Steelers fans need to understand the only guy benching Ben Roethlisberger is him

On Sunday, what should have been a celebration for Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger turned into a disaster. On the team’s opening drive against the Green Bay Packers, Roethlisberger dropped a perfect throw to wide receiver Diontae Johnson for his 400th career passing touchdown.

Unfortunately for Roethlisberger and the Steelers, everything was downhill from there. It seemed like after that perfect throw, everything Roethlisberger tried to do was just a bit off. On more than one occasion Roethlisberger missed to JuJu Smith-Schuster on what would have been huge plays.

Head coach Mike Tomlin noted after the game missing those splash plays is what cost the team the game. Games like this will only reinforce the notion that Roethlisberger is cooked and it is time for the Steelers to make a change.

But the reality is until Roethlisberger decides he’s done, there’s no way Tomlin is going to bench him. This would be a completely different argument if the Steelers had some sort of succession plan for Roethlisberger in place. A young guy on the roster Pittsburgh wanted to evaluate in a lost season.

This doesn’t exist. What the Steelers have is Mason Rudolph, who Pittsburgh knows well enough to know he isn’t the long-term answer at the position. They also have Dwayne Haskins, a former first-round pick who is looking for a fresh start but couldn’t beat out Landry Jones V.2.0 to get the backup spot.

At 39 years old and in his 18th season with the Steelers, Roethlisberger has earned the right to decide when he is done. At least that is going to be his opinion and I believe the franchise’s as well. I admit I was overly confident about this team going into the season and this group isn’t very good. However, at this point, the team and the fans are just going to have to ride out this wave and start preparing for next season.