Today, Ben announced that his Foundation in association with The Giving Back Fund, will be distributing a grant to the Massachusetts State Police in honor of the Steelers upcoming game against the New England Patriots on Sunday, November 3rd.

The Massachusetts State Police will use the grant to purchase a new K-9 that they plan to have on the force by the end of the year.

Lieutenant Joseph King, commanding officer of the Massachusetts State Police K-9 unit, said, “The canine that we purchase with this money will be well trained, well cared for and will help our troopers in keeping the citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts safe for many years to come.”

This marks the seventh 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 strive to support Make-A-Wish.

The Foundation distributed more than $135,000 in grants to K-9 units around the country during the 2012 NFL season and has distributed in excess of $1 million since 2007.


You can learn more about Ben’s foundation here.

*Photo: That’s K9 Jari posing in a new vest donated by Massachusetts Vest-A-Dog!

“Every game for us right now is a must win and an important, pivotal game for the season.” — Ben, on whether this Sunday’s game against the Patriots is a “must win”.

Big Ben met with reporters today before practice. Among the topics he was asked about was whether more plays were being called for Antonio Brown, the timeout called during last Sunday’s game, the calling of plays and his input, and facing Tom Brady and the Patriots.


Some of the highlights:

Re: Facing the Patriots:|

It’s always a tough place to play. They are a good football team. It’s a good crowd. It doesn’t get any easier for us this week.


Re: Scoring some early and its importance:

Yeah. Absolutely. That’s kind of been one of our problems on offense. We haven’t started fast enough and scored points early. We kind of put ourselves in a hole, typical fashion this year. It’s hard to get out of it.


Are more plays being called for Antonio Brown? Are you looking for him more?

Yes and yes, and probably more yes’s. He’s a playmaker. We design plays for our playmakers, whether it’s screens or down the field stuff. Then, when things break down, he makes plays. He gets into areas. He has great hands, even if you throw a bad ball. Last week he made a really good catch on one of those scramble plays. I think a lot of factors contribute to that.


Is he still pushing to get more balls?

All of them are. Everyone except Heath Miller. Heath never asks for more passes. [Smiles] Like you just said, knowing that he’s getting more balls and more catches, he’s making plays. I think when you are losing, people make bigger deals out of things than what is really there. It’s not like he is going and complaining or crying or things like that. He’s going up and asking for plays because he wants to make plays to help us win games.


Re: Talking with Coach Tomlin about the timeout situation last Sunday:

We talked. Like I said, I’ll take the blame for that incident on Sunday. It won’t happen again. He preferred me, in that situation with that much time, to save the three timeouts and take the penalty yards. He also saw where I was coming […]

Reminder: If you have a Big Ben, a Troy Polamalu, a Brett Keisel or a Steelers cheering squad going out for Halloween or attending a costume party tomorrow night and you’d like to send us their photo, we’ll post it in Ben’s Steelers Halloween album!



Left to right: Tough guy Waylon Flowers as #7, pretty cheerleaders Kylie and Taylor, and little Ian Jones as #43.


Big kids and four-legged Trick or Treaters are welcome too!

You can also send photos of your Steelers-themed Halloween decorations!


*If you would like to share photos this Halloween, send them in an email to: bigben7website@gmail.com

“To me, he’s the best quarterback in the league and he’s done it for a long time. That’s no disrespect to some of these other guys that are doing some amazing things in the NFL right now. But to me, it’s about wins and championships — and he’s got more championships than anybody.” — Ben on Tom Brady, today on his show.

Ben was on the air in his regular time slot this morning at 11:00 AM as part of 93.7 The Fan’s Vinnie & Cook Show:

A battered and sore Ben Roethlisberger joins Vinnie & Cook on Sportsradio 93.7 The Fan for this week’s edition of the #1 Cochran Ben Roethlisberger Show.

Roethlisberger is not pleased to see the momentum from their two-game winning streak slip away in a 21-18 loss to the Oakland Raiders.

“We knew we dug ourselves a hole, and we were starting to make our way out it,” he says. “Then some dirt started to come back down on us. It’s frustrating because we wanted to stack some wins and get this ship turned around. Not saying we still can’t.”

Steelers receiver Antonio Brown dropped two balls, one that would have converted a third-and-long and another that was intercepted. Ben reveals that he had a talk with Brown after the game.

“I know that he gets frustrated a lot on the sideline, and that’s fine,” Ben says of Brown. “But, I said if you’re going to get frustrated and upset, you need to make the big plays when we need you to. I’m going to hold you to a higher standard because we expect you to, and we’ve seen you make those plays before.”

Injuries to David DeCastro, Ramon Foster, and Guy Whimper hampered the Steelers’ offensive line’s efforts. They also left Ben scratching his head.

“It seems like our offensive line gets hurt more than any other team’s, and I don’t know why,” he says. “It’s just freaky, crazy things. Is it bad luck? Seems like it happens all the time. I’ll go in tomorrow and find out who’s healthy enough to go this week and move on from there.”

Ben also weighs in on the state of the Steelers’ running game, the health of Heath Miller, reveals whether the time difference was a factor in the loss to Oakland, and […]

“A few more players passed by and out hobbled Big Ben. Ben had several people around him but #7 always keeps his eyes down field looking for an open Steeler and Raymond didn’t disappoint!”

Ryan ReBell wanted to publicly thank Lamar Woodley, Coach Todd Haley, and a “dinged up” Big Ben for taking the time after yesterday’s tough loss to make a little fan’s day (not to mention a big fan’s too!):

Yesterday was a monumental day and really a dream come true for me to take my son Raymond to his first Steelers game. Even though he is only 3-years old, I felt he was ready because I would frequently catch him arguing the Steelers superiority with neighbors, friends, uncles (moms side) and anybody with a converse opinion.

We purposely arrived at the game a little late because as any parent can tell you a 3-year old’s “window” is only open so long. Ray was so excited he skipped his nap because he wanted to see “the same Steelers we watch on TV”!


To the Raider fan’s credit, they pretty much all cleaned up their act at the first glimpse they caught of Ray. We were seated in an all Raider section 20 some rows up from the field and they made a consorted effort to watch the profanity….. A task too steep for daddy during moments in the game!

After the game, Ray assumed our Steelers had won because everybody was happy (he can’t fathom not rooting for the Steelers). Being that it was his first game, Daddy didn’t feel the need to correct him! It was a long day for me, having to watch my beloved Steelers lose and tote around my precious cargo, so I was ready to hit the road. Of course I was powerless at Ray’s request of “Daddy, I want to see the Steelers closer!!”

We made our way to where the team exits the locker room to board the buses. We kneeled down so I could point out all the different players to Ray. The first player to spot us was Lamar Woodley. He came right over with a gregarious smile because Ray was dressed for action and insisted on keeping his Steelers helmet on, something that Lamar […]

“It hurts…today in all phases – we didn’t throw the ball well enough, we didn’t block well enough, we didn’t catch the ball well enough, we just weren’t good enough today!” — Ben

You can watch & listen to Ben’s post-game interview here.