If the Pittsburgh Steelers need quarterback Ben Roethlisberger to restructure his deal to allow him to come back next season, Roethlisberger will oblige.
Steelers team president Art Rooney II said on Thursday that the franchise certainly wants Roethlisberger to return next season, but noted that his $41.2 million cap hit for 2021 is untenable.
“Ben wants to come back,” Rooney said, according to ESPN’s Brooke Pryor. “We’ve left that door open.
“I think we’ve been up front with Ben in letting him know that we couldn’t have him back under the current contract. I think he understands we have some work to do there. We’ll have more conversations internally, and we’ll have more conversations with Ben, and we’ll have to know what the cap number is to finalize some of those decisions.”
“With Ben, we owe it to him to have a conversation about how he wants to end his career, and we intend to do that.”
Roethlisberger, 38, is looking to return next season, and will be willing to rework his contract in order to help make that happen.
“I want to do everything I can and made that very clear to them from the very beginning that it was my idea to basically help the team however I can this year,” Roethlisberger said, according to The Athletic’s Ed Bouchette. “I am pretty sure I want to go one more year (because) I think I can do it and give us a real chance and winning.”
