Ben Roethlisberger Clarifies ‘Me-Type Attitude’ Comments

Ben Roethlisberger clarified comments he made earlier about a me-first attitude in the NFL and the Steelers locker room on Thursday during an appearance on WDVE Radio after former teammate Cam Heyward was critical of Roethlisberger’s comments.

Roethlisberger made critical remarks about both the NFL and Steelers locker room last Friday to Ron Cook of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. In the article, Roethlisberger goes on to talk about how the NFL has changed from when he came into the league now. In it, he talks about the ‘me-type attitude’ that lots of players have about the NFL nowadays. Roethlisberger lamented how he was unable to feel a team-first vibe in the NFL anymore.

After catching wind of it, Heyward made comments on his podcast, “Not Just Football” to defend his teammates in the league. In it, Heyward disagrees with Roethlisberger’s assessment. Instead, he points out how players have come from different backgrounds and have far different experiences than the ones Roethlisberger may have. Heyward notes that more guys in the NFL and the Steelers locker room are team-first guys.

On Thursday, Roethlisberger made sure to clarify those comments. He agreed with Heyward’s assessment that the me-first players are more of a minority than not and that he should have clarified it more than he did last week. While Roethlisberger acknowledges the presence of that attitude, it is not the overarching point.

“I’ll tell you this, I probably should’ve been more detailed, more specific in what I said,” Roethlisberger said. “It’s not the majority of guys that are that way. I think in part I was saying when asked what was the difference in the league from when I first got in, it was a broad-stroked comment and had the same conversation. Cam and I have sat many times in the last couple of years and had that conversation.  I get Cam supporting his teammates that are still playing. I wasn’t trying to bash anybody specifically.”

There were a few former teammates that Roethlisberger was asked about. Two of those important teammates were Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown. Roethlisberger went to bat for Brown, noting his unbelievable peaks of play in football and how close he was to Brown. While the end was sour, Roethlisberger did not bash Brown. He did, however, acknowledge that Brown’s issues came outside of social media, not on it specifically.

“Antonio Brown is and was one of the greatest players I’ve ever played with,” Roethlisberger said. “No one will argue that. Everything he did, man, he was a spectacular football player. There were some things that got in the way of that stuff but in terms of a flat-out football player, holy cow this dude was tremendous. … I wish everything could have worked out. I wish both of those guys (Bell and Brown) could have stayed here. It would have been awesome to see how their careers would have turned out.”

The other key teammate that Roethlisberger mentioned was JuJu Smith-Schuster. For years, Smith-Schuster was lambasted for his brand-building on TikTok over caring about football. In 2020, Smith-Schuster danced on opposing team’s logos before the game, causing plenty of ruckuses and eventually, getting to a boiling point where he stopped. However, Roethlisberger defended Smith-Schuster on all levels.

“I love that guy. I mean a great teammate,” Roethlisberger said. “A guy that would do anything for his team. this city, and the Steelers. He played through so much pain. I loved him. I know there are some people who don’t like everything and some of the other stuff with social media. He did do a lot of stuff off the field on social media, but when it came to football, it did not get in the way.”

This was Roethlisberger’s way of smoothing things over after his contentious comments a week ago. Roethlisberger acknowledged that it was more of a societal thing than a true NFL problem. However, it is a far different era than he came up into the NFL in.