The Pittsburgh Steelers have made it clear Ben Roethlisberger will not be coming back unless he restructures his contract. Art Rooney II put out a statement recently saying Ben should be back in 2021, but they still have to sit down to renegotiate his current $41 million dollar contract. They both look to be on track and are negotiating.
Today Art Rooney II said he feels the Steelers are confident they can still win with Ben Roethlisberger at the quarterback position.
Art Rooney II on Ben Roethlisberger: “We think Ben played at a high-level last year,” Rooney told Steelers.com. “We won our division and set a franchise record for most consecutive wins to open a season, so there was a lot of good stuff. Ben was as disappointed as anybody the way it ended. That last game is just hard to swallow, and I think in part Ben wants to come back and leave on a high note. We’re still confident he has the ability to do that. His arm, I would say, is as strong or almost as strong as ever, so I think he’s certainly capable of getting the job done. Part of the concern is putting a [competitive] team around him, and we had a good discussion about that. We know there are still a lot of pieces to the puzzle that still have to fall into place this season, and we’re hard at work trying to make that happen.”
Art Rooney II and Ben Roethlisberger sound confident they will get a new deal done before the March 17th deadline. Rooney did acknowledge again the Steelers will not go into the 2021 season with Ben Roethlisberger's current contract. If the Steelers cannot get a deal done before March 17th the Steelers could release Ben Roethlisberger. For right now it sounds like that deal will get done before the deadline.
Art Rooney II knows March 17th is the deadline for a Ben Roethlisberger deal: “Hopefully we’ll work something out before that,” said Rooney, “but certainly if you want to say there’s a hard deadline, March 17 would be it.”