It was reported yesterday that Steelers veteran center Maurkice Pouncey was on the verge of announcing his retirement, barring a “change of heart.”
And that change of heart could be coming from his own quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, who 93.7 The Fan’s Jim Colony reports is trying to convince Pouncey to stay at least one more season.
If Roethlisberger is asking Pouncey to come back for one more season, that would indicate that Ben plans on playing another season.
“If the quarterback is telling his center ‘don’t retire, have that change of heart, don’t retire’ well guess what that means for the quarterback, that means he intends to come back,” said Colony.
Pouncey could tell Roethlisberger that he has made up his mind and is retiring and whether or not that would affect Ben’s decision to stay another season.
Pouncey has said in the past that as long as Roethlisberger was with the Steelers, he would be too.
While Ben hasn’t said it in exactly those words, he has indicated the same thing.
If neither guy retires, that would spell the end of a few big names on the roster like o-lineman David DeCastro and cornerback Mike Hilton with the team already dealing with major salary cap issues.
While he struggled in the last month of the season, Roethlisberger still played well enough to get the Steelers to a 12-4 record, with hardly any running game and a struggling offensive line.
Roethlisberger finished 12-3 as a starter in the regular season throwing for 3,803 yards (16th in NFL) while completing 65.6% of his passes (23rd among starters, one thousandth of a point below Tom Brady) for 33 touchdowns (9th) and 10 interceptions (13th, better than Brady and Russell Wilson).
In his final press conference of the season coach Mike Tomlin said, “I think it’s reasonable to assume that there is a chance that he will be back, certainly.”
So it sounds like barring a member of Roethlisberger’s family sitting him down and telling him it’s time to hang it up, it looks like he’ll be the Steelers starter for at least one more year.
Speculation has been swirling for over a week as to what different quarterbacks could come to Pittsburgh, but if Ben returns, that point is moot.
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