Ben Roethlisberger's a team player, as anyone who's huddled with him will attest. He's always weighed his achievements, first and foremost, on those of the Steelers as a whole. As Kevin Colbert worded it Wednesday, "Ben cares about one thing: He cares about winning a Super Bowl."
That said, No. 7's always made sure he stays No. 1 in that scenario.
I offer that with immense respect. I really do. Having covered the man's 17-year NFL career everywhere he's played, having conversed with him privately through countless highs and lows, I can share with confidence that those extremes are both very possible and very real.
That, my friends, is all we're witnessing here.
And by here, of course, I'm referring to this apparent standstill between the franchise quarterback and the front office, one that became publicly crystalized Wednesday through Colbert's annual winter session with media outlets, including DK Pittsburgh Sports. Among Colbert's responses when asked about Ben, he divulged that there's yet to be a formal contract negotiation, that he, Mike Tomlin and Art Rooney have taken turns meeting with him individually, that this all might take a while because of the need to await the NFL's salary cap figure for 2021 and ... oh, yeah, that the Steelers' roster composition will be influential in whether or not Ben wants to return.
Yeah. Just that.
Right from Colbert's mouth, scattered across separate answers:
• "It's an ongoing process that just doesn't involve him but also involves the players around him. I'm sure he's going to want to see what kind of team we can keep together under our current situation."
• "It is first and foremost financial because we have to be in compliance. And then we'll make guess-timates to put the best team together for our sake and for Ben's sake."
• "Hopefully, there's a way we can figure out and do what's best for the organization and do what's best for Ben. Hopefully, he'll be able to see that and feel the same way we do."
Doesn't exactly take a detective's badge to determine what Ben brought to those individual meetings, does it?
Simply put, if he's going to part with cash, even temporarily, he's going to get everything out of this equation that he can. Again, from the team standpoint.
To remind, mere minutes after his three first-quarter interceptions snuffed out the Steelers in the Jan. 10 playoff loss to the Browns, Ben seized upon the postgame Zoom call with us reporters at Heinz Field to begin pining for JuJu Smith-Schuster, a pending free agent, to be brought back. Even went so far as to awkwardly cite JuJu's popularity with the fans, as if that should be some influential factor.
I couldn't believe my earbuds. Until I remembered it was Ben. And he's done this forever, lobbying for friends and favored teammates to stay or, from the Steelers' perspective, to be retained.
He loves to call the shots. No, he lives to call the shots.
This is the future first-vote Hall of Famer, who, even at age 38 this past season, took no greater glee than being able to describe to us after a game about how a given play was "like playground ball" or how he "drew it up in the sand" ... even as coaches and teammates would gently contradict him by acknowledging that they'd actually worked such-and-such play several times in practice that week. And he'd suggest much the same whether the coordinator was Randy Fichtner or Todd Haley or best bud Bruce Arians. But only on the plays that connected, naturally.
It's funny, really, for a quarterback who's never been viewed inside the football world as being all that cerebral or studious on the job.
Or maybe it's been compensation for precisely that.
Whichever the case, he's at it again, albeit in an unprecedented setting.
I don't believe for a split-second that the Steelers are being coy or clever with any of this. They want Ben back. Tomlin, beyond a doubt, wants Ben back. Every behavior that any of Colbert, Tomlin or Rooney has ever exhibited in regard to Ben has suggested that they can't even envision life without him, and I'm sure the 2019 debacle in his absence only reinforced that stance. They've had years of opportunity now to draft a potential successor or successors, or to simply comb around the league, and all they've invested is a third-round pick in Mason Rudolph four years ago, plus the occasional Paxton Lynch or Dwayne Haskins off someone else's scrap heap.
There's no master plan at work here.
Nor, for that matter, is there anything remotely resembling a visible Plan B.
Rudolph?
Eh. Colbert and Tomlin have had several opportunities to elevate him and still haven't. Right now, with the memory fresh of Ben's awful finish and with that $41.25 million cap hit hovering over the roster like an anvil from a thread, they've got a spectacular opportunity to use that cover to switch from Ben to Rudolph. If they wanted. Which they don't.
Here's what the management guys do want: They want Ben back at a price that corresponds with the up-then-down performance he just had, that protects against future massive hits on the cap, that allows them the leeway to augment the offense as they, and not the quarterback, see fit.
That's the balance that has to be struck. It's no accident, I'd say, that Colbert referenced newly promoted coordinator Matt Canada's wish to augment the offense with players who fit better with his college-type schematics. There's accepting input from the quarterback, and then there's acceding. And I've got a feeling, as if Fichtner's firing wasn't enough, that they're prepared to let the coordinator coordinate.
Now here's what Ben wants: He wants to play, as Colbert reiterated from Rooney's recent remarks, and as he hinted himself right after the Cleveland game. There's no rational reason for Ben to be going through any of this if he wasn't serious about returning.
Also, as ever, he wants to play his way and with his preferred people. That might mean JuJu stays, even if ... yuck, that means losing a more valuable defensive player so that the team's third-best wide receiver stays. That almost certainly means that significant free-agent dollars get invested in a center, which is a no-brainer regardless. And I'll bet there'll be dialogue in there, too, about the tight end position that's forever valued.
No need to over-complicate or over-dramatize any of this. It's just the latest chapter in a long-running storyline. Same outcome, too.