Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers could not have gotten off to a much worse start to the season with their 33-3 loss to the New England Patriots on Sunday night, and Deion Sanders thinks a few more performances like that could inspire the star quarterback to walk away from football a lot sooner than expected.
How much sooner? Sanders said after Sunday’s game that he does not think Roethlisberger will make it through the 2019 season.
Will Ben Roethlisberger retire before the end of season?@DeionSanders gives his prediction ???? pic.twitter.com/pkgyasjbUv
— NFL GameDay (@NFLGameDay) September 9, 2019
“I think mentally, physically, something’s gonna shut down, because what I saw today was a lackluster effort by the offense, by the defense, by the coaching staff, by everyone,” Sanders said. “He seemed not engaged. There was no big-play ability, no running game, nothing ever got going defensively. He seemed disinterested.
“We’ve all heard the murmurs of Big Ben saying he would like to retire. The way they played today, a couple more of those games, I think that would happen.”
Roethlisberger openly contemplated retirement two years ago, but that seemed like it was more about him being frustrated after a poor performance than anything. He has since gone out of his way to squash the retirement talk, and it seems highly unlikely that he would bail on the Steelers midseason.
All that said, Roethlisberger is 37 and has battled some injuries throughout his career. If the 2019 season turns out to be a disappointment and the Steelers miss the playoffs, it would not be a surprise if Big Ben makes it his last.
