(Photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images)
Last month, Ed Bouchette of The Athletic said Ben Roethlisberger told him through a text that he doesn't care how much he makes this year and is willing to do whatever he can to help the team cap-wise.
On 93.7 The Fan today, Bouchette said he really doesn't know what Roethlisberger meant when he sent that text. Would Roethlisberger go as far to play for the veteran league minimum? That's unclear, but he's not hurting for money, either. I mean, he's made $252,724,382 in his career, according to Overthecap.com, and that's not accounting for endorsements. At the same time, playing for the league minimum would mean he would make significantly less than what the market dictates for a franchise quarterback to be paid and it wouldn't make the NFL Players Association happy at all.
“I’m not sure what he meant by that. I don’t think what he meant was, ‘Hey, I’ll play for a million bucks.’ I don’t think that’s what it meant. It could have been, ‘I’m not looking for a raise,'" Bouchette said.
Bouchette is also skeptical about Roethlisberger playing for another team if the Steelers were to cut him, but he knows with what happened with Philip Rivers and Tom Brady moving on to new teams last year, it's not completely impossible.
“I don’t think it’s a real possibility but I’m not saying that with 100% conviction," Bouchette said. "You don’t know what burns inside these guys. And when it’s over, it’s over. It’s not like us where we can keep going on forever. Carolina is desperate for a quarterback. I don’t even know if there’s any interest there but I could see him doing it. On the other hand, I don’t know that he wants to. I don’t think he wants to, either.”
Bouchette also expects an answer within the next week on whether the Steelers are moving on from Roethlisberger or not.
“I think in the next seven days, that brings us to early March, I think something’s going to be done with Ben one way or the other," Bouchette said. "I’m not going to sit here and say he’s not coming back or he is because I don’t know."