In 2004, Ben Roethlisberger was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the first round of the NFL Draft. Fourteen years later, Roethlisberger will be adding to his long list of achievements to lockdown his well-deserved spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The 2-time Super Bowl champion (XL, XLIII) is returning for his fifteenth season with the Steelers and hoping to add a third Super Bowl to his resume. Roethlisberger would only be the third quarterback for Pittsburgh in the Pro Football Hall of fame. He would be succeeding legends Bobby Layne, the quarterback from 1958-1962, and Terry Bradshaw, the quarterback from 1970-1983.
At 23 years old, Ben Roethlisberger became the youngest quarterback in the NFL to win a Super Bowl in only his second professional season (XL against the Seattle Seahawks). Ranking within the top ten in ESPN’s 2017 Regular Season NFL Leading quarterback rankings, Roethlisberger led his team to another winning season.
The Steelers haven’t seen a losing season since 2003. Fifteen years of winning seasons give Pittsburgh the longest streak of non-losing seasons in the NFL, with Roethlisberger behind every one of them.
Roethlisberger’s undeniable achievements have proved him a distinctive piece of the Pittsburgh puzzle for the past fourteen years. His 6 selections for the Pro Bowl team is a result of his dominant performances throughout the seasons (2007, 2011, 2014-2017).
Since becoming the Steelers quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger has set multiple passing records for the team. Records including, season passing yards, career passing yards, single-game passing yards, completions in a season, games with a 100+ passer rating, and touchdown passes in a season.
Questions have surrounded the champion quarterback if hanging-it-up is in the near future. After the Steelers’ 2016 season ended, Roethlisberger openly said he was considering retirement.
After confronting the rumors, Roethlisberger said just before the 2017 season, “I feel good mentally, I know this new study that came out that 90 percent [of NFL] players’ brains who were studied had CTE. There’s a lot of scary things, and I think my wife would be OK if I hung it up, too. But I still love the guys, I still love the game, so it was right for me to come back and give it everything I have this year.”
Looking ahead to the 2018 season, the Pittsburgh Steelers are in a critical time period to return to the Super Bowl, and Roethlisberger wants to be apart of that.
