When you talk in front of a microphone for an hour every week, and especially when you try to be funny, you may occasionally say something that rubs people the wrong way. Ben Roethlisberger learned that last week with a passing comment that was not received well by former Pittsburgh Steelers C Kendrick Green. This week, Roethlisberger opened up his podcast with an apology.
“It was brought to my attention this week that something I said last week in the show rubbed one of my former teammates the wrong way, and so I want to start right now by addressing that situation,” Roethlisberger said via his Footbahlin podcast. “That was by no way, shape, form, means a knock at Kendrick. I imagine that came across that way, and I heard that he took it that way. And I’m saying it on this show ’cause I want everyone to hear it too. I have already reached out to him, and he and I have talked. I apologized to him if it came across that way.”
Roethlisberger says it wasn’t meant as a knock on Green, but rather a “knock at the Steelers.”
During last week’s episode, Roethlisberger said that it’s funny that Pittsburgh gave Aaron Rodgers DK Metcalf while he got a “center that never played center before.”
Green was the collateral of a point Roethlisberger was trying to make, partially in jest as a podcast host, about Pittsburgh not surrounding him with adequate talent in his final years. To some degree, he has a point.
Roethlisberger’s final year was defined by a failed transition of the offensive line and a first-round RB with no line to run behind. Diontae Johnson was his top receiver, and Najee Harris was second with a barrage of checkdown passes every game. The rest of the WR room consisted of Chase Claypool, Ray-Ray McCloud, and James Washington. The offense was starved of talent.
So, Roethlisberger wasn’t wrong, but he perhaps could have been more delicate about a former teammate who did nothing wrong.
Was he the best center? Definitely not, but the Steelers didn’t set him up for success.
“What happened to Kendrick was unfair,” Roethlisberger said. “What they did to him was unfair in the sense that they brought a guy that was a very good college offensive linemen and asked him to play a position in the NFL that is probably the second-hardest position after quarterback in the game.”
Not only did they draft him in the third round and start him as a rookie out of position, but they gave him Maurkice Pouncey’s No. 53 jersey. Even if he requested it, that wasn’t a great idea. Expectations are already very high for drafted centers in Pittsburgh, given the historic lineage of Hall of Famers and Pro Bowlers at the position.
Green was a player who perhaps could have panned out in Pittsburgh if he had spent time learning on the bench. Roethlisberger said he told him as much. But the Steelers were in the middle of an offensive line transition that wasn’t working out very well. There’s a reason why none of those players are still on the roster today.
Credit to Roethlisberger for owning up to this situation and making sure to reconcile with Green privately, and then back it up with a public statement of support.
Recommended for you