As part of post-retirement life, former Pittsburgh Steelers’ QB Ben Roethlisberger is debuting a new podcast, Footbahlin. His official Twitter account announced the news and provided a snippet of the show on Sunday morning.
As the clip illustrates, Roethlisberger and host Spence will discuss Roethlisberger’s playing days. That video showed Roethlisberger talk about stepping into the lineup in 2004, a rookie in a locker room full of veterans.
“It was like, ‘don’t screw up,'” he said in the excerpt. “It wasn’t like, ‘I gotta go out and be the man.’ It was, ‘don’t screw up because there were guys counting on you.'”
The show will be posted on the Channel Seven YouTube channel. No official date for the first episode release has been announced but it appears the first episode has already been recorded. The drop will likely coincide with the start of football season, the first time Roethlisberger hasn’t been on a Steelers’ roster since 2003. The show promises a list of unnamed special guests along the way.
Roethlisberger has remained in the public view during his seven-month retirement, popping up at sporting events, like throwing out the first pitch at a Pirates’ game, golf outings, and appearing at a Steelers’ practice shortly after the team broke training camp. Now, he’s hanging up his cleats for a microphone. While Roethlisberger searches for his life’s work, Pittsburgh is in search for a new starting quarterback. Mitch Trubisky has been the team’s starter since the spring and figures to open Week 1 in that role, though Mike Tomlin’s yet to make an official announcement. First round rookie Kenny Pickett has impressed and could see playing time sometime this season, though that depends on how Trubisky and the Steelers perform.
Roethlisberger isn’t the only one getting into the podcasting world. Current Steelers’ DL Cam Heyward debuted his Not Just Football podcast earlier this summer posted on an ESPN-affiliated channel through Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions. His podcast had early success, garnering more than 50,000 views in an episode responding to Roethlisberger’s comments about the current state of the game. But as is common, Heyward’s more recent episodes have seen diminishing returns with his latest one, posted just three days ago, netting just YouTube 1,400 views, though that doesn’t account for other podcast/audio-only platforms.
For Roethlisberger, the podcasting world is a new avenue but as the Steelers’ franchise quarterback, he’s always been in the media spotlight, including a weekly radio show on 93.7 The Fan with comments that occasionally landed him in hot water. This new format figures to be more relaxed and take a look back at his time in the league along with a mix of non-football related topics.
