Steelers' Rashard Mendenhall Scornful Of Ben Roethlisberger's Leadership Ability; Shameless Racism At Play

The Pittsburgh Steelers had a chance to win their seventh Lombardi Trophy with Super Bowl XLV at the end of the 2010 season. They lost the game to the Green Bay Packers and many fans still blame running back Rashard Mendenhall for losing the game. Then in early 2023, Mendenhall took to Twitter to throw shade at his former quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger. Now Mendenhall is speaking out about that tweet and why he feels so strongly about this. 

Mendenhall talked about the tweet on the Raw Room Podcast with Alex Sweet, Jalen Collins, and King Dunlap. He said that he felt that if Roethlisberger was a great leader, he would have accepted responsibility for the loss, the same way he accepted accolades. This wasn't about Roethlisberger personally, but was more of a "Pittsburgh thing" and how fans treat the quarterback differently. He said it rubbed him the wrong way that Roethlisberger was given more credit and received more protection from criticism than the players of color do.  

"Whenever we doing great, 'The quarterback's amazing, he's awesome.' Whenever we struggling, 'Fire Tomlin, oh Le'Veon [Bell].' Every time it's not going well, are we a team or not? When we lose, certain people are shielded from the loss and then everybody and anybody else taking the blame happens to look like us a lot of the time."

He feels that no matter how good a quarterback is, they can't win the game alone. But when the Steelers won games, it was like Roethlisberger carried the team on his shoulders. Mendenhall added that fans acted like Roethlisberger was the only one who played "tough" or through injuries. 

The fact that the praise was not given to the team as a whole started to diminish the notion that they were a solid unit. Mendenhall brought up the 2008 Steelers team and said that Roethlisberger was carried by the defense that year. They won that Super Bowl and fans acted like the quarterback play was the whole reason they made it.  

"It tends to be the credit's given to the quarterback. He won two Super Bowls, it's seven this and this, it ain't even about the person as much as about f***ing balance."

Mendenhall mentioned that when in Black and Gold, wide receiver Antonio Brown was the best in the league at his position. In 2018 there was a listing of the top 100 players and Tom Brady was number one and Brown was number two. That still didn't make Brown be considered an equal to Roethlisberger.   

"How am I this in the entire league, but I got to walk into my own team facility and duck my head down and get under a guy who might be top 10 quarterbacks? He's not number one, he's not number three. It don't make sense how this respect is being broken down."

During that game, Mendenhall was virtually a non-factor after having what was arguably his best season in 2010. He rushed 324 times for 1,273 yards and scored 13 touchdowns. During the game, he had only 63 yards and one touchdown. 

"If we win the game and our quarterback's so great, then if we lose this game, like in the Super Bowl, how's it on me? It's me cuz I lost the ball? 'N**** didn't hold onto the ball?'"

He did fumble at a critical moment, his critics felt he hadn't protected the ball when it was obvious he was going to get slammed by two defenders. He has never been happy with anyone leveling criticism at his play that day.  

Is It Fair For Steelers Fans To Blame Rashard Mendenhall?

Roethlisberger has always publicly blamed himself for the loss. He deserves a share of it, although he wasn't the only player that seemed "off" that day. He didn't look like the Roethlisberger we had seen all season. He threw for 263 yards and had two touchdowns, but he also threw two interceptions. One of those was run back for a Green Bay touchdown. 

That is the part that seems to make Mendenhall the angriest. He continues to maintain that Roethlisberger was revered by fans while other players - Brown, Le'Veon Bell, and himself, for example, were villainized. 

"It's always somebody else fault. If somebody getting credit, won't they take the fall too? I want to keep saying, 'I lost the game, ok, but like where the f***ing leader at?' If he's winning all those Super Bowls, how I'm losing them?"

Sweat asked Mendenhall who "made" Roethlisberger the face of the franchise. Mendenhall said it doesn't matter. What mattered was that Roethlisberger allowed it to continue when he was supposed to be a great leader.  

"That's the internal beef. How you allow yourself to be so far away from us to where you some type of hero/savior no matter what happens, even if you don't have a great game. We left out there to pick up the pieces. Like we f***ed the game plan up."

Mendenhall felt he wasn't given the ball enough to cost them the game. They began the game passing way more than they had in the AFC Championship and he thinks that was the issue. He said they should have stuck with the running attack they used to get there.  

He believes they wanted to get into a shoot-out with Aaron Rodgers. Mendenhall said they used five wide receivers and ran plays he had never seen, instead of sticking to what worked and wearing their defense down. 

According to him, there is a percentage of fans that every time the Steelers Super Bowl record comes up, complain the team would have seven if it wasn't for Mendenhall. He feels like his teammates got to walk away and left him there to suffer the blame alone. 

"I feel like I was the n**** that was left in Dallas stadium. It's actually like a paradox. If he is the leader and he's taking credit for the fall of the Super Bowl, then leave me the f*** alone. If he didn't, then he's not the leader you say he is. The only thing I'm saying is get your foot off my d**n neck, I can't breathe. I did my best. I wanted to win more than anybody because I didn't get to play in '08."

Objectively it feels like there was a lot of blame to go around. Many players made mistakes or didn't seem to be themselves. Offensive Coordinator Bruce Arians could take the blame for changing things. 

Green Bay deserves credit. In that shootout, Rodgers drew faster and their defense was hungrier. 

What do you think about Mendenhall's latest comments? Do you believe that Roethlisberger is held to a different standard than everyone else on the team? Click to comment below. 

#SteelerNation