Ben Roethlisberger has surprising reaction to Kenny Pickett's debut
Did you expect Big Ben to say this?
The Football Feed
It was a long and very fruitful NFL career for Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who has spent the last 18 years wearing the black and yellow while leading his team to two Super Bowl wins. He's also the franchise leader in wins with 165, home wins with 92, and passing touchdowns with 418.
He decided to call it a career after the 2021 NFL season, and the Steelers brought aboard Mitchell Trubisky as his apparent replacement. And despite a productive exhibition showing from 1st round draft selection Kenny Pickett, the Steelers designated Trubisky as their starter for the first four weeks of this year before finally making the switch to Pickett last weekend against the New York Jets.
For Roethlisberger, he didn't see that move coming.
"I was surprised. To me, the whole offense was stagnant," Roethlisberger explained during his latest podcast episode.
"They're not running the ball real well," he continued. "There’s nothing really going on. But to me, when you pull him [Trubisky], I get what you're trying to do. You're trying to create a spark. Which, I think it happened … When you put someone new in there at a position like that, it's going to create some sort of a spark. It's going to create energy. It's going to do that."
"But in my opinion, I didn't know that it needed to happen," Roethlisberger continued. "But Mike's [Tomlin] the coach. He did it.
The Steelers have their work cut out for them, as they next have to battle the high powered offense of the Buffalo Bills this weekend. Head coach Mike Tomlin has already indicated that it will indeed be Pickett getting his first NFL start - can he help the Steelers improve to 2-3?
