Today, Ben announced the seventh and eighth grants of the 2015-16 season from The Ben Roethlisberger Foundation at The Giving Back Fund.


Christmas has come early for two police agencies –

Ben’s foundation will be distributing grants to the Ludlow (KY) Police Department and the Middletown (OH) Police Department, just east and north, respectively, of Cincinnati where the Steelers will play the Bengals on Sunday, December 13th.

Both police departments have recently expanded their K-9 units to include narcotics detection dogs. The Ludlow Police Department plans to apply the grant awarded toward the purchase of two vehicle kennel inserts, while the Middletown Police Department will upgrade the storage trailer and purchase items for training with grant funds.

During the 2015-16 NFL season, The Ben Roethlisberger Foundation will be distributing grants to K-9 units of police and fire departments in the cities and surrounding communities of each regular season away game for the Steelers. The Foundation will also distribute several grants to the Pittsburgh area and will consider a grant to a non-NFL market city in the United States for each playoff game in which the Steelers compete. The Ben Roethlisberger Foundation invited police and fire departments across the country to submit proposals detailing their needs.

This marks the ninth season that the Ben Roethlisberger Foundation has distributed grants to K-9 units. The mission of the Ben Roethlisberger Foundation is to support K-9 units of police and fire departments throughout the United States, with a particular emphasis on support for service dogs in Pittsburgh, PA. Roethlisberger and the Foundation also support Make-A-Wish.

“We’re very fortunate to be in the position that we are able to help these K-9 units. The work that is performed by the dogs and their handlers as well as the bond that is formed is incredible. We’re just thrilled to do our small part.” — Ben.

The Foundation distributed more than $130,000 in grants to K-9 units around the country during the 2014-15 NFL season and has distributed in excess of $1.3 million since 2007.

Middletown Chief of Police Rodney Muterspaw said, “A huge thank you to the Ben Roethlisberger Foundation for their kind support in our endeavors. We have a long history of an excellent K-9 […]

From Teresa Varley, Steelers.com:

Football is a game. It’s something that is supposed to be fun. Something that should be enjoyed by everyone involved.

And that is exactly the case for the Steelers offense. They are enjoying playing the game, having fun putting points on the board and turning the offense into a scoring machine.

“Before the last few games Ben (Roethlisberger) has told us to just go out there and have fun,” said running back DeAngelo Williams. “You know how when you were a little kid and you used to go out there and play and have fun, and didn’t care what happened. That is what we do, we go out there and just have fun. We let whatever happens at the end of the game happen. We are just having fun.”

Roethlisberger is definitely taking his own advice. Against the Colts he had another game where he just let the ball fly, completing 24 passes for 364 yards and four touchdowns in the 45-10 win over the Colts.

“I said it earlier in the year, before the season started, he is the best quarterback in the NFL,” said Williams. “I might be biased because I am here and I see what he does in practice, the level he takes people to when he is on the field in practice and games. His level of competitiveness brings your level of competitiveness and play up.”


You can read more here.

You can watch video of Ben’s Q&A with the media about the Steelers match-up against the Bengals here.

Did you miss Ben’s radio show this morning?


Not to worry, 93.7 The Fan has you covered with this recap:

Coming off the Steelers’ 45-10 thrashing of the Indianapolis Colts in which he threw for 364 yards and 4 touchdowns and helped keep his team’s playoff hopes alive, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger joined the Cook and Poni Show for the #1 Cochran Ben Roethlisberger Show, which airs every Tuesday morning at 11 a.m. during the Steelers season.

Ben opened things up talking about how much “fun” they are having on the field right now.

“It was fun,” Roethlisberger said. “Our goal was to go out and have fun playing football, and we wanted the world, the fans, everyone to kind of see us and say ‘Boy, the Pittsburgh Steelers have a lot of fun playing football.’ And when you’re having fun playing football, usually good things happen.”

The Steelers have scored 30 or more points in four straight games for the first time in franchise history and Ben said that has become the team’s goal each game.

“We always say we want to score one more than the other team of course, but we want to [score 30] and that was our goal coming in. We want to score as many points as we possibly can regardless of what the other team does,” he said.

Despite putting up 45 points, things didn’t start off smoothly for Ben and the offense and he talked about what message he delivered to the team after the two lost fumbles that put them in a 3-0 hole.

“I told the defense, thanks for bailing us out and doing such a great job. Then, talking to the offense, I said, ‘Hey guys, listen, we haven’t been off the field. They haven’t stopped us yet, we’ve stopped ourselves. That’s kind of been our Achilles’ heel all year and that’s what we always say is that we don’t feel anybody can stop us, we just stop ourselves.”

With the offense chugging along, Roethlisberger was asked about his relationship with offensive coordinator Todd Haley and how it looks like everything is going smoothly on that front as well.

“I think that we’re understanding each other, we’re understanding the offense with each other, we’re understanding what each other are thinking, all those things. And I think it’s a […]

And Ben was named Steelers Digest Player of the Week!

“I told guys before the game, ‘Just go out and have fun. When you come back in here, you should have a bunch of texts on your phone saying that it looked like you guys had fun. I want the world to see the Pittsburgh Steelers having fun and kicking butt’. I thought it looked that way tonight.” — Ben.

From Bob Labriola at Steelers.com:

One year ago against this opponent at Heinz Field, Ben Roethlisberger passed for over 500 yards and threw six touchdown passes in a performance that was historic in some ways and merely magnificent in others while guiding the Steelers to a big win that served as something of a springboard for the team through the middle portion of its schedule. He couldn’t possibly manufacture an encore against these same Indianapolis Colts, right?

Maybe not statistically, but in terms of significance and magnificence, Roethlisberger came awfully close. He finished by completing 24-of-39 (61.5 percent) for 364 yards, four touchdowns, no interceptions, and a rating of 126.4. He also ran once for 13 yards to convert a third down. Roethlisberger had seven completions for 20-plus yards through the first three quarters during a game in which he completed passes to six different receivers, two of whom had over 100 yards, and three of whom caught at least one touchdown pass. And this 45-10 victory over Indianapolis was significant because it followed a loss in Seattle, and December is no time for losing streaks for a team fighting for a playoff spot.

Roethlisberger is the Steelers Digest Player of the Week.


You can read more & watch highlights of Ben’s game here.

You can also watch Ben’s post-game Q&A here.

You can check out a few game photos here.



More….

Colts writer Steve Andres wants to know why it was so hard to hit Ben Roethlisberger?

The Post-Gazette’s Ron Cook says Ben starts and finishes for the Steelers.

And last but not least:

This is a great throw says Whitney Medworth at SB Nation!

….and share the photos with us!

If you plan to, or already have made yours a Steelers Style Christmas, then show us!!

We’d love to share your photos with the rest of Steeler Nation right here on Ben’s website.


Whether it’s indoors (trees, wreaths, a special ornament, the Family Christmas card or even yourself!) or outdoors, send ’em to us and we’ll post them in Ben’s Christmas album and do a special post right here later this month.

And if you have a pet in the holiday spirit too, we post those too!


Email your holiday photos to BigBen7website@gmail.com.

First there was Benjamin Jr. at his dad’s golf tournament last summer (check out that form!):





And now check out lil’ Miss Baylee, future star of the LPGA tour: