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“From his rookie season, you knew that you always had a chance to win with Ben as your quarterback. He was at his best in the fourth quarter when the game was on the line. He was the guy you could always count on to deliver when it mattered most.” — Bill Cowher.
Congratulations @_BigBen7 on your retirement and career. It’s good that you have that fall back plan in Nerf 🏀! 🤝🐐🚀 pic.twitter.com/umECi3RyXg
— Josh Dobbs (@josh_dobbs1) January 28, 2022
QB love: pic.twitter.com/hGsC1HIL7T
— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) January 28, 2022
A legendary career through the lens 📸
— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) January 30, 2022
From some #Steelers legends to another:#ThankYou7 pic.twitter.com/LTjuJ6GL6G
— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) January 27, 2022
This the drive for me…@_BigBen7 put this together…appreciate the second Super-Bowl win…enjoy retirement…see you in CANTON… https://t.co/ELpLYIJUIX
— . (@Ike_SwagginU) January 27, 2022
To the graduating Draft Class of '04#ThankYou7 | @EliManning pic.twitter.com/GUqFLTBXvD
— New York Giants (@Giants) January 27, 2022
Most seasons by a QB without changing teams in NFL history
Ben Roethlisberger 18
Dan Marino 17
John Brodie 17
Aaron Rodgers 17Big Ben, forever a Steeler pic.twitter.com/JW1ib2pdOM
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) January 27, 2022
“To Steeler Nation, the best fans in all of sport, thank you for accepting and supporting me as your quarterback over the years.” — Ben.
Rockin' @_BigBen7 on #FanFriday 💪
Submit photos of you in your 7️⃣ jersey now: https://t.co/wmul1GIw83 pic.twitter.com/cLENf2KcA2
— SteelersNationUnite (@SteelersUnite) January 28, 2022
12 to 7: pic.twitter.com/vqMQHv16Y8
— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) January 27, 2022
With @_BigBen7 recently announcing his retirement from the National Football League after 18 years […]
“Putting that jersey on every Sunday with my brothers…
will always be one of the greatest joys of my life. To Steelers Nation, the best fans in all of sports, thanks for accepting me and supporting me as your quarterback all these years.” — Ben.
“The journey has been exhilarating, fueled by a spirit of competition. Yet the time has come to clean out my locker, hang up my cleats and continue to be all I can be to my wife and children. I retire from football a truly grateful man.” — Ben.
“Football has been a gift…
and I thank God for allowing me to play it, surrounding me with great people, and protecting me through to the end.” — Ben.
‘Agent Tollner says he will miss those post-game chats with Big Ben’
From Liz Mullen, Sports Business Journal:
For 18 years, Ben Roethlisberger talked to his agent Ryan Tollner after every single NFL game he played. Sometimes Tollner would go to the game and they would talk afterward. Sometimes the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback would call him.
“They could be 30 seconds to 20 minutes, depending,” Tollner, CEO of Rep 1 Sports, said of the calls. “We’re talking about a lot of football games over 18 years.”
The conversation would always start with Tollner inquiring about Roethlisberger’s health. Roethlisberger retired with many records, including being sacked 554 times — the most of any quarterback in the NFL — while leading the Steelers to the playoffs 11 times and winning two Super Bowls.
So it was with mixed emotions that Tollner watched Roethlisberger’s last game, in cold Kansas City, losing to the Chiefs in a game the quarterback had publicly predicted the Steelers had no chance to win.
“I’m happy for him that it’s ended on his terms, in a sense,” Tollner said. “He was able to play his entire career for the Steelers and he is walking away from the game healthy, relatively healthy. And that he has been recognized pretty widely here in the sports world for being one of the all-time greats and a true warrior.”
Roethlisberger retired with the fifth most passing yards in NFL history, fifth most wins as an NFL quarterback, and one of three quarterbacks — along with Tom Brady and Peyton Manning — to have both thrown for 50,000 yards and won at least two Super Bowls.
Still, watching that Sunday night game was bittersweet for Tollner. “It was a sad night, I guess, to see him move down the field on the final drive knowing, ‘This is it. This is the last pass we are going to see him throw.’”
Tollner, himself, played backup quarterback at Cal before becoming an agent, which may be one reason why he and Roethlisberger became so close. Roethlisberger told Sports Business Journal in 2016 that he thinks of Tollner as a friend, not an agent.
Don’t look for Roethlisberger to take up coaching or broadcasting or other common paths taken by famous retired athletes, at least not in the near term, Tollner said. “I don’t think he has any aspirations to do anything in the public eye. […]
January 3rd: “If Ben ever sees this, we did try our best to be there”
Taylor and Bailey left Oak Island, NC at 7:30am for Heinz Field to see Big Ben & the Steelers play the Browns that evening…but Mother Nature had other plans. They got as far as I-95 in Northern Virginia when ice and snow on the interstate stopped them in their tracks – literally.
From Nicole Ford, WPXI-TV:
From snowflakes to stranded — for 16 hours on Monday, Taylor Mooney and Bailey Ferguson sat just 26 miles north of Richmond on I-95.
“Terrible just terrible. There was three inches of just solid ice covering the entire road. So anytime we attempted to get out of the vehicle you were just sliding everywhere,” Ferguson said.
The destination for the two was Pittsburgh just in time for the Steelers’ kickoff. This duo left Oak Island, North Carolina, by car after two canceled flights determined to be in their seats for Big Ben’s last home game. It was around 1 p.m. when the trip came to a halt.
“We tried everything. We said okay maybe we will make it after the first quarter, maybe we will make it for halftime, maybe we will make it for the last two minutes of the game that’s what kept us going for so many hours. Just maybe we will get to pull into the parking lot of people celebrating in the parking lot as they are leaving,” Ferguson said.
It wasn’t until about 5 a.m. Tuesday that things got moving and that they finally got off the interstate.
From Taylor’s Facebook page on January 4th:
Well I’m sure MANY of you have seen the news about all the horrendous incidents from I-95 over the past 2 days. Well, me and Bailey had the pleasure of getting stuck alongside many others in Virginia. We left Oak Island at 7:30 yesterday morning to head to Pittsburgh for the game last night, due to our flight getting cancelled twice, thankfully we stopped at 11:30 for food and to fill up the tank (unfortunately we didn’t get snacks which we did regret later on). We hit the traffic around 1pm and moved 26 miles in 16 hours, 8 of those hours in which we were in ‘park’ – completely stopped on the interstate. […]