Recap provided by 93.7 The Fan:
On his weekly show on The Fan, Ben Roethlisberger took time to answer the weekly, obligatory Le’Veon Bell not showing up question.
“I had no preconceived notion. I didn’t think or know if he was coming, I just showed up and (other players) were messing with his locker, they put a to-go lunch on his chair like he was there so I don’t think anybody knows . . . if the media or people wouldn’t talk about it, we wouldn’t even be thinking about it truthfully.”
None of the players around the locker room are worried about when Bell will show up and Roethlisberger says that is in part thanks to the way James Conner is playing at running back.
“If we couldn’t run the ball and we weren’t winning and things like that, then I think it would be different but you know James has been playing unbelievable football.”
When Bell comes back, Roethlisberger says he hasn’t played an NFL football game since January and that “there’s no way he’s ready to play against the Browns and we changed somethings in the playbook too.”
“Even when he comes back he’s probably three or four weeks away from being ‘football ready’ if you will and so that’s more time for James to keep working and even when Le’Veon gets back into football shape and is ready to go why not use both of them. There’s a lot of teams in the NFL that use multiple backs and keep guys fresh and I think that would be smart for us.”
One of the options being floated around is keeping Conner in the backfield and using Bell more as a receiver but Roethlisberger says they have plenty of slot receivers for that job.
“When Le’Veon is good at receiver is when he’s that third or fourth guy on the field . . . and the personnel we got receivers, tight ends and him, that’s where he creates some mismatch problems,” said Roethlisberger. “If you were to just put him out there as a third wide receiver that’s not really where he would thrive, he would thrive more as a guy that can much up on linebackers as that extra receiver.”
Roethlisberger and the rest of the Steelers have one more practice Wednesday and then have four days off for the bye week before getting ready for the Browns to come to Heinz Field October 28.
On Burfict:
Ben Roethlisberger says it was the “typical antics” from Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict during Sunday’s game.
“When he hits (Antonio Brown) and knocks AB and his (own)guy out, that very next play . . . he’s standing there, points to Ju Ju (Smith-Schuster) and says ‘You’re next’”, said Roethlisberger. “To me that’s completely uncalled for and that’s where I think I had the biggest issue.”
“To me…When you threaten someone else and take them out of the game by hitting them or whatever…That’s crossing the line and that’s when the league needs to do something for sure.”
Roethlisberger adds he knows he got lucky sneaking under Burfict who was coming at him during a quarterback sneak.
Roethlisberger says after the sneak, “I got up and say I said (to Burfict) ‘hey it’s good to have you back out here, you know because you was suspended and you want to play against guys who are good football players’. . . and he didn’t want to have anything to do with it. He started getting all mouthy and trying to push me and all this stuff and I just kind of laughed and walked away and said whatever.”
Roethlisberger says he knows inadvertent hits happen, but blatant hits are “not a good thing” for the NFL.
He also talked about Sunday’s game and says he knew there was too much time on the clock when the Bengals took the lead late for the Steelers not to come back.
“Especially with those timeouts, you got those in your pocket you just feel like you can work the whole field and that’s kind of what we did.”
You can listen to Ben’s complete show from this afternoon right here.
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