Even though he failed to finish the team’s final training camp practice of 2018 on Tuesday and was ultimately placed in concussion protocol following an injury to his head and neck area, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was still allowed to travel with the team to Green Bay on Wednesday.
Roethlisberger, who wasn’t scheduled to play Thursday night in the Steelers second preseason game against the Green Bay Packers well prior to suffering his injury on Tuesday, was filmed Wednesday afternoon by Bob Pompeani of KDKA-TV walking into the team’s hotel alongside head coach Mike Tomlin.
After going down to the ground injured halfway through the team’s daily seven-shots period of practice on Tuesday, Roethlisberger grabbed his head before finally being helped to his feet. He then talked to Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert and head trainer John Norwig before leaving the field for good.
After practice was over at Latrobe Memorial Stadium, Tomlin released a short statement in which he updated Roethlisberger’s condition.
“Ben Roethlisberger sustained a hit today in practice. He is being evaluated by team doctors as part of the concussion protocol,” read Tomlin’s statement.
According to Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com, Roethlisberger told Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey that “he was good, he was fine” after suffering the injury. Additionally, Steelers tackle Marcus Gilbert revealed that he was blocking and saw Roethlisberger’s head “whip back” during the seven-shots rep that he was injured on.
On the surface, it doesn’t sound like Roethlisberger will miss any future practice time after the team returns home from Green Bay. However, it will be interesting to see if Roethlisberger goes through any kind of warm-up well prior to the Steelers Thursday night game against the Packers just like he did last Thursday night ahead of the preseason opener against the Philadelphia Eagles. That might not happen if it was even previously scheduled to happen.
As things stand right now, one would think that Roethlisberger is still on course to make his 2018 preseason debut a week from Saturday at Heinz Field against the Tennessee Titans.
