Steelers Morning Huddle 5/18/2013
By Kim Myers
What quarterback would you want in your huddle? Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
Ben Roethlisberger is having a rough week in the news. Well, granted he’s had rougher. Earlier this week during the NFL Network’s annual “Top 100 players of 2013” list Ben ranked an abysmal 61 after his 30th ranking the previous year. Ben did miss some games this season due to his horrendous shoulder/clavicle/aorta threatening injury but he was having an MVP-caliber season prior to going down. Ben is so often left out of the list of the top quarterbacks of his era due to having played alongside the likes of Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. It just seems like Ben can’t get no respect when it comes to being thought of as a great quarterback. Not only that but his previous favorite target in Mike Wallace, now defected to take his talents to North Miami Beach (Dolphins stadium is nowhere near South Beach FYI), has just compared second year QB Ryan Tannehill to Roethlisberger.
Keep in mind; the active NFL players are the ones who vote for this list each year. Now it’s important to mention that they voted eleven quarterbacks higher than Roethlisberger. Really? The list is not yet complete but by all intents and purposes it’s likely that Andrew Luck was voted higher than Roethlisberger. I realize the Steelers went 8-8 last season, boy do I realize that. But in 13 games Ben threw 26 touchdowns and 8 interceptions. How does that translate to 11 quarterbacks better than that? Ben Roethlisberger isn’t going to win you any fantasy football championships but the bottom line is the Steelers are Super Bowl contenders every season as long as they have him and that’s worth a lot more than 61 out of 100, in my opinion.
Mike Wallace was speaking to reporters in Miami on Tuesday in regards to how he’s getting along with his new quarterback, Ryan Tannehill. Wallace will go from supposing to catch passes from a veteran Super Bowl champion quarterback, to a quarterback entering his sophomore season. Wallace compared the fact that both Roethlisberger and Tannehill played receiver in college and hinted that that fact allows them to have better chemistry with receivers. Wallace also added that he thinks Tannehill
"“may be able to throw the ball a little farther than Ben.” Added Wallace, “Obviously, Ben is more experienced in game-time experience. The way it’s going, it won’t take long for Ryan to be one of the great quarterbacks. I feel like we can make a lot of big plays.”"
Wallace also said that he doesn’t think it will take him long to establish chemistry with his new quarterback. I believe he also said it wouldn’t take him long to learn Todd Haley’s playbook after showing up at the end of training camp last season with a contract holdout and we all see how that worked out. Wallace has 60 million reasons to hope that Tannehill is just as good as Ben but I seriously doubt that Tannehill ends up a better quarterback than Ben. Obviously it won’t take long for the players to vote him higher than Ben anyway.
What are your thoughts, Steeler Nation? Where would you have ranked Roethlisberger among the players and quarterbacks of last season?
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