Ben Roethlisberger: 'There's No Panic' Following Loss To Eagles
PITTSBURGH (93-7 The Fan)- Coming off the teams 34-3 bludgeoning at the hands of the Philadelphia Eagles, Ben Roethlisberger joined the Cook and Poni Show for his weekly #1 Cochran Ben Roethlisberger Show.
Both the offense and the defense failed to get things going against the Eagles but Ben said "there's no panic."
"We just had some mistakes here and there," Ben told us. "That was a good defense. They made us one dimensional...We watched the film, we spent a lot of time there yesterday going over it so that we can move on and put it past us. There's no panic. I know that some fans and the media and stuff will probably have a little bit of panic, but we're 2-1."
Ben said a big reason why they're not panicking is because of how the teams views the season overall.
"We break the season down into quarters, four, four game quarters. Right now we're 2-1 in the first quarter. Our goal is to win the first quarter and we can go and get this next one against a really good Kansas City team at home and we'll all be feeling a lot better."
Despite getting beat as bad as they did, Ben said there is something they can take from a game like this as it can serve as a wake-up of sorts.
"Oh absolutely. We can look back on this and say, 'Boy, remember when we got thumped in Philly against an NFC team and kind of had our tails between our legs as we walked out of that stadium?' Absolutely that can help us...Maybe that's the silver lining. Maybe it is something where you say, 'Boy, maybe we're not as good as we think we are' or, maybe we are and we just got beat. It's the NFL, anybody can win any given Sunday.
There were lots of questions surrounding Mike Tomlin leaving Ben in the game late when it was clearly out of hand and Ben was asked if he'd ever consider coming out of a game.
"Heck no, not in anything I do. I don't have that bone in my body." Ben said. "I've never quit. People ask me 'Why do you try to extend the play?' That's me not quitting. I'm not quitting on a play. I'm not going to just go down and take a sack. I've never been around anybody that wears a Pittsburgh Steelers uniform that has had that mentality either."
One of the biggest reasons for the poor performance on the offensive side of the ball was the three dropped passes, one in the endzone, by wide receiver Markus Wheaton who was playing in his first game of the season coming off a shoulder injury. Ben told us why he still has faith in one of the team's top targets in the passing game.
"I know he took it hard...He had a couple of drops. It might have been nerves, getting back into it. Maybe not playing at 100%, just a little bit of everything. Like I said, he took it really hard and he'll put extra work in this week at practice to make sure it doesn't happen again."
One thing that should help the Steelers offense get back on track next week is the addition of Le'Veon Bell as he has served his full 3-game suspension and will make his return next week against the Chiefs.
"Any time that you get a guy that I consider one of the best running backs, best all around backs or weapons in the game back, it's going to be huge. It takes some pressure off of D-Will (DeAngelo Williams) obviously, take some pressure off AB (Antonio Brown), because we'll be able to move him around because he goes to becoming maybe the second best receiver we have."
Click the link below to hear the full interview with Ben as he also shared his memories of Arnold Palmer and the time he was fortunate enough to play a round of golf with the legend.
