Ben Roethlisberger started the will-he-or-won’t-he retirement discussion back in January, and he says he’s not shooting for a replay.
“I understand, so it won’t happen again,” he said Monday (while laughing, for the record).
Gooood luck.
Roethlisberger was speaking on the first 2017 season edition of his weekly radio segment on 93.7 The Fan. That’s where he first floated the idea back in January. Because the idea of the Steelers’ quarterback retiring while healthy after a trip to the AFC championship was a big deal, people noticed. Eventually, in April, Roethlisberger announced that he’d be back.
Roethlisberger, speaking with hosts Ron Cook and Andrew Fillipponi, says the whole hullabaloo took him by surprise. Just thinking out loud, it seems.
“That’s all it was. It was just thoughts. It was just, I think, a prudent thing to do. Maybe I should’ve worded it, like, ‘Hey, I’m probably coming back, but I need to consider all my options.’ It had nothing to do with the [loss to the Patriots in the AFC championship] and this and that.
“It really was all about football, life, what’s going on at my age.”
Understandable. He’s smart to operate publicly on a year-to-year basis. Just assume that his mind isn’t made up until he says so — because at least part of the cycle is going to repeat itself. The seed has been planted. Next spring, the process just won’t be as much of a surprise.
And it shouldn’t be. Roethlisberger is 35 years old. As GM Kevin Colbert said last week, it doesn’t look like he’s winding down, but his age is his age.
“I hate to sit here and say that I’m gonna play for 10 more years, and I’ve said this before: I want to focus on this year,” Roethlisberger said. “I’m gonna give everything I have to this year, and if I’m gonna say ‘I’m definitely gonna be here in three years,’ well then, I’m cheating, I’m giving myself a timeline.
“I wanna be right here, right now and give everything I have to this. When I’m done, I’ll know I’m done.”
Roethlisberger, as he’s often done, said that staying as healthy as possible for his post-football life is important. He brought up a 2015 game against the Seahawks, when he took himself out of the game for a concussion evaluation, as an example.
“In my younger days, I would’ve not said anything, but I want to be honest. I think guys need to be. You can’t have a brain transplant. You can get a lot of things fixed on your body. Your brain’s not one,” he said.
“We give everything to the sport, but we still need to have lives afterwards. We still want to have a life with our wives, our kids, people like that. So it’s important that you take care of yourself and your body. You don’t need to be Tommy Tough Guy all the time.”
Sean Gentille: sgentille@post-gazette.com, Twitter: @seangentille.
First Published: August 14, 2017, 5:35 p.m.
