If the 2021NFL season goes well for Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, we might just see him back with the team again in 2022 as well. In short, don’t rule out the possibility of that happening just yet.
Steelers team president Art Rooney II indicated Tuesday during a media session that bringing the club’s longtime starting quarterback back for 2022 isn’t totally out of the question.
“It’s not written in stone that this is his last year,” Rooney said, according to Brooke Pryor of ESPN.
Roethlisberger, who turned 39 back in March, is now in his 18th NFL season and his first with Matt Canada serving as the team’s offensive coordinator, Roethlisberger took a $5 million pay cut earlier in the offseason to help the Steelers out salary-cap wise and part of that contract renegotiation included voidable years being added and all void five days after this season’s Super Bowl is played.
Last season, Roethlisberger threw 33 touchdown passes on his way to guiding the Steelers to the AFC North crown. After the Steelers started the 2020 season 11-0, however, the play of the team deteriorated, and they finished the season 1-4 in their last five games. Roethlisberger didn’t play overly well in the four games that he played in after the 11-0 start.
Not many major media NFL analysts have the Steelers making the playoffs in 2021. additionally, a few of them wonder if Roethlisberger will make through the entire 2021 season. Should Roethlisberger manage to accomplish both of those things, there’s a good chance he might be back in 2022 on some sort of revised deal. For now, however, Rooney seems to be living in the now when it comes to Roethlisberger.
“We’re aware this could be Ben’s last year, and we hope it’s a great one,” Rooney said on Tuesday, according to Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “That’s as far as we can go. If this is his last year, then next year we’ll be making decisions on quarterback and we’ll address that when the time comes up.”
