Former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is known for doing anything possible to keep the play alive and make something happen, even if he has defenders climbing all over him. For Roethlisberger, that’s part of leadership, something he learned early on during his rookie season. Roethlisberger said after getting yelled at to speak up by Jeff Hartings in the huddle, he became a player who led by example more than with his words.
“For me, it was about leading with my actions and less about my words. Because I remember getting in the huddle one of the first times I called a play, and Jeff Hartings who was a veteran center, really good leader on that team, he’s like ‘speak up. Talk louder!’ I’m like, ‘oh, okay, sorry,'” Roethlisberger said on the Alpha Five Podcast with former Steelers quarterback Bruce Gradkowski.
Roethlisberger also recalled the time Alan Faneca said he wasn’t excited for Roethlisberger to start after Tommy Maddox’s injury, and coupled with getting yelled at by Hartings, he earned respect by working for every yard and putting his body on the line if necessary.
“No, it’s not exciting,” Faneca said at the time. “Do you want to go work with some little young kid who’s just out of college?”
Roethlisberger channeled that into making himself someone who his teammates knew they could count on.
“I can’t come into that locker room with those guys and be like hey guys, listen, I’m the quarterback, here’s what we’re gonna do. It was like no, shut your mouth and go to work. And just show up every day, work hard, put your body on the line. You get a chance for a first down and a couple extra yards, I’m gonna try and get those couple extra yards. Now that’s part of who I am as well, but I wanted to show them that they could count on me. Now, obviously winning helps with that, if we had lost a bunch of games, it would’ve been a lot harder. But going out and making plays and winning got them to believe in me early, and I think that was huge.”
Winning can cure all ills, and the fact that Roethlisberger went 13-0 in the regular season as a starter certainly helped him gain the respect of his teammates. But he was a player who left it all on the field, every snap he played every game. As a rookie going into a locker room with players like Hartings and Faneca who were just tough, no-nonsense football players, Roethlisberger couldn’t take the approach of trying to run the room with his mouth. He had to earn their respect first before he could really start to take over as a leader, or his words would fall on deaf ears.
Hartings’ scolding and Faneca’s comments may have been the catalyst for the change in mindset, and Hartings especially felt like a move to let Roethlisberger know the veterans are still in charge. But Roethlisberger’s play on the field and showing his teammates he would do whatever it took to win helped him earn that and become the leader in the locker room early into his career.
Neither Hartings nor Faneca were out of line. Roethlisberger said he doesn’t blame Faneca for his comments and Faneca spoke about them a few years ago, and said Roethlisberger understood where he was coming from. No one wants to have to rely on a rookie quarterback, especially not a veteran player like Faneca who had already experienced some success during his time in Pittsburgh.
It was a setback at the time to have to turn to a rookie backup in Roethlisberger, and he understood where Faneca was coming from. Hartings wanted his rookie quarterback to assert himself a little bit and let him know that he wasn’t just going to roll in and immediately run the room. All that culminated in Roethlisberger becoming the elite quarterback that he was during his time in Pittsburgh, and helped him lead with his actions en route to a successful rookie season and career.
Watch the full interview with Roethlisberger below.
