If Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger wants to return to the 2021 NFL season, he will need to restructure his contract so that the Steelers can have more flexibility in the salary cap as the cast around him grows.
In order for the front office to work and perform this task on an ideal schedule, Steelers President Art Rooney II gave Big Ben a specific deadline to redo his business.
Ben Roethlisberger must restructure contract until March 17 to play in Pittsburgh
Bob Labriola, from the Steelers’ official website, reported what Rooney had to say about Roethlisberger’s prospects for 2021, establishing an ultimatum on the first day of the league’s new year for him to complete the contract:
“We made it clear that we would like him back, but we needed to do something with the contract. We are getting to the point now when the time is right. We have a better idea of where the salary cap will be, which is an important component of the decision. […] Hopefully we will work something out before that, but certainly if you want to say that there is a difficult deadline, March 17th would be enough. ”Steelers President Art Rooney II on Ben Roethlisberger’s contract status
Pittsburgh would be taking an upper limit of more than $ 41 million in the last year of Roethlisberger’s contract if he didn’t rework or simply accept some kind of cut in pay. It’s a prohibitive cost even for a future Hall of Fame that helped the Steelers win their first 11 games last season.
But Big Ben’s decline in the 2020 stretch, culminating in a unique playoff effort against the Cleveland Browns, combined with zero postseason wins in the past four years paint a bleak outlook for his immediate future.