Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger made a rare offseason appearance on SiruisXM Radio on Thursday and during his interview he sort of updated the rehab of his surgically repaired elbow and how this offseason’s routine is a lot different from his previous offseasons.
“My normal routine is different than this year’s routine for obvious reasons,” Roethlisberger said Thursday morning. “My normal offseason routine is probably never to pick up a football unless I’m throwing with the kids. I believe firmly and letting your arm rest. We throw so many footballs during the course of a season that I might pick up a football, and there are certain circumstances where I’ll take the guys like on a road trip for a weekend, but for the most part I won’t pick up a ball until an OTA or minicamp. Maybe a day before just because, like I said, you throw so much, and I don’t pick it up again until training camp.
“But this one seems, you know, obviously it’s a lot different, right? Because of the surgery and everything, I am throwing the ball three times a week right now and that’s just to kind of get back into the feel and the groove of things.’
That answer about his routine is as far as Roethlisberger went Thursday morning in discussing his elbow rehab. He did, however, update the status on his fully grown beard and what needs to happen with his elbow and arm rehab before he shaves it off. He also talked about how his wife is well past ready for the beard to come off as well.
“She [Ashley] liked it at first, hates it now,” Roethlisberger said of his beard. “I keep saying that she’s going to cut it off in my sleep like Samson. You know, like come in there with clippers and the hair. So, my whole thing was I said it was kind of the whole Samson effect when it happened. We were flying up to the surgery and I’m not sure why, I felt something that said, ‘Don’t cut your hair or your beard until you come back.’
“I said to her, ‘I wanna throw a pass. When I can throw an NFL pass, I’ll shave it.’ And she’s like, ‘Well, is like an NFL pass in the living room to your kid, or what qualifies an NFL pass?’ So, every day I’m out throwing on our throwing days – Monday, Wednesday, Friday, she’s like, ‘That definitely was an NFL pass.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, almost.’ And I’ll know it in my heart when I’m ready and I think I’m pretty close.”
Well, that certainly sounds encouraging overall even though there’s really not much new news coming out of Roethlisberger’s bearded mouth this week. For now, all we know is that Roethlisberger is throwing three times a week and that it sounds like he thinks he’s close to being able to say that he can throw an NFL pass again.
In the meantime, we’ll just need to monitor his beard situation as if it is some sort of Yinzer Bat Signal. Perhaps the ultimate shaving of Roethlisberger’s beard can be some sort of public spectacle like what former Steelers defensive end Brett Keisel, a longtime good friend of Roethlisberger’s, has done annually for the past decade, meaning money for a charity can be raised as a result of the shearing.
