It’s been a rough offseason for Ben Roethlisberger.
Not only has the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback watched two of his best weapons, Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell, leave the team through trade and free agency, Roethlisberger’s character also has been under attack. Specifically, former teammates are taking Big Ben to task for the type of leader he is — or isn’t.
Brown ripped him for a perceived inflated sense of importance earlier this month, while a separate pair of ex-Steelers blamed Roethlisberger for the team’s seemingly never-ending drama. Now, it’s Bell’s turn to pile on his former quarterback.
Bell, who signed with the New York Jets a few days after NFL free agency began, said getting away from Roethlisberger was one of the reasons he escaped the Steel City.
“Ben wants to win — but Ben wants to win his way, and that’s tough to play with,” Bell told Sports Illustrated. “Ben won a Super Bowl, but he won when he was younger. Now he’s at this stage where he tries to control everything, and (the team) let him get there.”
Bell also accused Roethlisberger’s politics of influencing the way he distributed the football, a sentiment Brown likely would endorse.
“So if I’m mad at a player and I’m not throwing him the ball — if I’m not throwing (Brown) the ball and I’m giving JuJu (Smith-Schuster) all the shine or Jesse (James) or Vance (McDonald) or whoever it is, and you know consciously you’re making your other receiver mad but you don’t care — it’s hard to win that way,” Bell told the magazine.
Of course, Bell’s comments aren’t exactly out of left field. His season-long holdout clearly frustrated his now ex-teammates, and Roethlisberger hasn’t been shy about criticizing teammates in the past. Basically, this entire ordeal was just a matter of time.
