Back in January, former cornerback Ike Taylor said “100 percent” that quarterback Ben Roethlisberger should retire.
Of course that didn’t happen with Roethlisberger restructuring his contract to come back for at least one more year.
So now that he’s stuck with Ben for at least another season, Taylor is riding with the quarterback that helped him win two Super Bowl rings.
When it comes to ranking the quarterbacks in the AFC North, Taylor tell the "Behind the Mask" podcast he believes Big Ben is the second best.
1. Lamar Jackson
2. Ben Roethlisberger
3. Joe Burrow
4. Baker Mayfield
Taylor’s reasoning is that any other quarterback in Cleveland with all the talent around them they’ll do very well.
“If I put Ben in Cleveland, got action,” said Taylor. “I’m just looking at they got the best offensive line, they got Kareem Hunt and Nick Chubb, you got three tight ends, you got OBJ . . . you got Jarvis Landry.”
Taylor adds if you put Mayfield on Cleveland instead of Burrow, you don’t know if you’ll get good results.
It may seem a bit surprising that at 39 Roethlisberger is second on his list, but Taylor sticks by his decision that if he was starting a team that is the order he would go with.
“I’m still going to give him number two because that still did 11-0 . . . they fell off the last five games but they still hit 11-0 and a lot of that had to do with Big Ben,” said Taylor.