BIG BEN WILLING TO REWORK DEAL
‘I don’t care about my pay at all this year’
Steelers president Art Rooney II said he would like Ben Roethlisberger to return for the 2021 season, but he acknowledged the team has to come to some agreement with their two-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback over his significant salary cap hit next season.
And Roethlisberger is willing to help.
Rooney said the Steelers cannot have Roethlisberger back under his current contract, which calls for him to earn $19 million in base salary and roster bonus and count $41.25 million against the cap in 2021. Roethlisberger is in the final year of a three-year contract.
“We’d like to see Ben back for another year if that can work,” Rooney said in a Zoom call on Thursday with Pittsburgh-area reporters. “But there’s a lot of work to be done to see if that can happen. There may need to be decisions that are made on both sides for that to happen.
After hearing about Rooney’s comments, Roethlisberger told the Post-Gazette he and his agent, Ryan Tollner, had already approached the Steelers about
restructuring his contract and helping them in any way he can.
“I don’t care about my pay at all this year,” Roethlisberger said. “I want to do everything I can and made that very clear to them from the very beginning to basically help the team however I can this year.”
Tollner told the Post-Gazette that Roethlisberger is meeting with Rooney and coach Mike Tomlin the week after the Super Bowl to discuss what roster plans they have for the 2021 season. He said Roethlisberger’s contract will not be an issue.
“Ben knows he has more left, but having key players back, like [Maurkice] Pouncey, will be important,” Tollner said. “Ben’s contract won’t hold things up. We told them immediately after the season we will make any necessary adjustment to help their cap situation in 2021.”
Then he added: “If Ben is back, it’s for one purpose — to win, and he’ll need the right players around him.”
Roethlisberger has been told there could be many changes on offense — something Rooney acknowledged during his season wrap-up news conference. One of those is expected to involve Pouncey, their nine-time Pro Bowl center, who has told some of his teammates he is retiring.
“Ben wants to come back,” Rooney said. “We’ve left that door open. We’ve been, I think, up front with Ben in letting him know that we couldn’t have him back under the current contract, and so I think he understands we have some work to do there.”
Meantime, Rooney made it clear he does not blame Tomlin for the way the season ended — losing five of the final six games, including another embarrassing playoff defeat, this time to the Cleveland Browns. Tomlin heads into the final year of his contract with the Steelers, but Rooney gave him a resounding vote of confidence.
“I feel comfortable in saying he’ll be our coach into the future,” Rooney said. “We didn’t finish the way we would like — the playoff game is hard to analyze what we did, turning the ball over that way — but I don’t see how you can attribute that to coaching preparation. The team went into the game prepared and felt we were prepared to win.”
Rooney has stated after any number of the past several seasons that the Steelers need to run the ball better. But he was more emphatic this time after the Steelers finished last in the league in rush offense, indicating that changes are already being made and “there are more to come.”
He said the promotion of Matt Canada to offensive coordinator was the first step in the process, but also said some of those changes will involve personnel. He specifically pointed out that running back James Conner is a free agent — a sign the former Pitt star will likely not return in 2021.
“We have to start with a commitment to the running game, and that’s something that I’m not sure we’ve always had,” Rooney said. “So, as we look at changes to the coaching staff, I think that’ll be part of the mindset. In terms of the people in this building at this point, I think
“We didn’t finish the way we would like ... but I don’t see how you can attribute that to coaching preparation. — Art Rooney II, on Mike Tomlin
everybody understands we’re going to have to be better than that. I think that contributes to the inconsistency that we saw on offense.”
Putting Canada in charge of the offense means the Steelers will use more of the motion and misdirection concepts they experimented with during training camp but never really used during the season. Roethlisberger admitted he was never really comfortable with the new looks. Rooney said he is looking forward to Canada putting his system in place.
“I think some of the kinds of things that you’re seeing in offenses around the league, we need to employ in our offense,” Rooney said. “We did some of that this year. At times we got away from it, and that may have contributed to some of the inconsistency we had in the offense. We look forward to
Matt coming in and really having another year to put his system in place, and we think he’ll do a good job.”
Rooney said he thought the Steelers had a roster to compete for a Super Bowl championship, pointing out the franchise-record 11-0 start and the AFC North title as proof. But he cited other factors such as injuries to linebackers Devin Bush and Bud Dupree on defense and a juggled schedule that resulted in short work weeks as reason for the late-season collapse.
“I came into the season thinking we had a strong roster and a team that could compete for a championship. We started off 11-0 and won our division, so a lot of good things,” he said. “But we stumbled at the end, so disappointing in that we thought we had the kind of team that could have and should have gone farther.
“Some of the factors, I think, that went into some of the negative side of the season was inconsistency on offense and really a lack of a running game that contributed to that inconsistency. It was tough to overcome that at times. Obviously, the many schedule changes that we had, it’s hard to say what impact that had on us, but I think it did have an impact at one point when we went into that stretch of losing three in a row. And during that stretch, no coincidence that we lost Bud Dupree in that time frame, and losing Bud at that point in the season was a big loss. It’s hard to say what all factors were most important.”