PITTSBURGH – Ben Roethlisberger wants to return to the Pittsburgh Steelers for the 2021 season, team president Art Rooney II said Thursday, but for that to happen, the team and its veteran quarterback have to make tough decisions.
With the lowering of the wage cap due to falling incomes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Roethlisberger’s $ 41.2 million cap for 2021 is unsustainable, Rooney said.
“Ben wants to come back,” he said in his season-ending call from Zoom. “We have left this door open.
“I think we’ve been at the forefront with Ben in letting him know that we couldn’t re-hire him under the current contract. I think he understands that we have some work to do there. to know the maximum number to finalize some of these decisions “.
After losing wildcards to the Cleveland Browns, Roethlisberger, 38, said he would talk to his family before making a concrete decision to return for 2021, but said he hoped the Steelers would want him back if is what he decided to do. But will Rooney and the team give him a chance to write his own end to a historic career?
“With Ben, we need to have a conversation with him about how he wants to end his career and we intend to do it.”
To get a limit relief and give Roethlisberger at least one more season to finish on his own terms, the Steelers could ask the quarterback to receive a paycheck in the final year of his contract. The Steelers have already prorated $ 22,250,000 from their contract, leaving only $ 19 million ($ 4 million in base salary and a $ 15 million bonus) to work with a pay cut or restructuring. The most likely option is an extension and a restructuring that spreads part of the limit reached in the 2022 season.
“I think these are discussions we will have with Ben and his rep,” Rooney said about the massage possibilities of Roethlisberger’s contract. “It takes two to find out, and if we agree with what he wants, we’ll just have to see.”
As it stands now, the Steelers have three quarterbacks on the roster for the 2021 season: Roethlisberger, Mason Rudolph and newly signed Dwayne Haskins. But Rooney acknowledged they need to add another signal call, potentially putting them in the draw for one of the most prestigious quarterbacks available if they can set the limit to make it welcoming.
“I think when you look at our room, we’re going to have to add someone to the room this low season,” Rooney said. “We’ll see every opportunity we have to do that.”
Determining Roethlisberger’s future is just the first step in many difficult decisions and discussions for the Steelers this offseason.
General Manager Kevin Colbert’s year-long contract will be in effect after the draft, and while Rooney said the two have held many discussions about Colbert’s future, nothing is official.
“I feel like Kevin will be back, but who knows,” Rooney said.
Coach Mike Tomlin’s contract has a 2021 season minimum with an option for the 2022 season, and in evaluating his head coach, Rooney said he believes Tomlin will lead the team in the future.
“We’ll deal with Mike’s contract with him as time goes on this off-season,” he said. “I’ll just say I’m comfortable saying he’s going to be our coach in the future. … As for the work he did, we didn’t finish the way we would like. The playoff game is hard to analyze … just turn the ball that way, you won’t win a lot of games. I don’t see how you attribute that to coach preparation. I think the team got into that game ready. “
Rooney also said that if it all depended on him, he would enter the 2021 season with the same roster the team had in 2020.
“If I had my druthers, I would say that if I could have the same list again the following year, I would,” he said. “Obviously, that’s not the case.”
With the team’s salary cap status: The Steelers are estimated to exceed $ 30 million, with 48 players signed up, according to ESPN’s List Management System, it will be difficult to re-sign free agents like Bud Dupree and JuJu Smith-Schuster, if not nearly impossible.
“It’s fair to say that this is going to be the toughest salary cap challenge we’ve had in a long time, maybe ever,” Rooney said.
But the first step in figuring out the rest of the list is to determine Roethlisberger’s future.
When asked bluntly if he wanted Roethlisberger back, Rooney paused and said he wanted him back but offered no guarantee about the quarterback’s future.
“I think we’d like to go back to Ben one more year if that can work,” he said. “But, as we said, there’s a lot of work to be done if this can happen; you may have to make decisions on both ends for this to happen.”