Ben sat down with WPXI-Channel 11 to chat about life, his faith, and the game of football….

You can check it out here!


*Thank you to Billie Jo!

Today, Ben announced the third and fourth grants of the 2010 season from The Ben Roethlisberger Foundation at The Giving Back Fund.

The Foundation will be distributing grants to both the North Miami Beach and the City of North Miami Police Departments, where the Steelers will play this weekend against the Dolphins.

Thomas A. Carney, Director of Police Services and Chief of Staff for the North Miami Beach Police Department said, “We are greatly appreciate of the donation by Mr. Roethlisberger. Our K-9 dogs are very important to our officers who risk their lives every day to protect our community. In these difficult budgetary times, we must rely more and more on outside sources of funding to support our officers’ efforts. This grant will provide our officers with additional resources to protect the citizens of North Miami Beach.”

Larry Juriga, Assistant Chief of Police of the North Miami Police Department said of their grant, “The North Miami Police Department is truly thankful to The Ben Roethlisberger Foundation for its generous support. The foundation’s grant will provide much needed equipment to protect our K-9’s, who in turn, will protect our officers and citizens. Our partnership with the foundation will add significantly to the success of our mission.”


For more information on The Ben Roethlisberger Foundation, check out the Foundation page.

For more information on The Giving Back Fund, please contact Stephanie Sandler at (310) 649-5222 or visit their website.

“He’s an extra-large version of Rodgers.” — Miami Dolphins linebacker Cameron Wake on Ben, from the article below.

From the Miami Sun-Sentinel this afternoon:

Cameron Wake reached out with his left hand last Sunday and sacked Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers by the ankle from a prone position.

What are the chances of Wake pulling off another one-handed takedown this weekend against Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger?

“Uh, probably not going to happen,” Wake says. “He’s an extra-large version of Rodgers.”

At 6 feet 5 and 241 pounds, Roethlisberger has his Packers counterpart by three inches and more than 20 pounds.

“He’s a big joker,” Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder says. “You grab Roethlisberger’s ankle, he’s going to kick you in the head and take off running.”

Big Ben’s mental clock

“It’s a double-edged sword,” Roethlisberger says. “You live by it and die by it. We got some big plays from it, and we got some big negative plays from it. People ask me why I don’t go down, but I think it’s just my competiveness.”

That mental clock, the one that tells quarterbacks when it’s time to get the ball out? Big Ben’s moves way slower than most others.

“I don’t want to give up on any play,” he says. “Maybe sometimes I should, but it’s just hard to tell me to do that.”

Some of Roethlisberger’s greatest plays have featured him shrugging off pass rushers the way a horse sheds flies, then firing downfield to beat a secondary that can’t possibly hold up that long in pass coverage.

It happened on the game-winning pass to Santonio Holmes in the Super Bowl two years ago against Karlos Dansby’s Cardinals. It happened to the Dolphins in January in a 30-24 season-ending loss.

Big Ben went down three times in that game, but it could have been several more.

“We had some opportunities to get him down and we didn’t get him down,” Dolphins coach Tony Sparano says. “He can kill you when that doesn’t happen. We’ve got to get this guy down on the ground.”

You can read the rest here.

Ben also spoke to the Miami Sun-Sentinel’s Steve Svekis today, you can read his short Q&A here.



Quote of the Day:

“He looked comfortable. A […]

Carlee spoke about Ben during the Big 12 Women’s Basketball Media Day this afternoon at the Sprint Arena in Kansas City, Missouri…


From a re-cap of Media Day featured in the Kansas City Star this evening:

Oklahoma forward Carlee Roethlisberger was happy to see her older brother, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, back in the lineup after his four-game suspension for violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy.

“It was refreshing to see him back in there,” said Carlee. “He wants to be the same person that he’s always been on the football field, but off the field, he’s needed to make a change, and with all my heart I believe he has. He’s my big brother, I’ve always been proud of him, and I’m always going to be here to support him, no matter what he goes through.”


You can read the full recap of the Big 12’s Media Day here.

You can see photos from Media Day here.

Heath and his wife Katie hosted the event last night at Bossa Nova (see Oct. 12th news below). It was sponsored through A Glimmer of Hope and proceeds benefited the Under Forty Breast Cancer Study.


Some of their guests included teammates Brett Keisel, Hines Ward, James Farrior, Keyaron Fox, Matt Spaeth, Jeff Reed, Max Starks and Ben!

From Steelers.com today:

“Anything we can do for this cause, to raise awareness and money, we will do,” said Ben Roethlisberger. “It affects so many lives and we want to help. I am all for it. I wear the pink shoes in practice and the game. This month is a great time for us to show our support and raise money for a sad disease.”

Check out Steelers.com for photos from the event.

Check back here later in the week for photos from the event organizer.

If you’d like to see photos from past “Bid for Hope” events, click here.


*Thank you to artist Larry Klukaszewski (posing with Heath and one of his football creations) for sharing his photo from last night with us! You can see Larry’s incredible football art on his website here and here.

“Training camp was great. The preseason was great. I still didn’t know what to expect, but it was truly awesome to hear the fans. I love being back out in front of those guys again.” — Ben, talking about the fan response at Heinz Field yesterday.

Notes –

NFL.com’s Scott Engel, from his Fantasy Football column:

Stainless Steeler: Ben Roethlisberger actually did look a tad rusty early in his 2010 debut, yet the Browns simply didn’t have the personnel to hold him down for long, and he finished with 257 passing yards, three TDs and one interception.

Roethlisberger immediately vaults back into fantasy relevance as a Top 10 passer. Once he started rolling, Roethlisberger was clearly mechanically sound and in sync with his pass-catchers. Don’t discount the impact of the performance by pointing out Roethlisberger was only facing the Browns. Good players beat the teams they are supposed to beat, which is exactly what Roethlisberger did.

You can read Mr. Engel’s column here.


SI.com’s Peter King, from his Monday Morning QB column:

He’s not crazy about the “Big Ben” handle anymore. He got emotional pulling into the stadium parking lot Sunday morning, and even more emotional during the Star Spangled Banner when he looked up into the private box his father and stepmother were in, thinking of all the stuff he’d put them through in the past year or so. “That’s when I got a little teary,” Ben Roethlisberger told me last night. “I know it’s been rough for them, and they’ve been there for me.”

When he stepped into the huddle for the first time, Roethlisberger said nothing memorable but will remember the looks he saw around him. “Smily,” he said. “Excited. I could tell. Nobody had to say anything.”

You can read Mr. King’s column here.



The New York Daily News’ James Parziale, from his Monday Morning Huddle column:

Does that crow come with a side of fries?

Ben Roethlisberger made his big debut against the Browns on Sunday and made me look silly in the process. After watching one of the pregame shows and seeing the workout regimen Big Ben went through to be in game shape, well, let’s just say I might have been singing a different tune about my wait-and-see approach.

You […]