Steelers President Art Rooney II spent part of Thursday answering questions from Steelers Nation Unite members. We’ll share his answers about Big Ben:

“We wanted Ben back,” said Rooney. “The key to it was to be able to restructure his contract in a way that allowed us to keep Ben and be able to sign some other players. Ben cooperated with that, was willing to make some changes in his contract, and that allowed us to keep him on the team this year which was always our goal.

“I thought Ben had a very good year last year for somebody that was coming off of arm surgery. Hopefully he will have an even better year this year with another year under his belt in terms of recovering from that arm surgery. It was a very serious surgery, and we were uncertain how well he would be able to recover from it. He did a great job rehabbing and we are excited to have him back for this season.”


You can read more from Mr. Rooney’s Q&A, or listen to it here.

From the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Mark Curnutte, the day after:

QB Ben packs ’em in for pro workout –

Scouts or assistant coaches from nearly all 32 NFL teams made their way to Oxford. Two head coaches, Green Bay’s Mike Sherman and the Giants’ Tom Coughlin – along with Giants’ general manager Ernie Accorsi and three of the club’s scouts – were there, too.

Charting each of the players’ moves with stopwatches and clipboards, scouts watched them lift weights, jump, sprint and run agility drills before congregating in Yager Stadium for the main event: Ben throws.

And Roethlisberger, a sure-fire top-five pick rated along with Mississippi’s Eli Manning as one of the top two quarterbacks in the draft, did not disappoint.

He threw long and short, soft and hard, down the middle and toward the sideline – showing off his impressive arm and timing on the deep out pattern.

Roethlisberger ran 4.76 seconds in the 40-yard dash. And he clocked an 11.8 – considered fast for a quarterback – on a three-cone agility drill.

“He’s probably going to be gone before we pick, but I always want to cover our bases in case something happens – he falls or we move up,” Sherman said. “I thought he had an excellent workout. He did everything here he does on tape. You have to watch the game tape to really appreciate what kind of quarterback he is and what kind of leadership skills he has.”


(Mr. Curnutte’s 2004 article is no longer available to read online)



From NFL.com‘s “Pro Day Workout – Ben Roethlisberger” the day after:

As expected, there was a big turn out here as over 50 NFL personnel people attended.

Roethlisberger’s workout was scripted by Steve Clarkson, who is a former San Jose State QB and currently helps prepare quarterbacks for the NFL. Roethlisberger (6-4 7/8, 240) ran his 40s in 4.81 and 4.82. He had a 30-inch vertical, a 4.32 short shuttle and a 6.81 three-cone drill.

His positional drills were referred to as outstanding. They had him throw a lot of passes on the move, and threw about 80 passes total with very good accuracy. He threw to Grant Mattos, who was with the Chargers last year, along with Cal Murry, a running back at Miami, Ohio […]

Jr. and I enjoyed a round of golf with Charles Howell and his partner (who carried him, lol) – his son Chase. Thanks Charles and good luck the rest of the year! — Ben.

You can see Mr. Howell’s PGA Tour Profile here.

Happy 7th Birthday Baylee!!!


Smiling BIG as she waits for her birthday celebration to begin.


Sometimes brothers CAN be helpful!!!


Hello Birthday Girl!

Happy birthday to our beautiful angel. We hope you had an amazing 7th birthday. We love you so much. — Mom & Dad.

…when Big Ben was a Big Hit on the Emerald Isle! It was ‘way back’ in June of 2012!

So why not take a look back with us on this St. Patrick’s Day, 2021:

Ben and three of his close friends headed off to both Ireland and Scotland that summer to play some of the finest, and most difficult golf courses you can find.

It’s going to be awesome. Three days in Ireland and a week in Scotland…12 rounds in 10 days. So we have a lot of golf to play at some of the best courses in the world. — Ben, in an interview prior to his trip.

Well, it turned out to be awesome for quite a few fans too – Irish, Scottish and American fans not only met Ben during his trip, but shared their photos and stories us!


First stop, the airport!


Gina Huss met Ben on her way to Dublin:

“There were 6 of us (all born and raised in Pittsburgh!) going on a trip to Europe where we would be visiting Ireland, Wales, England, and France.. For 2 of us, it was our senior trip! We had a layover in Atlanta and then would be flying from there into Dublin airport. So there we were just hanging out in the Atlanta airport when our adult chaperone came running over to us flailing her arms and freaking out because she just saw Big Ben with some friends at the nearby restaurant! Naturally all being from Pittsburgh, we approached him calmly and told him we were from Pittsburgh and wondered if we could take some pictures with him.

He was so nice and took pictures with all of us! He asked where we were going, and one of his friends even knew the school district we were from! It was very cool to also find out that he was going to be on our flight to Dublin and that he was going golfing in Scotland!

To add to the already exciting meeting, when we boarded the plane and passed by him in first class, he acknowledged us as the “Pittsburgh senior trip crew” and raised his glass to us and told us to have lots of fun! We were absolutely mindblown! It was a very cool way […]

From Teresa Varley, Steelers.com:

It might not have been the podcast you would have expected to hear Ben Roethlisberger on, but when he joined ‘Along for the Ride with Andrea Fappani,‘ the quarterback was laid back and relaxed, talking everything from horses to Super Bowls to Maurkice Pouncey to his future beyond football.

Fappani, who was born in Italy, is a staple in the National Reining Horse Association and has become one of the all-time leading trainers in the Performance Horse industry. He normally talks with people involved in the business on the podcast, but with Roethlisberger’s love of horses, it was a fun way to reach out to a new audience.

Roethlisberger started riding horses as a kid with his late mother, Ida, but after her passing he stopped and took almost a 30-year hiatus from it.

“I have other hobbies, and they all pertain to outdoors,” said Roethlisberger. “I love to golf. I love to hunt and fish. We have dogs. I am a big animal person. When I was younger, I grew up on horses. My mom, we had a few horses. We’d go riding. It was just trail riding. Some of my earliest memories, my mom passed away when I was eight years old, all of my horse riding was before that. I remember getting on the back of a horse and him swimming across a river and my feet being out of the stirrups trying not to get wet. Riding across a field when you came to open meadows.

“The little bit of rodeoing I did was at a young age. They would put balloons on the back of the saddle, and you would try and pop other people’s balloons and the last man standing with the balloons won. When she passed away, I didn’t do anything for about 30 years.”

He got back on a horse when he went to visit former teammate Brett Keisel in Wyoming on a fishing trip and said that sparked something in him. His current home is close to a horse farm, where he takes his kids to see the horses.

“That turned into me wanting to do this again,” said Roethlisberger. “Since then, we got a handful of horses ourselves and we love doing it.”

After they chatted horses, and much more, the […]