Sep 22, 2013 4 min read

PITTSBURGH – Moments after the Steelers lost, 20-10, last Monday night in Cincinnati, Ben Roethlisberger said that the quarterback needs to play better for the team to win.

Note to Roethlisberger: You can start any time now.

With the way the salary cap situation is now in the NFL, teams with established big-money quarterbacks need those quarterbacks to play like stars. So far this season, Roethlisberger has played more like Terry Hanratty than he has Terry Bradshaw.

For a player who counts $13.595 million against the team’s salary cap this season – over 1/10th of the team’s cap – that’s not good enough by a long shot.

Many want to push the blame for Roethlisberger’s struggles this season on offensive coordinator Todd Haley. That’s not fair.

Prior to his shoulder injury suffered last November, Roethlisberger was having one of his finest seasons with Haley calling the plays.

The truth is that the Steelers have swung for the fences with their offensive line in recent years at the expense of adding playmakers with those premium picks. And they have struck out doing so.

The starting offensive tackles, Marcus Gilbert and Mike Adams, are both second-round draft picks. You would expect that at least one of them would be a capable player.

But thus far into their careers, year three for Gilbert, year two for Adams, they’ve been no better than street free agents.

Things were so bad in Sunday night’s game against Chicago at Heinz Field that Gilbert, the right tackle, and Adams, the left tackle, were rotating with second-year pro Kelvin Beachum. Beachum was a seventh-round draft pick in 2012.

And that’s the point. When you’re paying your quarterback big money, you don’t have it to spend elsewhere. You have to count on draft picks to play early and play well.

Other teams are in the same boat.

Green Bay has cobbled a line together in front of Aaron Rodgers, while New England has scrimped on its skill players hoping that quarterback Tom Brady is enough to make its offense go.

And Rodgers and Brady usually make it work.

That’s what the Steelers need out of Roethlisberger. They need him to play like the two-time Super Bowl winner and franchise quarterback that he is.

We haven’t seen it in 2013.

Of the Steelers first nine – nine! – turnovers this season, Roethlisberger has had a direct hand in seven of them. And eight of the nine turnovers have led to opposing scores.

Sunday night was no different. Scratch that, it was actually worse.

Roethlisberger inexplicably lost the football on the Steelers’ first possession while attempting to step up in the pocket and Chicago recovered to set up its first touchdown.

Was there pressure? Sure. But he’s got to be more careful with the football.

Later in the second quarter, moments after the Steelers had stemmed the tide and cut Chicago’s lead to 17-3 and gotten a defensive stop, Roethlisberger threw a pass off his back foot toward Jerricho Cotchery. It wasn’t a bad pass, but it wasn’t great, either. And it was thrown into double coverage.

Major Wright intercepted the ball and returned it for a touchdown.

So it went as the Steelers turned the ball over five times in this game, directly leading to 23 Chicago points.

Again, the quarterback has to play better. And right now, he’s not playing up to the level of his contract.

Is the offensive line struggling? Sure.

But Roethlisberger has played behind lines that were arguably worse than this one. Heck, he’s won Super Bowls with lines that were considered among the worst in the league.

Who can forget his line after winning the Super Bowl in 2008, “Who’s laughing now, o-line?”

Right now, nobody’s laughing, nobody, that is, except opposing defenses waiting for the next interception or fumble.

Perhaps at 31, Roethlisberger is no longer able to do the magical things he did earlier in his career that compensated for a sub-par line.

F. Dale Lolley can be reached at dlolley@observer-reporter.com

F. Dale Lolley can be reached at dlolley@observer-reporter.com