The Pittsburgh Steelers only just squeezed past the Cincinnati Bengals on Saturday night, and now they’ll face the Denver Broncos this weekend with a compromised quarterback – if he plays at all.
Ben Roethlisberger confirmed on Tuesday that he has torn ligaments in his throwing shoulder. “I’ll go in tomorrow with the intent to see what I can do,” Roethlisberger told KDKA-FM in Pittsburgh. “I honestly don’t know. I haven’t tried to throw a football since the game, and maybe that’s not even the right thing to do right away.
“I’ll see the doctors and trainers tomorrow, and we’ll evaluate kind of how I feel. If anything, maybe I can practice and hand off and still get some mental reps that way. So we’ll really just kind of see how it goes tomorrow.”
Roethlisberger left Saturday’s game after being sacked by Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict. His replacement, Landry Jones, threw an interception before Roethlisberger returned to the fray, leading his team to a game-winning field goal helped by two penalties from the Bengals.
Roethlisberger admitted he had been limited during his final drive of the game. “It didn’t hurt when I reached back to throw,” he said. “But it was pushing forward to throw and then the end of the throw. So I definitely felt like I was shortening up my motion up a little bit, which is why we threw some screens, and couldn’t really get the ball down the field. I think it just more affected how I could throw it.”
The Steelers are now faced with the prospect of fielding the largely untested Jones against the AFC’s No1 seeded Broncos. Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin has said Roethlisberger “has a chance” to play on Sunday and is likely to take part in limited practice on Wednesday. The Steelers are also likely to be without their No1 receiver Antonio Brown, who suffered a concussion on Saturday after a late hit from Burfict.
