesn’t give up on himself and let’s find a way to use him,” Roethlisberger said.
