Ben Roethlisberger’s Shoulder Is A Mess But He Still Expects To Play
There’s no question that Ben Roethlisberger is one of the toughest quarterbacks in the NFL. He’s played through countless injuries during his career and the fact that he’s never missed more than four consecutive games is remarkable. He’s played through injuries that would have sidelined lesser quarterbacks and he’ll have to do it again this Sunday if he expects to contribute in this weekend’s AFC Divisional Round playoff game.
Simply put, Roethlisberger’s shoulder is a mess. On his weekly Pittsburgh radio show he confirmed that he has an AC sprain but broke the news that he’s also got some torn ligaments. He didn’t elaborate much on the specifics–AC sprains are’graded’ from 1-3 and its most likely that Roethlisberger suffered a Grade 1 or 2 sprain. The rationale for this is that even Roethlisberger would likely be unable to play with a Grade 3 sprain which is the worst in terms of pain and mobility. The nature of the torn ligaments is anyone’s guess at this point.
Roethlisberger made it sound like his status is still up in the air despite the fact that there have been multiple reports that the team is expecting him to play. All the quarterback would admit is that he’s ‘a bit sore’ but he’s going to do everything he can to be ready for action. He elaborated, saying that he’ll ‘do whatever I can to be out there, but not at the expense of my team.” That’s not surprising, but few are buying his insistance that he doesn’t know what the expectations are: “I’ll go in tomorrow with the intent to see what I can do. I honestly don’t know.”
Head coach Mike Tomlin is taking the same ‘wait and see’ position. At his weekly press conference he confirmed that he hopes to have Roethlisberger in the lineup against the Denver Broncos. He also said that he’d be limited in practice on Wednesday and possibly beyond. Backup Landry Jones will get the majority of snaps, at least in the early week practices. Neither of these facts is particularly significant–at this point Roethlisberger needs the rest and rehab much more than he needs the practice while Jones is still trying to gain confidence within the system.