National Football League

Ben Roethlisberger: 'Maybe the tradition of the Pittsburgh Steelers is done'

Updated Dec. 13, 2023 4:22 p.m. ET

The Pittsburgh Steelers suffered their worst loss of the season on Thursday night, a 21-18 embarrassment at the hands of New England, just the third victory of the year for the Patriots. Adding insult to injury, longtime franchise quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was in attendance with his children to watch the defeat firsthand.

And Roethlisberger did not mince words when discussing the game, not to mention the state of the team for which he played for nearly two decades.

"Maybe the tradition of the Pittsburgh Steelers is done," Roethlisberger said on his podcast last weekend.

While Roethlisberger had kind words for the Steelers defense, especially its stars like T.J. Watt and Minkah Fitzpatrick, he believes the team has lost an element of toughness and intimidation that was there when he was in Pittsburgh.

"There just wasn't that Steeler tradition passed down," Roethlisberger said. "You have it on defense, don't get me wrong. But you don't have it on offense right now, and you're not seeing the toughness on offense."

He also believes the current team's core has not successfully stewarded the culture of what it means to be a Steeler, a culture that was passed down from legends like longtime coach Chuck Knoll and current NFL on FOX analyst Terry Bradshaw, through modern stars like Jerome Bettis and some of Roethlisberger's contemporaries like wide receiver Hines Ward and offensive lineman Alan Faneca.

"They passed it," Roethlisberger said. "It's a matter of the person who it gets passed to — what do they do with it? I can give you the answers to a lot of things. Are you going to take those answers and use them or are you going to be like, ‘Appreciate you, old-timer, [but] I’ll take care of this.'"

Roethlisberger said when he was a young player, he was given edicts by Steelers veterans and late owner Dan Rooney on certain practices that should be followed in the locker room, like not blaring music, which he said were put in place in part because Rooney was a soft-spoken person who liked to converse with players at their lockers. But Roethlisberger said when he attempted to keep that practice going later in his career, it was resented.

The Steelers, as Roethlisberger alluded to, failed to stage a late comeback after an early 21-3 deficit on Thursday in part because they had to burn timeouts early in the second half to get organized. Roethlisberger said that looked like "bad coaching" to him.

More importantly, though, Roethlisberger said he wants to see better player leadership from the Steelers as Pittsburgh fights for a playoff spot.

"You can bring guys in that are veterans," Roethlisberger said, "But just because they're veteran football players doesn't mean they're a Steeler, that they know what it is to be a Pittsburgh Steeler."

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"Who's grabbing someone by the facemask and being like, ‘Uh-uh. That’s not what we do.' Is that happening? You have guys on defense doing it, but you need guys on both sides of the ball doing it. … You need someone to stand up in that room on offense and be like, ‘Hey, this isn’t what it means to wear the black and gold. This isn't what was handed down from those teams in the '70s, the Steel Curtain, the four Super Bowls, the Knolls, the Bradshaws, all those people."

Roethlisberger did admit that it becomes more difficult to carry traditions as time goes on.

"Unless it's passed down the right way," he said.

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