Eleven days after the Pittsburgh Steelers’ season ended with a playoff loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, Ben Roethlisberger officially announced his retirement Thursday.
The Steelers fell, 42-21, to the Chiefs on Jan. 16, and if Roethlisberger was feeling sentimental as he walked off the field at Arrowhead Stadium, he wasn’t showing it. The emotions came Jan. 3, when the Steelers pulled out a 26-14 victory over the Cleveland Browns in his final home game. Roethlisberger walked around Heinz Field that day, greeting fans and hugging his wife and three children in the end zone. And there were tears. Asked “how do you leave this place?” by ESPN’s Lisa Salters after the game, he admitted: “I don’t know. With a win.”
There were two more games, though — including an unlikely playoff appearance for a team that finished the regular season 9-7-1 — before Roethlisberger made his decision official Thursday.
Advertisement
“The time has come to clean out my locker, hang up my cleats and continue to be all I can be to my wife and children,” Roethlisberger said in a video posted on his Twitter account. “I retire from football a truly grateful man.”
Here’s a timeline of Roethlisberger’s career, which has included Super Bowl championships and impressive statistics as well as off-the-field issues, especially early in his career.
1999: A high school senior, Roethlisberger finally ascends to the starting quarterback job at Findlay High in Ohio after playing wide receiver as a junior. He throws for 4,041 yards and 54 touchdowns in 12 games while adding seven rushing touchdowns. Roethlisberger chooses to attend Miami of Ohio despite being recruited by more prominent schools such as Ohio State and Michigan because, he would say later, coach Terry Hoeppner was the first to offer him a scholarship and because he would have a chance to become the starting quarterback almost right away.
Advertisement
2001: After redshirting his first year at Miami, Roethlisberger becomes the RedHawks’ starter. In his sixth game, he breaks the school’s single-game passing record by throwing for 399 yards against Akron, with his 70-yard Hail Mary winning the game as time expires.
2003: As a fourth-year junior, Roethlisberger leads Miami to a 13-1 record, its highest ranking since 1974 (No. 10) and its first bowl victory since 1975. He finishes the season with a 69.1 completion percentage, 37 touchdown passes and a ninth-place finish in the Heisman Trophy voting, garnering attention thanks in part to the Mid-American Conference’s then-curious decision to start playing nationally televised games on midweek nights. Roethlisberger leaves Miami with one year of eligibility remaining to enter the NFL draft.
April 24, 2004: To Roethlisberger’s surprise, the Pittsburgh Steelers select him with the draft’s 11th pick after several quarterback-needy teams — including his home-state Cleveland Browns — pass on him. With memories of the team’s decision to pass on quarterback Dan Marino in 1983 still lingering, Steelers owner Dan Rooney casts the deciding vote on the pick, nudging coach Bill Cowher and director of football operations Kevin Colbert to take Roethlisberger instead of Arkansas tackle Shawn Andrews.
2004: The Steelers intend for Roethlisberger to learn the ropes as their backup to start his career, but he is thrust into the starting role by the third game of his rookie season after injuries to Tommy Maddox and Charlie Batch. Pittsburgh wins all 13 games with Roethlisberger as its starter and finishes 15-1 but loses at home to the New England Patriots in the AFC championship game, with Roethlisberger throwing three interceptions. Still, he becomes the first quarterback to be named the Associated Press’s NFL offensive rookie of the year in 34 seasons.
Advertisement
2005: Roethlisberger misses four games because of a knee injury but leads the sixth-seeded Steelers to three playoff upsets. Pittsburgh then defeats the Seattle Seahawks, 21-10, in Super Bowl XL, even though Roethlisberger has one of the worst statistical performances of any quarterback to win the NFL title: 9 for 21, 123 yards, two interceptions, 22.6 passer rating. Still, the 23-year-old becomes the youngest starting quarterback to win a Super Bowl.
June 12, 2006: Roethlisberger suffers a broken jaw, a broken nose and numerous other injuries during a motorcycle crash in Pittsburgh. He was not wearing a helmet when he flipped off his bike and crashed his head into the windshield of a car, nor was he properly licensed to drive a motorcycle in Pennsylvania. Roethlisberger issues a public apology and says he will wear a helmet from then on, but a few months later, a Pittsburgh television station captures him again riding a motorcycle without a helmet, this time on a city freeway. The footage never airs but is revealed to exist in a 2010 Sports Illustrated story.
2008: After agreeing to a new eight-year contract in March, Roethlisberger helps the Steelers to their second Super Bowl title in four seasons. In one of the more dramatic Super Bowls in NFL history, Roethlisberger leads Pittsburgh on an 88-yard drive with less than three minutes remaining, capping it with a six-yard touchdown pass to Santonio Holmes with 35 seconds left to defeat the Arizona Cardinals, 27-23.
Advertisement
July 17, 2009: A hotel employee in Lake Tahoe files a lawsuit against Roethlisberger, alleging he sexually assaulted her in June 2008 after he asked that she come fix the television in his room. The sides reach a settlement in December 2011.
March 5, 2010: A 20-year-old college student accuses Roethlisberger of sexual assault in a Georgia bar. One month later, prosecutors decline to file criminal charges, citing a lack of DNA evidence, but NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell suspends Roethlisberger for the first six games of the 2010 season over violations of the NFL’s personal conduct policy. (Goodell later reduces Roethlisberger’s suspension to four games.)
May 10, 2010: The Sports Illustrated story referenced above is published and details the sexual assault allegations against Roethlisberger while also revealing numerous other instances of boorish behavior on the part of the Steelers’ quarterback.
2010: A suspended Roethlisberger misses the Steelers’ first four games but returns to help Pittsburgh to a 9-3 record as a starter. The Steelers advance to their third Super Bowl in six seasons but lose to the Green Bay Packers, 31-25, after a late drive goes nowhere.
Advertisement
July 23, 2011: Roethlisberger marries Ashley Harlan, a physician assistant. They go on to have three children together. After his marriage, Roethlisberger begins openly talking about Christianity and how he credits religion with changing the course of his life.
2014: After two straight 8-8 seasons, Roethlisberger throws for an NFL-high 4,952 yards and becomes the fourth quarterback in NFL history to reach 100 wins in his first 150 starts, but the Steelers lose to the Baltimore Ravens in the first round of the AFC playoffs.
2016: Roethlisberger misses two games because of midseason knee surgery, but the Steelers advance to the AFC championship game, losing to the Patriots, 36-17. Pittsburgh has not won a playoff game since.
2018: Roethlisberger puts up some gaudy statistics, leading the NFL in completions and passing yards but also interceptions; the Steelers miss the playoffs for the first time since 2013.
Advertisement
2019: After Roethlisberger injures his elbow in the Steelers’ second game, the team places him on injured reserve, ending his season. It’s the only season in his career in which he played fewer than 12 regular season games.
2020: Roethlisberger helps the Steelers start a franchise-best 11-0, but they lose four of their last five regular season games. In the first round of the playoffs against Cleveland, Roethlisberger completes an NFL-record 47 passes and throws for 501 yards and four touchdowns, but he also throws four interceptions in a 48-37 loss. After the game, Roethlisberger says he will think about whether he will return in 2021.
2021: After signing a renegotiated one-year contract in March, Roethlisberger returns for his 18th season amid talk that it will be his last. He tests positive for the coronavirus, missing the Steelers’ Week 10 tie with the Detroit Lions. The Steelers barely make the playoffs after beating the Ravens in Week 18 and then sweating out the result of the regular season finale between the Las Vegas Raiders and Los Angeles Chargers. For the season, Roethlisberger posts a 35.5 QBR, by far the worst full-season mark of his career, and is sacked 38 times, the most since 2013.
He retires ranked fifth in career passing yards (64,088), trailing only Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning and Brett Favre. He ranks eighth in passing touchdowns (418), just behind Marino (420) and Philip Rivers (421).
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZMCxu9GtqmhqYGd%2FcHyQaGdsZ5Kau26%2Bzp6roaSZqK%2BmvsaeqWabkaeypr6MraCmnZyeu6Z7